Satan Is No Creator

Jinx was a very difficult dog this evening, and I’ve been giving him a bit of the cold shoulder. He’s gotten into a very bad habit of refusing to come when called. Or worse, running at top speed away from us when he’s called. He was barking ferociously at something in the woods along the side of the house. The noise he made was of such a pitch and intensity that it made me think it might be something beyond the usual squirrel or coon. He finally came down to the door, but dashed away every time we tried to coax him inside. My wife was finally able to cajole him into coming in, but I could tell that even her legendary patience was unraveling. He seems to sense that he is in bad odor, and is lying on his loveseat, facing away from me, staring into space. I’m enough of a softie that I won’t let this last for long. After all, he probably doesn’t understand why his obedience is important to his safety. But I’ll let him sulk for a while longer, and then we’ll see.

***

I saw an acquaintance today and noticed that he was wearing a patch and bandage over one eye. When I asked about it, he told me that he had been out cutting blackberry canes this past weekend and managed to scratch his cornea when one of the canes whipped back on him. He said that he cannot see at all out of the eye, and his doctor has mentioned possible surgery.

I made the remark that I’ve had my own battles with blackberries, and that they seem to be of the devil. Many’s the time when I have cut a bunch of the thorned horrors and tried to toss them into a fire or a pile or a wheelbarrow, and one tendril clung to my clothes and caused the whole thing to boomerang on me. The blackberry thorns have a matchless ability to tear flesh, and the thought of having one rake across my eyeball gave me the heebie jeebies.

But after we parted company, I started thinking about our conversation and I regretted making the snarky remark about blackberries being satanic. The fact is that these fruit are delicious and versatile, and they have the thorns as a part of the design God gave them for His own reasons. For me to think of them as intentionally evil is silliness. It’s even more silly given the fact that I grew very distressed a few years ago at a man whom I know, a man who told me that his children had been monitoring a nest of birds outside their house. When the little birds grew large enough to fledge, a couple of crows showed up and made a nice meal of the chicks. The father told his children that crows are bad birds, and I think he said something to the effect that they are evil, or that they are devilish. I didn’t remonstrate with him in front of his children, but the man’s remarks made me angry. Angry because to say such a thing suggests that Satan has creative powers and brought crows into existence (and perhaps  blackberries, Mr. Doubletongue?). Years ago, an elderly man held me captive in the corner of a church and harangued me at length about how the devil planted tobacco back at the beginning of time, and that anyone who uses tobacco in any form is clearly as hellbound as a serial killer. I marveled at what the man claimed, and I never let him maneuver himself between me and the door again.

The next time I see the fellow with the scratched cornea, I’m going to express my regrets at making the comment about the devil. In my own life, it’s important that I stop being sloppy with my words, because really bad ideas get their start in just this fashion. The truth is that God Almighty created the blackberries and the crows and poison ivy and mosquitos and stink bugs and great white sharks and jelly fish and cobras. The devil might twist good things for his own purposes and in use against weak humans. But he never has created, nor will he.

Time’s up. I will go and give my dog some affection now. Lest he think I am a blue-eyed devil.

~ S.K. Orr