What the devil can’t give you
by Peter Mullen, TCW:
[…] I find it wearing to have to keep reminding the literal-minded types that poetry, pictures, music and an active imagination are the best tools when it comes to the embodiment of the truth. A successful metaphor presents us directly with reality.
St Michael and the angels belong to this reality and they are at war. How? Well, the devil creates nothing original. God is the only Creator. The devil can only copy God’s actions, befouling them as he goes along. So the devil is called the Father of Lies and the Ape of God. The devil is hard at work aping God all the time:
He can’t give you love; but he can give you a disordered sexual appetite. He cannot give you the mutual society, help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other; but he can give you Put yourself about a bit!
The devil can’t give you art; but he can give you animals in formaldehyde, an unmade bed, Carl Andre’s bricks and the junk entered for the Turner Prize.
He can’t give you music; but he can give you the noise that passes for it, the ubiquitous 24/7 racket of rock and pop.
He can’t build Chartres Cathedral; but he built the South Bank.
The devil cannot give you the gift of statesmanship; but he can give you lookalike coalition parties. It’s apt that St Michael’s Day comes around at the same time as the party conferences with all their soundbites, mawkish self-congratulation, false promises and downright lies – all to flashing lights, whirling captions and a cacophonous soundtrack.
The devil can’t give you friendship; but he can give you as many social networking sites as you want. On any one of these you can – as some of our terrorist friends do – advertise your upcoming act of mass murder.
For the devil a pregnancy is a failed abortion.
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