anonymous
2008-04-14 15:45:48 UTC
The Great Battle in Heaven
Once upon a time, there was a land. This land was filled with brimstone and fire; pain and agony. It stretched on for infinity; a burning inferno of torture and despair. This land is the home for the numerous rebellious children and to the myriads of fallen and lost souls. This is an eternal family that suffers so greatly, unable to discern any beauty, hope or salvation. Forever will they be lost and searching in vain. Yet they are lost in a manner that certainly confounds the average human. We search for something we’ve lost, such as a beautiful ring. We lose and than we find; or we never find, but can go on living. The rebellious children that suffer in the house that I am speaking of are eternally lost. They will look for eternity, never ceasing, but never finding what they are looking for. Their perquisition is for salvation and hope, yet it always lies beyond their reach. They are disoriented and led by the leader of the Damned, an angel we call Satan; the adversary of heaven.
Satan was chortling upon his throne, all conflagrant and such, at a young man who was enduring the most abhorrent and cruel pain mortally imaginable. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” The young man cried while vomiting vile, alcoholic bile. “Hate? Hate is such a strong word!” Satan snorted, “I hate you too, in that case. Despise you I do so deeply that I shall be most delighted in increasing your suffering ten fold!” With that the young man combusted and rotted upon the brimstone, his soul remaining untarnished. Satan, as he so predicted, delighted. “I can and will do this to you forever! This is my home, and there is no love or warmth in it. Only love for tribulation and the warmth of intensely hot fire consuming corpses!”
While Satan rejoiced in tormenting the young sinner, a thought invaded his mind. The thought was a reoccurring one; one that haunted him. A thought that tormented the Apollyon with deep envy, mockery and hatred. Despite the fact that this Mighty Angel of Light had millions of obscured souls to persecute, there was one in particular that had narrowly escaped the vice like grip of the temptations he had placed for him on Earth. He now reveled in the eternal bliss of heaven, a far cry from the wretched and malaise immersed hell. And this soul belonged to none other than Salvador Dali. “Damn him! Oh damn that blasted man! And damn the god that took his soul to heaven and away from his rightfully earned eternity in hell! He tasted every forbidden fruit I tempted him with and sinned a lifetime of sins! And he now sits amongst the un-fallen angels in peace! Damn him! Damn him!” Satan went on cursing, his increasing temper setting the rebellious mortals ablaze. The thought of Salvador Dali reclining in ambrosial ecstasy discomposed the Antichrist to such great heights, reminding him daily that he had lost a soul he had worked so hard to gain. This time, though, Beelzebub decided he would finally do something about it. He would finally go and regain his rightfully deserved soul, and torture him with unthinkable horrors, brutally disgraceful acts, that only the Evil One himself could conceive.
Light years away from the tempestuous center of the Earth, the Almighty Holy One sat upon his throne, cloaked in an ethereal light that would blind a mortal man. He was surrounded by a host of heavenly angels, and one Salvador Dali, furiously painting upon the canvas of Earth. Dali was adding the finishing touches of light purple and pink to a gorgeous sunset off the coast of Iceland with his beloved golden paintbrush he had brought with him to heaven from Earth. An angel brought the Lord his lunch; an impeccable, immaculate, flawless orange; the most succulent orange grown in the vast orange groves of heaven. God ate the orange, and called it good. As the Lord sat back, satisfied from the pleasure of the heavenly orange, his messenger Peter came to him, bowing before his presence.
“Lord there is a visitor who waits at the pearly gates and wishes to speak with you,” Peter told him with a concerned and frightened expression upon his face. “Oh?” God responded, sounding oblivious, but knowing quite well who was waiting to see him. “Well I’m not too busy right now, go ahead and send him in. It seems like it’s been ages since I’ve had a good discussion with Lucifer. “As you wish my heavenly father,” Peter responded, bowing once more and evaporating from the Lord’s presence.
Soon Satan appeared before God, looking quite out of place in the beautiful land of heaven. The Arch Angel noticed Salvador Dali brushing away at the world. “Ha, ha, ha!” He sneered, “Well if it isn’t old Salvador Dali, one of many souls I successfully enticed during his brief stay on the planet Earth.” “Leave Dali alone at once!” God commanded, “What is that you have come here for?” “I have come to reclaim what is mine and to prove to you that you are an unjust God!” Satan bellowed. “What do you mean? I have nothing that belongs to you and I am not an unjust God!” God replied, his anger building up and causing thunder to rumble upon the Earth. “I have come to take Salvador Dali to hell, where he belongs. I entice him throughout his entire life on Earth and he gave in to every sin! Dali was a sinner at heart and so deserves to suffer in hell eternally! You are an unjust God for bringing him to heaven.” Satan accused. “Salvador is here paying off his karmic debt by painting the landscapes of Earth for me! Who are to you say what actions of mine are just or unjust? I am God!” God replied. “You are a most horrid God then!” Satan screamed, “You and your conniving and scheming ways probably created Salvador Dali and all his artistic talent just so he could die, and you could bring him to heaven to paint for you! That is completely hypocritical to your whole principal of free will since you have deprived Dali of being able to choose whether or not he wanted to sin and go to hell!” Satan said.
