f2PointEight

In retrospect, my earliest religious memories were not benign ones. They were not framed in pithy clichés about love or grace or cuddly predatory animals who lost their desire to eat you. They were framed in warning.

I was four years old when I first asked my mum who Satan was. It was a question born of curiosity without context. I had heard the name in passing, in sermons and in conversations that floated just above my comprehension, and I sensed that it carried weight. One morning, in answering my question, she sat me down and read Genesis 2 and 3 aloud. She explained that the serpent in the garden was Satan, the baddest bad guy there ever was, the one who tricked the first humans into sin and brought pain into the world. He was not merely mischievous. He was malevolent. He hated God. He wanted my soul.

There is something ironic about being introduced to cosmic dualism before you finished kindergarten. The world, which until that point had been textured by weekends at the beach, ice cream, and the ordinary rhythms of childhood, suddenly acquired a hidden layer. There were unseen forces at work. There was a malevolent intelligence intent on my anihilation. There was an existential war I had been conscripted into without my knowledge.

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