Someone asked recently what the inspiration was behind the poem “The soul of rebellion”:
I had been pondering the reality of love for the past six months or so. I began to see that as love grows, it encompasses everything – absolutely everything! It has no taint of hatred, which is the spirit of rejecting or pushing things away (at least, not in the heart, since sometimes love requires actions that appear similar to rejection).
If this is so, then ultimately Love must embrace even Hatred, and be able to see what is lovable about it. This is when it discovers that Love’s response to Hatred is its ultimate proof. In fact, without Hatred, Love would not be tested and would not be known as a reality. That is, if there were no Hatred, Love would simply be the law of things and there would be no consciousness of it at all.
At the moment I realized that all my loathing of my dark side was my dark side. It was not my light side hating my dark, but was the dark itself. My light side only loves – and loves the dark side. And so I imagined myself descending into my inner hell, and embracing my brother Satan, who works for me in mysterious ways that only Love can appreciate. It’s my limitations that create the distinction between Love and Hate, when in reality they are partners of a single Truth. Through the dynamic of their interaction, God becomes known in a conscious and palpable way.
Once I came to love my dark side – whose destruction helps clear away old thought, whose fury is a source of strength, whose impatience saves me from complacency – I realized there is nothing about my creation that I dislike. I am perfect: even my flaws are perfect. I am just as God made me. It is what I choose to do with this perfect being that brings me either joy or sorrow. When I focus on Him, I am happy; when I turn away from Him, I am sad. But as for me, myself, there is nothing that needs to be added or taken away. Only used.
And so, it was “I” who placed my light side in heaven, and my dark side in hell, and drew the boundary between them. Once this tyranny is undone, then all parts will be recipients of the same Light. His Light shines on high and low alike. Every part of me was designed to the end of knowing and worshiping God.