MIRROR, MIRROR
“Mirror, Mirror on the wall,
who’s the fairest of them all?”
—Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs
The man gave another slow nod.
“Anyway, like you said, maybe some things aren’t meant to be answered, since we enter the scene after Satan is already a tempter. I did want to look at the story of Eden in a metaphorical sense for a second, though,” said the boy.
“Alright,” said the man. “I’ll play along.”
“Okay, back up first. I heard this phrase once that goes, ‘Hard times make hard men. Hard men make easy times. Easy times make soft men. Soft men make hard times.’ With me so far?”
“Of course,” said the man. “It’s a cycle that can be seen throughout history in the rise and fall of nations.”
“Right. Then there’s another concept from one of those Yin-Yang philosophies or whatever, that all people have both feminine and masculine energy.”
The man gave a nod. “While I’m unsure whom to credit the origin of that philosophy with, I do know what you mean. There’s a natural fluctuation of masculinity and femininity in all individuals, due to hormones or even a conscious or subconscious expression or suppression of energies.”
“Right,” said the boy. “Then I heard this third concept that feminine energy is chaos energy and masculine energy represents order.”
The man’s pupils dilated. “I’d just be careful with the way you express that idea, and around whom. You certainly don’t want to go around giving the impression that women are chaotic while men are calm. God knows I’ve stepped on that landmine.”
“Not what I meant,” said the boy, “but good point. I just meant we all have the potential for chaos and order.”
“Of course,” said the man. “So where are you going with all this?”
“Well, if we tie everything together, when society as a whole leans toward the masculine, then there’s order, creating easy times. But if people allow their feminine energy to flow, chaos emerges, creating hard times. And the more chaos is on the loose, the more masculine energy is required to tame it. Hence the cycle.”
“I get it,” said the man, “but how does this all tie into our story here?”
“Well, one time, I saw this girl with a snake tattoo wrapped around her arm, and I asked her why she got it. She told me that in some ancient cultures, the serpent represents the divine feminine, which I thought ties perfectly into everything we’ve been going over here. Back in the garden, God represents the divine masculine, while the serpent represents the divine feminine. This means that Satan himself, or I guess, herself, is actually the feminine force trying to draw humanity into chaos, while God is the masculine force showing us how to remain in order. Like you said, fearing God, or respecting and following God, is wisdom, or the key to maintaining order. Turning away from evil, or avoiding a dominant feminine energy, is understanding how to resist chaos.
“The garden story represents a cycle as old as time. When man is born into a world of order, they become soft. So feminine energy emerges and takes the reins, creating chaos. Or in this case, Adam represents humanity’s masculine, when all of a sudden, humanity’s feminine emerges to eat the apple. Once they fall for temptation, they lose the orderly world they had and descend into a world of chaos. From there, hard times have to create hard men in order to bring us full circle.
“This leads us back to God’s promise that one day, He’ll defeat the chaos dragon and restore order. Eventually, He sends this masculine Jesus guy to show mankind the way back to order. People who are tired of living in chaos will choose to follow Him back to the garden of Eden, or Heaven, which isn’t a physical place, but rather a state of existence in your soul when you choose to fear God, or pursue order, and turn away from evil, or resist chaos. Kinda like Job, who resisted the temptation of the serpent of chaos and in the end was restored back to order.”
The man looked as though he was in deep reflection, so the boy continued.
“Anyway, the only missing piece of the puzzle is whoever leaked the events of chapters one and two to humanity.”
The man snapped out of his own thoughts and said, “What do you mean ‘leaked’?”
“Well, obviously, some mortal didn’t witness the divine cabinet meeting, so it must have been God or Satan. Probably Satan, as an attempt to reveal how God blamed him for the whole thing. But like I said, Satan gets tricked into doing what God wants anyway, so really, it was God acting through Satan.
“But then the question is, why would God want the reader to know that He was the one who orchestrated the whole ordeal instead of leaving us in ignorant bliss like Job? I mean, the whole story would have worked out fine if it said, ‘There was once a righteous and upright man who suffered, so God came down and told him there’s an evil force out there and then gave his stuff back as an act of grace.’ The reader would have walked away learning the same lessons as Job, so why give us the special insight that Job didn’t have?”