Now this enraged God to the point that the thunder on Earth had turned into an extremely severe thunderstorm that was ravaging the Earth by the second. Lighting lit up the sky, while the rain pounded the grounds. Floods were drowning cars, homes, and farm crops. Enormous mud slides rushed down the sides of mountains. Civilization was terrified. “What’s even worse is that you are stealing! You, the God of the universe are stealing!” Satan went on, “First off, you stole Salvador Dali’s soul from me! Secondly, you are stealing the credit of his phenomenal artwork. Every time a human looks at a beautiful sunset or sunrise, or any other kind of breath taking landscape or scenery, they say, “Look at that beautiful scene! Praise the Almighty God for making such a beautiful scene.” Well, you didn’t even make that scene! Salvador Dali did, and you are taking credit for it! You are going against all your principals God! I demand that you give me Salvador Dali immediately!” Satan screamed. “No! I will not give Salvador back to you! He belongs to me!” God yelled back. “Yes I’m quite aware of that, but it is a falsity that he is. Salvador damned himself to hell, what with all his sin and hubris. I successfully enticed him to hell and now look at him! Here he sits painting sunsets and forests of the planet Earth!” Satan whined. “So?” Go said, “Of course I’d have Salvador Dali do that! I gave him his incredible artistic talent because I get bored producing beautiful landscapes for my children to enjoy. So I produce a few amazing artists so they can do it when they die.”
“But Salvador Dali died and was damned to hell!” Satan cursed, “his lifestyle warranted eternal suffering, not eternal painting! You are an unjust God!” Satan accused. God threw up his hands and from them shot enormous flames of intense heat into the air. “You are a liar, Satan! Away from my presence!” God screamed, shooting the flames at Satan’s being. “Oh please! Do you really think that fire will hurt me? I live in hell! I breath in fire, I sleep in fire.” Satan laughed, “Look God, all I want is for Salvador to come back with me and rightfully suffer in hell. If you claim to be such a just God, than be one! Dali condemned himself to hell in his lifetime, and so in hell he shall so be!”
With that final statement lowering an iron curtain within God’s mighty palace, Jesus emerged from a cloud that floated into the palace, breaking the deafening silence. “Father, what is going on? There is a most severe storm that is nearly destroying the…” Jesus looked over at Satan and stopped what he was saying, “You again! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be torturing souls in hell?” “Oh there being tortured at this very moment! Don’t you worry about that!” Satan responded. “Father what is he doing here disturbing our eternal bliss?” Jesus asked with his arms crossed. “Son, he has accused me of being a liar and taking away the free will of Salvador Dali! He claims that Dali condemned himself to hell while he lived on Earth, and that I am most unjust to allow him to paint in heaven!” God said.
“Oh Satan, always playing such despicable games!” Jesus said, “Indeed Salvador Dali sinned greatly while he lived on Earth. He constantly lied, fornicated, cheated, coveted, drank heavily, but he redeemed himself within his last three years of life. He repented all his sins and accepted me into his heart. He asked for forgiveness, and from then on focused on living a more holy and righteous life. Those are the rules Satan; you accept me, you get into heaven!” “But how is that fair?” Satan asked, “He lived in his sinful ways for a great majority of his life, so why does he just get to be in heaven because three years before he died he changed his mind!” “Well we did punish him for committing so many sins,” Jesus explained, “He had a beautiful and wonderful wife whom he adored, and she left him for another man. I’m certain you saw how greatly he suffered when that happened. And now he pays of his debt by painting the world. It is not an easy task, I’ll assure you. We won Dali fair and square. He accepted me into his heart, and now he lives in heaven forever. Be gone Satan! You have merely lost another battle!” Then Jesus put his hands together, creating a massive ball of electromagnetic energy and threw it at Satan. The energy was so great that it pushed Satan’s body all the way back down to hell. “I may have lost the battle, but I haven’t lost the war!” He screamed.
“Well that pretty much takes care of everything,” Jesus said, “Father, please relieve the Earth of that wretched storm you produced.” “Right, right,” God said. Suddenly on Earth, the clouds cleared away and the storms ceased. All the humans emerged from hiding, and their fears began to fade. They looked into the sky and saw the most beautiful rainbow to ever grace their eyes. “Look at that rainbow; I suppose there really is a God!” One man said to another. “Yes, this is true. I suppose I will go to church and contemplate this being we call God. If he can produce such beautiful rainbows, then I suppose he can help cure my mild alcoholism and help me fix things with my wife.” God looked over at Salvador Dali approvingly. “What a beautiful rainbow Salvador. It pleases my children and I greatly.” Salvador painted on, oblivious to God and the heaven in which he was in, too enraptured in painting away upon the canvas of life.