Life's Resentment: The Celestial Discourse
If you liked reading this, click the ❤️ button so more people can discover it on Substack 🙏
Father and daughter sat in heaven, lounging on couches woven from the dreams of poets and bathed in the colors of sunsets past.
"Dad, I was thinking…" Life said, "What do you think about doing an experiment where you separate me and my lovely sister for a while. Call it 200 million years just to see what happens."
"Only 200 million?" God chuckled. "Why so short?"
How many times have we had this conversation before? he thought. An infinite number of times, he whispered into his own ear.
"Oh your humor isn’t lost on me, Father. I only mean for it to be long enough to be a true experiment. If we only do 1,000 years, can we really trust the data?"
"You're reasoning is sound, my daughter. Why? What should you do with yourself unbridled by your sister's presence?"
"What would I do!? Well, I would be infinitely happier. And so would everyone else for that matter. All beings filled with me would be free of their deepest fear that shackles them. They would exist forever!"
In that very moment, her twin glided gracefully through the grand chamber. Beauty emanated from her, an ethereal aura that defied words. And even though they shared the same stature, Death somehow seemed to loom larger.
With her eyes, Life followed her sister with all of the envy of someone less powerful, and all of the narcissism of one unconsciously attempting to cover it up.
"Daaaad," Life whined, "why does she still have to be here? She ruins everything! It's been 13.5 billion years already. Does she always have to be here? Can't you give her her own universe already?
"You hear how everyone talks about her. They hate her. Won't even say her name. I wasn't going to say this in front of you, dad, but people think she's a complete bitch.”
God shot her a look.
“What," she chuckled, "are you going to smite me down with lightning and the gnashing of teeth?
"You know everyone loooooves me," Life continued. "They sit in awe at their fortune for being alive. They weep in gratitude and share their most precious moments in me."
"Ok, listen," God said, clasping his great hands together on the table.
"Let me guess," snarked Life in her best impression of an old man, "'There can be not one of you without the other." When he didn't correct her, she continued, "Well what if I don't want to exist if she's around."
"Darling," he said in that voice that skips right over the ears and is heard in the depth of your heart, "you do need each other."
"To be frank," he said, looking at Life, "you need her more than she needs you. She seems to be content to be a stream bringing each droplet of water back to the ocean.
"It is you who desires more," he continued.
"In their denial of your sister's existence, those I've filled with you delude themselves to think you will be with them for all of eternity. So they diddle away their existence worrying about petty things.
"Your sister is as sacred to me as you are. And if all you inhabit would but entertain her courtship, they might appreciate you all the more.
"It is precisely our knowledge that it will one day whither away and die that fills us with gratitude and reverence for that which we love.
"Look at all those daughters who, when seeing their mother on their deathbeds, finally let go of the resentment they've been holding for 40 years.
"The addicts who overdose and wake up with a fire inside them to change.
"The men whose friend loses a child, and who learn to appreciate their own children more.
"Notice her signature long after she visits - a wake of transformation and appreciation. And remember that more find me in times of sorrow than in their happiness.
"The flower, in its wisdom, does not dread the fleeting whisper of its bloom. It dons its most radiant hues and dances in the sun's embrace.
"Instead of banishing her," the Father continued, "what if you drew her close? Might her presence invoke appreciation for the gift that is YOU!?"