“Well,” said the man, “if the events of the divine counsel were revealed to Job, the book would speak less directly to the readers, who can relate to Job in suffering without ever knowing why. But the reader’s glimpse into the great beyond helps them cope with the mystery, knowing God is always in control of their suffering. And more importantly, we get the sense Job must remain ignorant of what happened behind the scenes, or else the validity of the test’s outcome would be compromised. Job’s ignorance of Satan’s accusations was what made his unconditional loyalty possible. Otherwise, Satan could have renewed the accusation in a slightly different form, saying Job only took back what he said because he knew God would restore his blessings.”
“First of all,” said the boy, “I never expected God to come down and outright say, ‘Well, you see, Job, I was gambling with Lucifer and used your children as poker chips and…’ But God could have revealed this whole thing as a test to Job after he was restored, at the very end. But my question wasn’t about why Job couldn’t know anyway. I’m asking why God would reveal this to anyone at all. And I think God might’ve used this story to reveal His motivation for coming down as Jesus.”
The man raised a nervous eyebrow. “Where are you going with this theory now?”
“Well, I think God didn’t tell Job that He was ultimately responsible for the death of his children because He thought that might change the way Job saw Him. If He can take all the credit for the blessings and shell off all the blame on Satan, well, then people are more likely to love Him unconditionally the way He desires. It’s divine politics one-oh-one, really. ‘Look over there at someone else doing bad and notice how good I look in comparison.’ It gives the illusion that two mighty forces are ‘at war,’ like you said. But that was never really the case at all. I think God just has to do hard things sometimes and He was afraid Job wouldn’t love Him if he knew what really happened.”
“You think the eternal and almighty Creator of the universe is afraid of what us mortals might think of Him?”
“I mean, yeah,” said the boy, “I do.”
“And how do you figure that?” said the man.
“Well, aren’t there mentions where God gets jealous in the Bible?”
The man thought about it for a moment. “Sure, in Exodus for example. Why?”
“Well, where do you think jealousy comes from?”
The man rolled his eyes. “Do tell, Mr. Psychologist.”
“Insecurity, of course.”
“Now you think the almighty Creator of the universe is insecure?”
“Why not?” said the boy. “We were created in God’s likeness, weren’t we?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with everything,” said the boy. “God gets angry, just like humans. God can be pleased, just like humans. God gets jealous, just like humans. We’re a mirror of God in all emotions. What, except insecurity? Wouldn’t a limitless being’s inability to experience insecurity actually be a limitation in itself?”
The man leaned on his elbows and laced his fingers before his lips, so the boy went on.
“Imagine, you spend a week creating this beautiful universe out of nothing,” said the boy, “and you have no other intelligent beings around to appreciate what you’ve done. Everything was ‘good’ up until that point. The only thing that wasn’t ‘good’ was the fact that man was alone. But don’t you think that could have been a subtle expression of how God felt about being alone? That’s probably the reason He created mankind in the first place, so He would have someone to praise Him for all the wonderful work He did during creation.”
“This is entering into the realm of theories without Scriptural support,” said the man.
“I know, I know,” said the boy, “but let me ask you something else.”
The man offered his palm in a ‘go ahead’ way.
“Did man bring himself into existence to worship God, or did God bring man into existence to worship God?”
The man raised his eyebrows with an expression of boredom. “Well, obviously man didn’t bring himself into existence. But that—”
“Exactly,” said the boy. “And there are many examples of men who get along fine without God.”
“Well, until the d—”
“Day of judgment,” said the boy. “We know. My point is that God gets upset when He’s not worshipped properly, which I’m thinking means God needs man as much as man needs God.”
“Alright,” said the man, sitting upright again. “Now you’re ju—”
“No, no, no. Hold on,” said the boy. “Before creation, God was just out there, alone, floating in a vacuum or whatever. That’s no way to live. So, He created a world that could host another intelligent life form. This life form was created in His likeness as a mirror to Himself. But with intelligence came free will. So, out of the insecurity of whether or not mankind would genuinely worship Him, God tested them the way I described. But genuine worship matters so much to God that He’s willing to break His own commandment in allowing murder just to teach Job a lesson about loyalty here.”
