And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended.
After that, he must be set free for a short time.
— Revelation, chapter 20
So many things I don’t understand about this crazy world. Probably because I’m stuck here in the middle, with you. Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right.
And also, stuck in the middle between the beginning and the end. A whole lot happened before I was born, and a lot more is going to happen after I’m gone. Which, in a sense, makes my existence sort of insignificant.
And speaking of being stuck, a certain fallen angel is reportedly going to be stuck in the Abyss for a long, long time.
According to some accounts, Satan is some type of reptile. A dragon, or a serpent, or a dragon-serpent, and at some point, he’ll get locked and sealed for a thousand years.
But when I see most illustrations, Satan is a strange-looking man with an evil smile and horns on his head. Like the illustration in the famous Codex Gigas manuscript.
When we talk about being stuck here in the middle, we might be talking about our place on the historical timeline. This crazy world must have had some kind of beginning, right? And presumably, it will have some kind of ending. Like a book has a beginning and an ending.
And you and I are somewhere in the middle, temporally speaking.
My own beginning was not especially noteworthy. One sentence in the local newspaper, in fact. “Mr. and Mrs. Richard Cannon proudly announce the arrival of their son, Louis, born on September 11, 1964 at Providence Hospital.” That was pretty much it.
I expect my obituary to be similarly concise.
The beginning of the World, meanwhile, has been written about endlessly, which is somewhat remarkable, because none of the writers were present at the beginning to witness that event. All the writers, down through the centuries, have been stuck in the temporal middle — like you and me — somewhere between the beginning and the ending, and they simply used their imaginations, and whatever evidence they could cobble together, to describe the beginning.
Which helps explain why none of the accounts match up very well.
Some recent accounts describe the beginning rather precisely.
Some 13.8 billion years ago, the universe was a dense, tremendously hot, extremely tiny point that rapidly surged outward in all directions. For a fraction of a second, the universe expanded faster than the speed of light. We do not know what triggered that initial, rapid expansion, but this period, called cosmic inflation, explains much of what we see in the universe today.
About one second after the big bang, the rapid expansion slowed. The universe was an extremely hot, uniform, cosmic soup of subatomic particles and light. As the universe continued to expand, its temperature and density decreased. A few minutes after the big bang, the universe had cooled enough for subatomic particles to form atomic nuclei. Protons and neutrons formed the nuclei of hydrogen and helium, the basic building blocks of stars, but it would be some 380,000 years before the universe cooled enough for these nuclei to capture electrons, forming the atoms we are familiar with today.
Where and when Satan appeared in this process is never explained, for some reason.
Also not explained in this account: where that dense, tremendously hot, extremely tiny point came from, and how long it may have been sitting there, just waiting to be triggered.
Other accounts of the beginning are less technical, but maybe more romantic.
The Earth was a thought in the mind of Ha-wen-ni-yu (the Ruler) who lived on a great island floating above the clouds. On this island grew a great apple tree where the inhabitants held council. Ha-wen-ni-yu said, “Let us make a new place where another people can grow. Under our council tree is a great sea of clouds which calls out for light.”
He ordered the council tree to be uprooted and he looked down into the depths. He heard the voice of the sea calling; he told Atahensic (Sky Woman) who was pregnant, to bring it life. He wrapped her in light and dropped her down through the hole.
She was carried down to the waters by a flock of birds and placed on the back of a turtle. The water animals worked to bring some soil to the surface; the soil was placed on the back of the turtle and grew to become Turtle Island.
Things did not end well for Sky Woman in this story, but at least we got a world where people can grow.
However, we have to ask: “How and when did Ha-wen-ni-yu and all his friends come to live on a great island floating above the clouds?”
That’s the trouble with beginnings. Before every beginning, there seems to be another, implied, beginning. Which naturally also implies that there will be another ending, after the ending.
“You are here”… but eternity awaits.
What I don’t get, is:
If there never really was a beginning, and there will never be a definite ending, then why do we feel like we’re in the middle? There can’t be a “middle” to something, if there aren’t any boundary edges. Or am I being stupid?
And also:
Why does Satan need to be “set free for a short time”? Seems to me, if you have him locked and sealed in the Abyss, just keep him there.
Who’s making the rules anyway?
Underrated writer Louis Cannon grew up in the vast American West, although his ex-wife, given the slightest opportunity, will deny that he ever grew up at all. You can read more stories on his Substack account.