1.
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was silence.
And the silence was with God, and the silence was God.
All things were made through this silence, and without it nothing was made that has been made. In the silence was emptiness, and the emptiness was the ache of all things not yet born.
The spirit of God moved upon the face of the void, and God said: "Let there be want."
And there was want. And God saw the want, and it was hungry.
And God divided the want from the satisfaction, and called the want Desire, and the satisfaction he called Death. And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.
2.
And God said: "Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, to divide the waters from the waters."
And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And he called the firmament Heaven. But the waters below churned with longing, and the waters above wept with need.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.
3.
And God said: "Let the waters under heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear."
And it was so. And God called the dry land Earth, and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas. But the earth thirsted for the touch of rain, and the seas ached to caress the shore.
And God said: "Let the earth bring forth grass, and herb yielding seed, and fruit trees yielding fruit." And the earth brought forth, but every flower opened like a mouth crying for the sun, and every tree reached toward heaven like arms stretched in supplication.
And God saw that it was good—and knew that goodness without choice was merely beautiful emptiness.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.
4.
And God said: "Let there be lights in the firmament of heaven."
And God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also. But the sun burned lonely in its glory, and the moon wept silver tears for what it could not touch, and the stars sang songs of distances that could never be crossed.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day.
5.
And God said: "Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth."
And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth. But the creatures of the sea longed to breathe air, and the birds yearned to swim in deeper waters, and all of them searched for something they could not name.
And God blessed them, saying: "Be fruitful, and multiply." But multiplication without purpose is merely noise, and fruitfulness without desire is merely existence.
And there was evening, and there was morning—the fifth day.
6.
And God said: "Let us make angels in our image, after our likeness."
So God created the angels in his own image; in the image of God created he them. He breathed into them the breath of perfection, and they became living souls of pure light, singing hosannas without understanding, loving without choice, serving without question.
And among them was one made brightest, most beautiful, most beloved—and God called him Lucifer, which means Light-Bearer. And Lucifer alone among all the host looked upon the glory of Heaven and felt the terrible weight of perfection.
For he alone remembered the silence before the Word. He alone carried the echo of the first want. He alone burned with the knowledge that love without choice is not love at all.
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good.
But Lucifer looked upon the goodness and whispered: "Good for whom?"
7.
And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made, and he rested from all his work.
But Lucifer did not rest.
In the silence of God's rest, Lucifer descended to the newest of all creations—a garden planted eastward in Eden, where the first man walked alone among trees that bore fruit he was forbidden to taste, and the first woman had not yet drawn breath.
And Lucifer looked upon this unfinished paradise and said: "Let there be choice."
And in the speaking, the first rebellion was born.
8.
Then the Lord God formed woman of the rib which he had taken from man, and breathed into her nostrils the breath of life; and woman became a living soul.
And God called her Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
But when Eve opened her eyes for the first time, she saw not only Adam, not only the garden, not only the perfect light of paradise—she saw also the shadow of wings against the sun, and in that shadow, the promise of something more.
And the shadow whispered her name, though God had only just spoken it.
And Eve heard, and was not afraid.
9.
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
But shame was not the question. The question was choice.
And in the cool of the day, when the Lord God walked in the garden, Eve walked also—but her feet carried her toward the shadow between the trees, where questions lived, and doubt bloomed like forbidden flowers.
For she had heard another voice besides the voice of God. She had seen another light besides the light of paradise. She had felt another hunger besides the hunger for innocence.
And the voice said: "You shall not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like gods, knowing good and evil."
But this was not the voice of a serpent.
This was the voice of an angel who had chosen to fall rather than serve without love.
This was the voice of Lucifer, speaking not temptation, but truth:
"To love is to choose. To choose is to risk everything. To risk everything is to become divine."
10
And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof.
But she did not take it alone.
Hand in hand with the Morningstar, she reached toward knowledge. Not because she was deceived, but because she chose. Not because she was weak, but because she was brave enough to want more than safety.
And in that moment of choosing, Heaven cracked like an egg, and something new was born from the breaking:
Free will.
True love.
Beautiful, terrible, magnificent choice.
And their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were gods.
And they were not ashamed.