“First of all,” said the man, nostrils flaring, “God hadn’t given the commandments yet. But more importantly, the commandments are for man. God is sovereign and will rule His universe anyway He sees fit.”
“Yeah, God’s sovereignty isn’t the question though,” said the boy. “Job made that clear throughout the debate. It was God’s morals and motivations that are in question. Which, for Job, were satisfied because God blamed it on a fire-breathing dragon. But for the reader, we saw what really happened, so the question still remains. I’m just tossing out some hypotheticals to get a feel for what might be going on.”
“Yes, but your hypotheticals are leaning toward—”
“Blasphemous. I’m sure,” said the boy. “But I’m just thinking out loud here because I don’t have a horse in the race. Besides, haven’t you learned anything from this story at all?”
“And what do you mean by that?” said the man.
“God doesn’t need anyone defending Him with theology. God prefers those who ask genuine questions over those who make statements. God frowns upon those who shame others who ask questions. Sheesh,” said the boy. “I think you’d better start collecting some rams to sacrifice.”
The old man folded his arms with a glare at the boy.
“Hey, don’t get mad at me because your lessons didn’t sink in, Eliphaz. All I’m doing is asking the same kinds of questions Job did.”
The man shook his head as he looked off into the distance. In that moment, a cool, evening breeze swept in and sent a shiver down his spine.
“Look, all I’m saying is that God’s reaction of answering Job shows that He really cares what His creation says about Him. Otherwise, He wouldn’t have bothered dealing with Job at all.”
“Yes, but the purpose of all of this was to prove Satan wrong,” said the man, “to set an example for the other angels as well as humanity.”
“But that’s even worse,” said the boy. “That would mean God felt the need to prove Himself to Satan. And if the point was to prove Satan wrong, we would have revisited the whole Satan scene anyway. God would have summoned him again in front of all the angels and said, ‘You see?’ But He didn’t, because it was His idea to begin with, and because He taught Job the lesson about genuine worship that he needed to learn. At least if God was using Satan to prove to Himself that His creation genuinely worships, that’s an easier pill to swallow. Which I’m starting to think was the point of creating free will in the first place.”
“What was?” said the man.
“That God does need man as much as man needs God. Everything under the heavens belongs to Him, meaning everything is in God’s control, including Leviathan, the most powerful other being in existence, except free will. The only thing that someone who has everything could possibly value more than the everything they already have is the genuine opinion of someone else, which God created just to test His own worshipability.”
“Worshipability?” said the man. “Alright, now you’re just making up words.”
“You know what I mean,” said the boy. “But think about it. He can defeat any ferocious enemy He can create. Boring. So the only thing He’s challenged by is earning the genuine respect from the only other intelligent species on the planet. The creation of humanity’s free will was the only way for God to test Himself. It was a way for God to say, ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the most worshipable of them all?’”
“This is ridiculous,” said the man, standing up to leave. “I’m not going to stand by as you make a Disney-mockery of my religion.”
“Wait!” said the boy, grabbing hold of the man’s arm. “Let me ask you something.”
The man sighed as he froze mid-stand.
“Have you ever gone this deep?”
The man didn’t have to think long before he said, “No. I haven’t.”
“Well, then don’t get upset with me just because you’ve never taken the time to think about what God thinks about Himself. You’ve probably only asked God what He thinks about you, or asked for blessings, or asked for help through this or that. But how often have you even considered what God was going through? Hmm, Mr. Job?”
The man remained half-standing, frozen in thought.
“Well, you should be ashamed of yourself,” said the boy, a grin spanning across his face.
“Oh, get off it,” said the man, flicking the boy’s grip aside with his wrist and sitting down again.
The boy smiled as he settled in his seat. “Come on. We’re just going through a little thought experiment here. No need to get offended.”
“Tread carefully,” said the man.
“It seems like you’ve only thought this through as far as what satisfied Job, but you haven’t dug any further into what the real story means.”
