Demon: A Memoir (24 page)

EPILOGUE

Kat,

Here it is, in its entirety. I need you to believe me when I tell you this story is true—true, and double-edged. As you read these pages, do so knowing they will force a decision from you, one that was in front of you even before you held them in your hands.

I want to talk when you are done. If, by chance, something has happened to me by then, bury the pages, burn them, publish them—it doesn’t matter. As I said, the choice is there whether the others read it or not.

In the end I don’t know what was more poisonous—his story and my obsession with it, my vacillating belief, or Lucian himself.

He’s gone. He’s accomplished what he came for. As for me, I need time to think and to make my own decision. Unfortunately for me, time is the one thing I do not have.

Take care, Kat. I would have liked to have known you better.

Clay

AUTHOR’S NOTES

I have based Lucian’s account of prefall bliss on a widely but by no means universally held understanding of Ezekiel 28:11–19. Some commentators view this passage as a literal lament or prophecy against the ruler of Tyre, a wealthy Phoenician city in what is now Lebanon. Others believe the prophet addresses the power energizing the throne of Tyre—Lucifer himself. Advocates of this second interpretation cite the fact that the king is referred to as having dwelt in Eden, been an anointed cherub, been created (rather than propagated), and been blameless since his creation. This is the interpretation I chose to underpin my fictional imagining of Lucifer’s prefall existence.

I have supplemented my imagining of Lucifer’s fall with a similar interpretation of Isaiah 14:12–14, wherein the “son of the morning” states his intention to ascend to heaven with five famous “I wills.” Again, this is a widely known but not universally held understanding of this passage, which on the surface laments the prophetic fall of the pagan king of Babylon, a contemporary of the prophet.

In the ancient Near East, cherubs were depicted as beings with an animal body (usually a lion or bull), wings, and a human head. Large cherub statues often guarded the gates of ancient pagan temples. Biblically speaking, cherubs may be found guarding the gates of Eden (Genesis 3:24) adorning the lid of the ark of the covenant as golden statues (Exodus 25:17–22) and holding up God’s throne (Ezekiel 1:4–28; 10:1–22).

I’ve only referenced cherubim, seraphim, and angels (including archangels) in this story, but the Bible notes other significant rankings of spiritual forces: thrones (Colossians 1:16), dominions (Ephesians 1:21; Colossians 1:16), principalities (Ephesians 1:21; 3:16; 6:12; Colossians 1:16) and powers (Ephesians 1:21; 3:10; 6:12; Colossians 1:16). The only authority over the upper (cherubic) rank is Elohim; even the well-known archangel Michael must employ God’s authority against Lucifer as in Jude 9.

I have assumed that the rock garden in Eden of Ezekiel 28:13 where Lucifer resided before his rebellion physically preexisted the Eden of Genesis and that it was the (unspoiled) earth mentioned in Genesis 1:1. For the sake of story, I’ve theorized a chaotic ruin of Lucifer’s first garden in Eden before the formless and dark Eden of Genesis 1:2.

Ezekiel says the object of his lament dwelled in “the holy mount of God” (Ezekiel 28:14, 16). The exact phrase, “the holy mount of God” occurs nowhere else in Scripture though Jerusalem is sometimes called “the holy mount” where God dwells in His temple (Psalm 99:9; Isaiah 56:7). For this telling, I have imagined God’s heavenly dwelling as a spectacular spiritual mountain—that is to say, something both and either physical and figurative simply because I cannot think that our concrete world would rely on the same physical laws and logic as one inhabited by spiritual beings in a perfect Eden before even the creation of the sun or moon. Other references to a mountain of God indicating government are: Isaiah 2:2 and Daniel 2:34–35, 44–45.

The Bible distinguishes between angels fallen and unfallen/elect (1 Timothy 5:21), and is specific about the judgment and fate of the lost (2 Peter 2:4; Jude 6). Therefore, I have based Lucian’s odium on the fact that the Bible makes no mention of a messianic provision for fallen angels, no matter how they curiously long to look into the mysteries of salvation (1 Peter 1:12).

