Eä's Redemption by AaronAzrael  

Of the coming of the Elves and the captivity of Melkor 7

For what purpose did Eru allow
the suffering of his newborn Children?
Did he care not for them at all,
since he allowed this injustice to happen?

When the Firstborn opened their eyes,
they knew not fear, they just had a promise,
they knew not chains, they needed no lies,
no sin in their deeds to evoke karmic response.

The hand that would seize their innocence
and teach it agony instead of ways divine,
they did not know it; yet their fate commenced,
their souls and physical bodies got misaligned.

Taught agony without any prior instruction
that could feed their beings with enduring strength,
they were subjected to utter corruption,
to agony that knew no end, prolonged in length.

And in the darkest place of Arda, Utumno,
the newborn, clueless, were beaten beyond
comprehension, limitless, to decompose,
until every sense of divinity was gone.

At some point, before they got utterly lost,
rose the cry through every world and heaven:
Why did Eru Ilúvatar permit this, at what cost?
Didn't he care at all for his newborns?

If the Law of non-intervention
made it impossible for him to directly step in,
why didn't he at least give faint instructions,
something to prepare them for what would be?

Even the Valar can only second-guess,
whether the Elven souls had, inside, encoded
some sort of agreement for strangest progress
through martyrdom, although Eru loathed,

and he loathed the unnecessarity of evil,
of a pointless act of cruelty on those defenseless,
yet it must have been a Law of wisdom heavy,
since he launched the Elves entirely to sense it.

The Ein Sof, the Infinite beyond all names,
and Tzimtzum, the holy contraction, may know.
For the Infinite veiled Himself and its ways
to make room for beings to choose what they sow.

Had the Infinite filled all things openly,
no rebellion could breathe in the absolute Law,
no hatred could arise poisonously, brokenly,
but neither could love be free, compelled to withdraw.

So a space was granted for free will to exist,
where every creative action caused an effect,
where Co-Creators had to endure and resist
all of their misaligned consequences of neglect.

Within the distance from the sacred,
Melkor made his choice to disrespect,
even if hard, that meant for all the rest
to live empirically lessons that reflect.

Suffering, are you indispensable?
You aren't good, or are you for real?
Freedom is there, true, incomprehensible,
permitting wounds that take time to heal.

Tikkun, Oh, repair of brokenness,
not because the breaking itself is holy,
healing reveals depths of awareness
that gaze in the eyes of those broken ones only.

"As above, so below." Worlds mirror one another.
Good is inherently complete and balanced on its own.
Grand process of Creation allows pain to bother
because of testing the choice of the Self in dire time shown.

Chaotic destruction is not of the Law.
It can only disassemble meaninglessly in sequence.
And Eru... knew that the ultimate goal
is to forge the perfection through trials, with patience.

Every soul must awaken to its divine origin.
The darkness of Melkor was not a creative force.
Evil invents nothing, it parasites on reason,
where it can find vacant space to enter the doors.

Melkor could not make life, he could only deform it.
His torture, a brute force, revealed a weakness; ultimate.
For the Life Force is the Imperishable Flame and to source it
means to trust in God's way and learn how to wait.

Even in the deepest self- or outer- prison,
Veiled, buried and maybe forgotten,
the divine spark remains hidden,
never destroyed, already Begotten.

Yet could not Eru have prevented that corruption?
Could not Ein Sof have shattered the chains?
What lies underneath the lack of prior instruction?
Did he launch these Elves for mere anguish and pain?

Perhaps. Yet otherwise freedom itself
would cease to be the manna of freedom.
Overruling the choice of the created Selves
makes the beings shadows; nullus deorum.

And Eru remained silent, not from indifference.
Because his aeons are infinite, in the Cosmos prolonged.
In this horrific experience the Elves forged such endurance,
which eventually... would solidify their will so strong?

No one knows it all, but one thing is sure.
All is for the glory of Ilúvatar's Music,
inspiring life, the sacred, a cure,
while Melkor ... foolishly enthused it.