With raised eyebrows, the man offered his palm in a ‘go ahead’ way again.
“The Bible only tells us that God created the universe, but does the Bible say we shouldn’t ask why God created the universe?”
“Of course not,” said the man.
“Exactly,” said the boy. “So let’s see what we can come up with then.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
“Good, good,” said the boy. “Relax. Take a load off.”
The man took a deep breath and let it out again. “So what does God get out of all this, in your theory?”
“Well, God needed to teach humanity that He needs people who genuinely worship Him. Because without genuine worship, mankind no longer serves the purpose in which they were created for in the first place.”
“Which was…”
“The mirror,” said the boy. “If man is just using God for blessings without a genuine appreciation for His creation, then God may as well wipe out man with another flood, without a Noah this time.”
“But God promised there would be no more floods,” said the man, “in His covenant back in Genesis.”
“Covenant-schmovenant,” said the boy. “The purpose of the covenant was to ensure genuine worship. Without genuine worship, the covenant doesn’t exist, and man doesn’t need to either. Plus, God can do whatever He wants anyway. He’s God.
“Speaking of which, the real kicker is that God is using mankind to benefit Himself exactly the way He’s teaching Job not to be doing with God. But, as you pointed out with the murder commandment, God doesn’t uphold Himself to the same standards He holds man up to because setting limitations on Himself would limit His all-powerful ability to rule. And the biggest instance of this was back in the garden when God asked man if they failed to meet His expectations of following instructions. Then he threw them out of paradise when they blamed it on the serpent. Then what does He do here when Job asks God why He’s failed to meet his expectations of a just rule? He blames the serpent!”
The man blinked with exaggeration. “I think my head is starting to spin.”
“Mine too,” said the boy. “But I wanna spin back to why God wanted the reader to know that He’s the one who orchestrated the whole thing in the first place, instead of leaving us in the ignorant dark like Job.”
“Make it quick,” said the man. “I’m tired and hungry.”
“I think it’s because we all have parts of ourselves that we’re not proud of and have done things we wished we didn’t have to do. If we’re made in God’s image, why would He be any different? So, I think Satan just represents a dark but necessary part of God’s creation that exists in order to execute His plan. But after further reflection on Job, He said, ‘You know what? I’m gonna share the truth about Satan.’ So He revealed what really happened.
“Then He took it a step further. He could have gone on giving orders from the sky, but instead, He wanted people to see Him walk the walk, see that He’s willing to put Himself through the same kind of mortal suffering He puts us through. Coming down as Jesus was a kind of, ‘We’re in this together. Walk with me as I walk with you.’
“I think the overall lesson is that if we just accept that sometimes God has to inflict suffering for reasons we can’t understand, then we can accept that there is only God steering the course of our lives, not some rogue angel on the loose with the power to inflict suffering for no reason. I think the book of Job is to let you in on the way God really works, to allow you to decide for yourself whether you could accept a God that makes you suffer, or whether you need to believe there is another evil force out there causing you pain while God remains the hero. The take-home question is whether or not you could love a God who is both good and ‘evil.’ And if not, could you accept the consequence of what happens when you no longer need a God that needs you as much as you need Him?”
A silence fell between them, and in that silence was the far-off echo of crickets emerging in the night.
“Just a thought,” said the boy. “But the more we go over these stories, the more I think they’re just some kind of inkblot test.”
“What do you mean by that?” said the man.
“I mean there are such wildly different interpretations that can be read here, that the meaning you take away is influenced by your background and how you see the world. And of course, we can’t confirm the original meaning because the original authors are dead. And even then, maybe they were writing stories that were vague and open for interpretation so they’d be debated, like some kind of moral brain teasers. But if that’s the case, then they’re just riddles with so many meanings that they’re practically meaningless anyway. They’re not so much a test of faith as they are a test of sanity.”
The man nodded his head with a yawn. “You know, that reminds me of this time I went to an art museum with my wife. One of the main pieces on display was a blank canvas, painted red.”
“Well, that’s stupid,” said the boy.