Lucifer derives his name from several sources. In Isaiah 14:12 the Hebrew is
helel,
meaning “shining” (in the way of celestial bodies)—hence, the interpretation “son of the morning,” or “morning star.” As the morning star (Venus) is considered the brightest of “stars”—and some hold that God referred to angels in Job 38:7 as “stars”—Lucifer was to have been the brightest of all creation. Throughout the New Testament angels are referred to as shining beings (Matthew 28:2–3; Revelation 10:1), and Lucifer is said to pass himself off as an angel of light. Satan is associated with Lucifer as having fallen like lightning from heaven (Luke 10:18, as associated with Ezekiel 28:17), and having fallen because of his pride (1 Timothy 3:6, as associated with Isaiah 14).

The name
Satan,
at its most basic, denoted an adversary or enemy of human or spiritual origin. In the lives of Job and Joshua, Lucifer embodied the role of antagonistic accuser and adversary of the faithful. Throughout the Bible Satan is given many other names including God of This Age (2 Corinthians 4:4), Prince of the Power of the Air (Ephesians 2:2), and Prince of This World (Matthew 4:8; Luke 4:5–7; John 14:30).

Lucian’s human guises are based on the abundance of angels that appear as humans throughout the Bible. The book of Job indicates that Satan has the power to inflict sickness (Job 2:7), control elements (Job 1:16–19), and inflict discouragement, doubt and disappointment (Job 3:1–10; 7:11; 10:1–18). Job is explicit that Satan has no power to harm those protected by God. Ephesians 6:10–18 indicates that children of God possess the means to withstand Satanic attack.

I need to cite my great reliance on H. LaVern Schafer’s work,
Satan: The Enemy Without
(Schafer, 1996) in addition to the usual commentaries and indexes, as well as books such as Billy Graham’s
Angels.

Last, I should say that despite my research I have never come to the point that I feel I completely understand the implications of God’s relationship with spiritual beings or the nuances of passages like the ones found in Ezekiel and Isaiah. I chose the interpretations I did for the sense they make to me and also for their storytelling merit. I encourage you to pass my views and these notes through the sieve of your own discernment and to use them as a springboard for your own investigation.

WHY I WROTE
DEMON: A MEMOIR

One day, as I drove the stretch of Nebraska road that leads to my acreage, I found myself wondering what it would be like to be angelic and fallen. Would I go around tempting people to lust, covet, envy . . . just for kicks? It seemed too shallow a motivation for any complex, spiritual creature. There had to be more to it.

Suddenly, I realized that being angelic and fallen was similar to being human and fallen—except for one major difference: the provision of a Messiah.

I immediately wondered what it must feel like to be unquestionably damned—and worse, to watch humans luxuriate in and take for granted the grace made available to them from a doting God. And I thought:
Why wouldn’t an angelic creation resent a human recipient of God’s grace? And why wouldn’t a demon want to prove that creature unworthy again and again as a result?
Now I knew what it must feel like to be an angelic outsider looking in with jealous eyes and razored heart.

And so let me ask you: What if you made one mistake?

One.

What if one moment you were worshipping the Mighty God and Creator that brought you into existence . . . and the next you were damned for eternity?

You had never seen sin, you had no experience with death, you had never felt separation from your God. But you had turned your worship to the greatest being under God in an impulsive moment that seemed to make sense at the time. You only belatedly realized that something had changed. You just weren’t sure what.

What if you watched as that same God replaced you in his affections with a baser, uglier, mortal breed—a creature made of clay. And what if you watched in horror as he breathed into their mud bodies the essence of his own spirit—a gift you had never received?

And what if they took every God-given thing considered precious by you for granted as they failed again and again . . . and then turned away from God altogether?

Would you feel some satisfaction when God, unable to allow them to continue, decided to destroy their world and all of the clay people along with it? And would that satisfaction be lost when you learned he couldn’t bear to kill them all but had decided to spare a family—a seed group of those mud people to repopulate the earth?

What if you watched as God patiently taught them laws so they could stay in relationship with him . . . and they continued to do the same things that had ruined their relationship with him in the first place—over and over again?

Remember: You only did one thing.

