When Squirrels ATTACK!

"He has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of his dear son."

There's a funny character that was made as a joke alongside spiderman and other characters. It was Squirrel Girl, who knows how to control squirrels and that's her only ability. But she was able to beat really important villains like Dr. Doom that no one could by having hundreds of squirrels swarm them.

But what if she tried to fight someone and there weren't any squirrels around? What if the city was doing renovations in the park so they relocated all the squirrels to a squirrel shelter for a week. Maybe Professor Horrendous or something would beam down and she would be like, Hey watch this you evil twerp! But then nothing would happen because there's no squirrels for her to work with. There are many words that could have been used in the scripture to name the kingdom of evil that the world deals with. Maybe wickedness, or evil, or selfishness. But the word used was darkness, and more than that, the dominion of darkness, for example the thing that causes there to be enslavement over those who are under its control.

So in other words, darkness is where *ALL* the power of the enemy comes from. And what is darkness but not being able to see what is actually going on? Lies, hiding things from yourself, not feeling able to be honest about things. Adam hid in the garden from God as the very first part of the fall, and he didn't feel like he could just come out and tell God what he really thought and what he had done. But that was darkness, a lie. Adam was tricked into thinking God would be mad at him, but it was just a mirage that he couldn't see through to see God actually there looking for him and setting up a plan to fix things. The God of hate and revenge was only a picture in Adam's mind that wasn't real. God only wanted him to come tell the truth and be brutally honest with him about things. Truth will set us free.

Just like squirrel girl has power only when there are squirrels around, the powers of evil only have power when there's some darkness around for them to work with. Otherwise they are totally helpless and can only stand around and shrug.

"He destroyed principalities and powers, triumphing over them through his death burial and ressurection, completely reducing them to nothing and taking all their power away by destroying the broken law that was our mortal enemy and blocked our way."

And what could be a greater blindness than not being able to see the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ? The greatest darkness of the world isn't found in bars or crack houses, but in churches where people stand right in the place of God and see only a big super mysterious frown looking down from somewhere up above, even as they desperately try to climb up some ladder of perfection to maybe come closer some day. Everything is very big and mysterious and scary and so hard to understand. Like the stone tablets of Moses, religion stares people down with faceless words carved in stone that can't care about them or change or even see them at all. How they must think in their heart (but wouldn't dare say) that it would be so much better to have someone to work with who really cares about them and who won't give up on them, but always help them to get up and find a way forward.

"...In which case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers so that they can't see the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ."

But the dark vision is just a wild hallucination that dances in front of their eyes so that they can't see what's really right in front of them all the time. God does look down, with tears in his eyes, just reaching out a hand and saying, I will lift you up to me if you just work with me. You don't have to put on a big show and say what you think I want to hear. Just come to me and we'll talk as friends and find a way, and I'll always be there to help you keep going forward. However so many when they look up do not see what is actually there. They see a lie of darkness, that God is sitting and glaring at them to see if they will finally do better today.

Some people do break free for a moment and really see the very simple eyes of love that have always looked at them. But then after a while they start seeing those eyes less and less as all their own rules and even good progress piles up. And after a while they might hardly bother to remember that God ever cared about them when they were still a random idiot, because everything is so complicated now. Sure you should care about how much God cares about you for a little while, but then it's time to grow up and be an adult.

But he has only revealed things to the little children. If someone starts doing everything because they are just trying to avoid and run away from punishment and disapproval, instead of doing it out of the joy of knowing what is good and wonderful and chasing it down, then they are in total darkness and are just putting on a big show.

But there is a huge difference between putting on a big display to impress someone else instead of just being honest and wanting to do the right thing because you actually see how much better it is and how it can make great things happen. The person putting on a big show doesn't actually care anymore about what happens or even if things are actually good because they are so consumed with keeping someone from being mad at them. Even if everything is a lie they are fine because they have fulfilled their meager duty and that's all they wanted.

So religion leads to lies and darkness because the motivation is completely dishonest, to say the least. Like the manager of a restaurant who really wants it to succeed, or some shmoe who was hired yesterday and only works hard when the manager is looking. One of them cares about the truth and what is actually happening, the other guy just wants to avoid getting fired and yelled at.

So when we have broken free of dishonesty and seen the eyes of love that just want us to be and do the best and wonderful things that are possible, we shouldn't run back to living in darkness and lies and just trying to make things squeak by to avoid feeling punished or disapproved. Keep looking at the eyes of love, eyes like our human eyes that are not a pile of complicated and mysterious things. Even when the eyes are sad and we have done things that have caused so much harm, and we just want to find a rock to hide, we should see a strong hand reaching with a surgeon's knife to rip out the cancer that is chewing on us. We can be as glad about it as anyone would be who was told that they have a horrible cancer, and then the next day they are wheeled in for surgery because someone just won the nobel prize for discovering a technique to operate and remove it for good. We should understand that we can always know they are eyes of love that really see us right there and care so much. We can never be so adult and wise that we don't need those eyes, always.