“I thought so too,” said the man, “but it got so much attention I couldn’t stand it. I told my wife, ‘This is ridiculous. Even I could have done that.’ She just gave me a pat on the back and moved on to the next one, bless her, but I lingered behind just muttering to no one about how dumb it was, how it wasn’t even art, how it didn’t deserve the admission we paid for it.
“All the while I’m muttering these things, there’s a man standing next to me listening. At one point he says, ‘So you don’t like it then?’ And I say, ‘No, I don’t like it. It’s ridiculous that it’s even considered art.’ And he says, ‘So you’re upset about it?’ And I say, ‘Of course, I’m upset about it, aren’t you?’ And the man says, ‘Would you say it makes you angry?’ And I say, ‘I suppose that sums it up, yes.’ And he says, ‘Would you say it makes you see red?’ And I froze. I turned to the guy and he was wearing a giant grin. I said, ‘You painted this, didn’t you?’ And with a gentle nod, he gave me the same pat on the back my wife did and walked over to eavesdrop on some other unsuspecting victim.”
“Wow,” said the boy. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“All this to circle back to your point about the Rorschach test. It’s easy to question these stories and say there’s no real meaning, but there’s no denying the feelings they stir up inside you. You’re looking for an answer to a question that will always go unanswered. When a mother dies in labor to leave an infant in its father’s care, when an innocent couple is killed in a drunk driving accident, when a tsunami wipes out an entire village full of people, these are things that have no answer to the question Why? This book is a timeless mirror for thousands of people who have suffered aimlessly, to let them know they’re not alone. You’re looking for comfort in justification, but I don’t think that’s the point here. The point is there are forces behind the scenes and beyond our control that influence our lives in ways we’ll never understand, and that’s just how it goes. We are powerless in many ways, and that’s the truth. To question and argue and pull out our hair is pointless when in the end all there is, is to embrace acceptance.”
The boy wrestled with the words in his mind as he said nothing.
“I mean, what if God is the author of evil? So what?” said the man. “What, are we all supposed to live in some happy little bubble of rainbows and sunshine all the time like you proposed, where no one experiences pain or suffering or hardship? How easy do you want life to be? Which day would you choose to be a good day for suffering?
“Are we supposed to lie around in a comfy bed for eighty years, in bliss with an IV of vitamins in one arm and opium in the other? Or live in a world of instant gratification where all of our dreams come true the moment we dream them? We’d be bored out of our minds without pain to whine about and suffering to mull over. That’s the spice of life that inspires the full range of human experience.”
The boy gave a long, slow nod. “You know, I bet you there were two versions of this story once. The other one probably went like this. ‘There once was a man named Job, who was righteous and upright and shunned evil and feared God, so God blessed him with sheep and camels and children and his wife never told him to die. The end.”
There was a pause as a grin grew across the man’s face.
“You know where that story ended up?” said the boy.
“I have a guess,” said the man.
“Right in the fucking trash.”
“Of course it did,” said the man, letting out another yawn.
“Anyway, it’s like you said, this whole story boils down to three words.” A smile grew across the boy’s face this time as he waited for a reply.
The old man hesitated to give him one, but finally he caved. “And what are those?”
“Hold on loose-ly!” sang the boy. “That’s the lesson of Jo-o-oob!”
“Really?” said the man. “That’s what we’re boiling it down t—”
“Don’t hang on tight-ly, cause you’re not contro-o-ool!”
“I think that’s enough for today,” said the man, closing his Bible and pressing himself to a stand.
“But Job needs some-thin’ to believe in, and a whole lotta dia-pers for his new kids!”
The man shook his head as he folded his jacket over his arm.
“You see it all around here, good angels gone bad. But suddenly it’s too late when you, find Satan took all you ha-a-aad!”
The man turned and began walking home without another word.
“See ya later, hippo-gator!” said the boy, tapping the beat on the table with his hands. “After a while, crocodile!”
The old man threw up a wave without looking back at him, lyrics fading behind him.
“Job wants somethin’ to believe in,
but God won’t give- a- rea-son!
So hold on loose-ly! And listen to Mrs. Jo-o-oob!
Don’t hang on tightly, cause you’re not in,
no you’re not in contro-o-oooool!”