And what would you think if that same God decided, in a radical move, to become one of them, to take on that mud flesh forever, and to let them kill him, and to die for them, so they could be reconciled with him and with him again . . . forever?

You were supposed to be with him forever. You only did one thing.

And how would you feel upon knowing that not every mud person jumped at the chance to have that great gift you feel so much more deserving of—only one thing—that the majority of the mud people decided they didn’t want or need?

Would you be jealous? Would you hate the mud people?

Would you want them to die?

Of course you would.

And so I reread the story of God’s love affair with humans through this new lens, and
Demon: A Memoir
was born.

INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT
DEMON

• The quote by Isak Dinesen is from the book
Out of Africa,
which is also the author’s favorite movie.

• The liquor stores mentioned in the book were originally written as “package stores,” a New England term.

• The Borders store in chapter 2 was the location of the author’s first book signing of
Demon.

• Esad is based loosely on the story of a local Bosnian tailor in the author’s home city.

• Sheila’s two boys, Justin and Caleb, are the two sons of the author’s friend since first grade, Julie.

• The star-shaped perfume bottle that used to sit on Aubrey’s bathroom counter is “Angel” by Thierry Mugler.

• Lucian’s “Carpe Brewem” sweatshirt in the coffee shop chapter came from Lazlo’s brewery in Lincoln, Nebraska.

• Lucian in the coffee shop (wearing the brewery sweatshirt) is the author’s friend, Scott.

• The Asian man on the plan with the receding hairline is the author’s father.

• Lucian’s “Animals Taste Good” T-shirt in the Commons chapter is made by David and Goliath.

• The author and her sister have a cameo at the bar at the Four Seasons Hotel.

• Every piece of art mentioned in the museum chapter was on display at the time of the chapter’s writing in 2005.

• The house in Haverhill is based on one owned by the author’s college friend, Heather.

• Clay’s small apartment building on Norfolk is based on one exactly like it in real life.

• The Gospel Room is a real church the size of a house across the street on Norfolk.

• The tea shop in Cambridge is called Tea Luxe in real life.

• All of the Bible searches conducted in
Demon
(based on BibleGateway.com) yielded the same results that Clay found at the time of
Demon’s
writing.

• Clay’s office exists as described in Cambridge, across from the former Quantum Books.

• The author is named for a Puccini opera. The operas mentioned in
Demon
are Puccini operas.

• The dim sum restaurant is the China Pearl, in Chinatown.

• The Four Seasons Bristol room was indeed refurbished just before the rewriting of
Demon.

• The Grover book is a real book acquired by the author in the manner described by Clay.

• Clay’s Cabo getaway took place at the Riu resort.

You really do have a choice to make.

You can find more expanded materials on
Demon: A Memoir
at www.Pureenjoyment.com!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

When
Demon
was first published in 2007, I had no idea what lay before me. I knew it would be a great journey, but what I did not know is how many amazing people would come alongside me, or the chord that this story would strike in the hearts of others.

I have the best readers in the world. Thank you—for your letters, your prayers, your support and encouragement. You are with me each time I sit down to write; you are constantly on my mind.

Thank you to the champions: my agent, Steve Laube, and my editor, Karen Ball. Words are feeble tools; they cannot do my gratitude to either of you justice.

Julie Gwinn, I am so grateful for you. Everyone at B&H, it is a privilege to work with you. Kris and Jeff Beckenbach, Chad Bring, Katie Weaver, Kristin Nelson: thank you for keeping me relevant and (relatively) sane. And thank you: my friends, my sister Amy, my heart-sister Meredith, and Rick, my beloved, for loving me even when I’m not (sane—which is most of the time).

I owe a great debt of gratitude to those who enabled my obsession and made this book possible: Joyce Hart, Jeff Gerke, Karen Lee-Thorp, Reagen Reed, Dan Mueller, Conan Schafer, Peggy Malzacher, Don Hawkins, Greg Stier, Tim Hodges, Scott Boles, Alice Yoon, Angie Bentley, and my parents (all of them).

Thank you most eminently to my God, Elohim, for your relentless pursuit of this girl’s heart.