Suppose stories are metaphor. Then God and the devil are metaphors, too. In the broadest sense, you approach God by basing your behavior on good, sound ideas, and you reach for the devil when you let your behavior be led by bad ideas, bad habits. I’ve been wrestling with this stuff for quite a while now. Which is, apparently, a completely human thing to do. The story about the Garden of Eden shows us that at some point, we realized there is such a thing as “good” and “bad”. We were like little children. Little children learn words, like “good” and “bad”, and if you use the word “bad”, they cry. Because they know “bad” is bad. But we received the apple too soon, and so we got no further than that: “There is such a thing as good and bad.” But now the question is, which are those things? Which things are good and which ones are bad? How can you tell?
If, like me, you’re pretty damn lost sometimes, when we get the question wrong it starts to revolve around: Am I good or bad? Christianity tried to fix that anxiety by saying: Don’t worry, nobody is perfect, we’re all sinners. But for the sensitive child that I was, that didn’t help. It only made me feel more flawed and broken. It led to more anxiety, not less. I guess a lot of people find it reassuring. Oh, my flaws aren’t such a big deal then. Not me. I didn’t want to be a sinner. I wanted desperately to be a Good Person. Not in the least because then maybe my parents would treat me as if I was.
And here I am. In my forties, sometimes still overcome with this dread of things I’ve done wrong in the past. People I’ve wronged. I haven’t killed. I haven’t stolen. I haven’t destroyed somebody’s property. But I have broken my word. I have walked out on people. I also abandoned myself, to the point where I had a very close call with death. I turned around juuuust in time and saved my own life. And I guess that proves that somehow I think I’m good enough of a person to deserve to stay alive for hopefully another long while. Rationally, I haven’t messed up my life very much. But when the midnight dread strikes… Oh boy.
If you assume there is metaphorically such a thing as the devil, and hell, one part of being in hell is surely the sense that you are not worthy. That you are beyond redemption. That nothing you could ever do could fix your personal horrors of ordinary life and your personal past. The memories that never seem to quite escape you. Rationally, you know you’re just a flawed human being. An idiot at times. But then the dread kicks in. And the anxiety. And in essence, that is the devil. That is hell. The feeling of being bad is, in and of itself, a personal hell.
Do you have the imagination to envision, for a brief while, that there really is a struggle going on between good and evil? Between God and the devil? What would the devil do? Suppose you were an intangible, inanimate, incorporeal entity that was hellbent on causing hell. Then, your arena is thoughts. Ideas. You try to get bad ideas into people’s heads. Your best bet is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You can get people into hell by just telling them they deserve hell. And if they believe it, they’re there. The conviction that they’re bad will eat at them.
So, basically, your terrible, lonely, frightening task, is to fight the devil, with all your might. To punch it in the face, whenever it pops up. And it will pop up. It will come at you with things like: “Incidentally, remember those friendships in high school twenty plus years ago? You know, the ones that got so awkward and difficult that you became anxious whenever you thought about them. And then you became more tense and needy and clingy and socially awkward around them. Yeah, those people. They avoid you, you know, because you’re such an uncomfortable person to be around. You’re no good at keeping friends.” Even in the face of evidence to the contrary, it’ll find mistakes and failures in your life. It will. Because you’re human.
And the only response to that is this: Refuse to listen. It’s not quite about retorting, I think. You could go: I am not a bad person. I am a good person who makes mistakes. Those old friends are good people, and I wish them a happy life. I’ll assume that everyone can reach heaven, they as well, and that nothing I have personally done or do today or tomorrow will prevent someone else from getting into heaven. I am responsible for my own life. I might not do the best I could, but right now I’m doing the best I can. So go away. Go bug someone else.
It could be enough. But if it’s not, try this: Ahh, there you are again. Still trying to make me upset? Good luck with that.
No reply you give the devil will ever be enough. Because fighting something means you’re not free from it. You acknowledge his arguments, by so much as looking at him and refuting them. Just gray rock that bastard. Ignore him. Focus on other things. Focus on your life.
If you believe the devil, that you are a bad person, then every awkward act you commit will further convince you that you are a bad person. And you’ll start acting it out. You’ll start the slow slide downwards. Because if you are a bad person, well, everyone knows what bad people do, right? If you expect yourself to behave badly, because you believe that you are inherently bad, you will at some point slip up. This is how people end up doing bad things. By believing they are bad, and beyond redemption.
I’m lucky enough that I haven’t destroyed my life. My mistakes are small, in comparison to what a person could do in a lifetime if they really set their mind to it. And yet, this sinking feeling in my stomach comes up every now and then. And I remind myself: Eyes on the road. Do the job that is in front of you. Assume that other people will fix their own lives. Do the best you can, in yours, so that someday you’ll look back and know that you have done the best you could.
The trick to getting rid of the devil is this: Nothing needs fixing.
When the list of failures comes up, just shrug. It is what it is. You can’t change the past, you can’t saw sawdust. I can’t quite convey what I’m trying to say here. I can’t make you see this and get it. Because I’ve read this a thousand times in a thousand self-help books and blog posts. You have to stop listening to the devil. Disentangle from it. Yes, life is difficult and messy and you make mistakes. So? How does punishing yourself over and over for past mistakes help? How does not sticking up for yourself help? How does worrying about things you can’t control, help? How does worrying about people and what they’ll do and if they’ll be alright and if the relationship will last, help in any way whatsoever?
Nothing needs fixing.
It may sound unachievable, but I’m discovering that it’s true. These processes take time. Years, for some of us. But keep at it. Seek and you shall find. Even though everything is a mess, everything is okay. You don’t need to fix anything, or anyone. Not even yourself. There’s no need to keep score. Don’t let him bring a scorecard to you. Hurray for the school system, that taught us that we’re being judged all the time, and that taught us to judge ourselves. Drop that old programming. It doesn’t serve you.
In fact, it takes a lot of energy to stay in hell. To keep punishing yourself. It’s exhausting because you’re somehow identifying with it. You’re feeding the monster with your energy. I’m starting to drop the old programming. It doesn’t want to go, obviously. It’s a pattern of behavior that wants to stay. It doesn’t want to die. But it’s going. Slowly but surely. I’m writing my own “Get out of hell free”-card. God helps those who help themselves.