In [Tolkien’s] “Ainulindalë”, Ilúvatar, who is God, creates heavenly beings known as the Ainur, and they commence to forming all that is by way of holy music. But the greatest of the Ainur, Melkor, laid into the ground of creation his own themes, not those purposed by Ilúvatar. Of course, Melkor’s musics were not like those of Ilúvatar: one could say that they were like of discord, and not of harmony, like the others. But so being, one might possibly say all that was wrong with the world came from the themes of Melkor. And when I considered that, I thought to myself how interesting it would be if that were true of this, our world, that an evil force were at the heart of all the world’s faults, its calamities. But as with many things that make perfect sense, I dismissed the notion offhand.
What if, though? What if angels had a hand in the way that things are? In the book of Job, God relates that the sons of God (angels) rejoiced in the creation of the world — so they were definitely around at the time. What if, then? What if the Lucifer myth is true, and the greatest of the angels rebelled, swelled up with pride, and caused “a third of the stars” to be fallen with him? A third of all the angels? The mechanisms of Heaven made so things bent that far to the will of the Devil, the invention of pain, and ruin any idea of fair play being evenly distributed throughout the world? To cause the world to be a place for injustice to be, if not the rule, the theme? This would be what it meant to be not just an angel of God, but the best and the brightest: read, most powerful of all the Heavenly host. It would be a big deal.
