God Most High labored in unison with His Word, such was the labor that the Spirit between them hovered over the chaos waters and brooded over the existential void.
The unbeginning stretched endless, timeless—silent and dead. Over the vast abyss, the Most High stood, pensive, heavy with purpose and paradox.
To the shore of the void came a figure, he knelt and waited. “Michael, our warrior archangel, stand and speak,” said the Most High.
“Oh, Most High,” Michael asked gently, “You linger in thought between your Word and your Spirit. What weighs upon You before the dawn of the natural worlds?”
The Most High’s voice was as deep as the abyss itself, both tender and unwavering.
“I contemplate making a universe—a radiant cosmos, yet it will fall. It is a stage where spirit and dust collide into one; where life will be born of the hybrid clay of flesh and spirit breath. I will create with my Word, but I will breathe my Spirit into some of them, precious few, they will be both of heaven and of earth.
It will form a universe—a unified verse from My mouth. Yet it will become a divisiverse, for those who bear Our image shall be free!”
The Most High stopped, abruptly, His words hung heavy in the heavenly air.
“That is indeed a lament beyond lamentation, but why, Oh LORD, should that be? Why not create another universe in which this will never happen? Or create none at all?” Michael spoke eagerly, but the bright eye of the Most High God burned into him and he quailed.
“I have not yet gotten to the paradox my son,” began the Most High, “but you would counsel me to sanitize my cosmos, so that all in it are dim of ethic and ignorant of choice? Would you have me create nothing, rather than something? Would you have me abandon LOVE itself for the sake of preventing pain? You mistake mercy for cowardice, Michael. You speak as though existence purchased through suffering is not worth the purchase—as though those I would cherish are better off unmade!”
“Forgive me, Most High,” said Michael, falling again to his knee, “I spoke too soon and without thought.”
“Indeed you did,” His voice a distant rumble, “I will continue. They will seek Me in darkness and in great despair. They will cry out, yet they will not find Me as they would desire to find Me. I cannot be found by them the way they will want or expect to find Me; but I will be found, nonetheless, by some of them.”
Michael inclined his head, his voice curious, “Will You not answer them? Will there be no law to order their chaos, no certainty to guide their steps?”
“Ah,” replied the Most High, “If every act of goodness were met with reward, if every prayer yielded proof, then faith would become calculation; worship would degrade to mere transaction. Instead of relationship we would have barter and there is no way to save those who are perishing by barter.
The equation whose answer is always Me is an idol, fixed and predictable. But true faith requires uncertainty, mystery; a trust that perseveres in perceived randomness, and holds fast beyond cause and effect. They will see in a mirror, but dimly.”
“Then grant them the gift of forgetting, Most High,” reasoned Michael, “let each generation begin anew, unburdened by the failures of those before. Suffering will still touch them, but they need not carry inherited despair. Is this not mercy?”
“That would not be mercy, and neither would it be justice,” came the reply, “but most of all it would not be LOVE. No, the memory is the very bad news that will make the Good News good!”
There was a long pause; Michael’s brow knit and then he asked, “But will not the seeming randomness breed despair—when good is met with suffering, when the innocent fall or are violated?”
“Indeed it will,” the Most High acknowledged, “Proverbs will be their guide—wisdom to cherish and apply. Yet, even the Lady Wisdom must be made to fail at times against death, against chance, and against the passage of time inside this mesotopia, they shall have Ecclesiastes on top of Proverbs. The last enemy to be defeated will be death. Where the light shines brightest shadows will deepen. Acts of grace may seem lost on the wind. Goodness must wear the guise of ruin. Their hope is to choose goodness anyway, not because they are compelled to nor because they have proved goodness, but because they have faith. They must LOVE what is right and what is true for no other reason than they are right and true.”
Michael’s eyes filled with solemn wonderment. “Forgive me Oh Most High, your ways are perfect and your thoughts are just, I ask because I do not yet see with your unblinking eyes. Why must it be so? Why cannot Your LOVE unfold plainly, that none falter in their seeking so that cause and effect are clear for those with free choice?”
The Most High smiled, though it was a smile touched with sorrow. “Michael, my son, you are young, I will teach you. If I allow them to prove that My ways are always beneficial in their world—success always yielding reward—truth would be bypassed, like redirecting a river. I must remain hidden from empirical observation. The stars pour forth speech about me, that will have to be enough, the source must remain invisible to peer review. Purpose unfolds through the unexpected, the uncalculated, empirical but only personally empirical.
They will be surrounded by Chronos, but I will lay for them a Kairos table, if they will have the faith to see it and to sit at it—holy interruptions, unexpected and uncalculated. Not all that benefits is good, nor all that harms is ultimate loss. They must find me by the terms of faith, or I will not be found by them.”
The archangel’s voice softened with resolve. “Then let me be Your witness to them, Most High—to hidden joy, to grace veiled in suffering. Let me be the herald between despair and hope, a bridge spanning chaos and harmony.”
“Come, Michael,” the Most High spoke with a smile, “Come and watch as My Word speaks and My Spirit breathes. You make a noble offer, but it is beyond your capability to execute…
My Word will execute My will, even as He, Himself, is executed.”
Michael looked with wonder at the words, his courage failing, he had no more questions he could bear to ask.
The abyss began to stir over the eons. The limits of light began to kindle. The dance of creation stirred to life, cradled in the tension of divine mystery and LOVE. Then the Word broke into the depths of the darkness, matter formed and laws were established, and The Most High thundered,
“Let there be light!”
