Do you believe in satan?

It was an odd question just two days before the 10th anniversary of 9/11, considering it was not the topic of conversation and it was asked by an attorney I had just hired.

I told her that I was not a christian. After declaring herself to be a bible-thumping christian,  she asked, "what are you? if it's OK to ask."

The usual I'm-a-UU-what-is-that chat followed, before she asked, "Do you believe in God?" I gave the simple, though incomplete and inadequate reply, "Yes."

"Do you believe in Satan?"

Good lord, couldn't she just ask something simple like "was it your fault?"  Since she seemed at present more interested in my soul than my legal status, my thoughts naturally ran to Michelle Bachmann and the anti-gay/christian evangelism disguised as therapy at Bachman and Associates. Maybe this was some legal version of christian zealotry.

I was wrong. She was not trying to convert me to christianity, but just trying to convince me that Satan or evil or the dark side or whatever you want to call it truly exists, and she had experienced it.

Do I believe in Satan? I told her that I don't know.

Since then, I came across Angela Herrera's article on uuworld.org,"After 9/11, can Unitarian Universalists talk about evil?" She says:

This is where religious liberalism, even though it has underestimated humankind’s capacity for evil in the past, has something important to say about evil. We are called to balance the naming of evil in the world with the need to be humble and on guard for it—not as the dangerous other that would try to trick us, but mingled right here with the best of ourselves. 

Right here with the best of ourselves...

Do you believe in satan, in evil, in the mingling of it in ourselves?

Wishing you all much peace on the marking of the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and in your Water Communion/Mingling of the Waters tomorrow.