Luca
Signorelli
Duomo,
Orvieto
On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 12:53 PM, FO wrote:
The Israelites are still out in the wilderness of Sinai. Korah rebelled against Moses and the earth opened up and swallowed him whole and all his followers and they went down to Sheol. ---
Whoah! I think this can happen, but not very often. It's what I saw when I spent time with dying patients at the hospital -- they all went to heaven, except for two fellows -- I remember this very clearly -- these two fellows dying would not let go of their anger, they were cursing and they were headed for darkness and I remember looking at them and wanting to say -- "it's not too late, let it go, rise up to the light that's coming" -- but I think these two fellows went to hell, except I wasn't present at the very end, so they have may repented.
Anyway, the best I can come up with is that Korah and a few other people go to hell, but most of us are going to heaven.
How does it look to you?
--
FO
Dear F,
I remember your God-damned
patients.
And yes, I think most of us
are going to "heaven." (Have you heard "the dirty little
secret?" About 15% of near-death experiences are hellish.)
My hunch is that everyone
"gets in" though often there will be hell to pay.
Tell me.
Were you as disappointed as I
when Rome deconstructed purgatory?
Earth Is Purgatory. (Some
suggest Earth is the hell of another planet, but they are wrong. Earth is purgatory.
If, when we die, we are not ready to gaze peaceably on The Beatific
Vision, we go to purgatory.)
Whether we reach heaven after
a single "round" of terrestrial purgatory (or if our liberation
requires a others) people eventually undergo metanoia. (Even
Republicans will one day sign off on tax hikes despite the solemn oaths they've
spoken before man and God.)
And if some people prove
irremediably obtuse, I venture their souls are snuffed from existence
altogether.
And if they are not
"extinguished," then would a loving God not "sedate" them
like Lord Rhoop in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader - perpetual
nightmare giving way to "sleep without dreams."
"Eternal"
punishment -- even self-induced "eternal" punishment -- would serve
no purpose consistent with The Nature of Love - at least assuming Love is
bound with compassion.
I do not believe Love would -
or could - structure existence in such a damnable way.
Even we humans, bloodthirsty
and vengeful as we are, do not design endless torment whether directly, or
indirectly. Even those military and para-miliatry fiends who torture their
fellows, send them to their cells for gruel and sleep.
Should we not hope God is at
least as "good?"
And what are we worshiping
otherwise?
Speaking of damnation, I
increasingly marvel at the widespread "Christian" notion that Love
need not participate in Compassion.
This bizarre bifurcation
seems an attempt to "use" Love for self-centered satisfaction, making
sure the dog can always be kicked.
Consider the following parade
of "Good Christians" and those who applaud brutality.
Republicans
Cheer the Death of Uninsured Americans - Ron Paul: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irx_QXsJiao
If
there is room in heaven for such as these, there is room for everyone. And so I hope.
From "God's point of
view," the "strategic advantage" of representing Hell as endless
is that every soul must be liberated at some particular junction.
Why not then "load the
dice," focusing people on The Great Gift of this incarnation
- the one they have in hand now.
If not now,
when?)
If "Accepting The
Gift" -- which is to say "Accepting Grace" -- is essential to
"salvation," what are we to make of the endless litany of sour grape
grievance expressed by the American "Right?"
American
"conservatives" are such fearful people that they devote their lives
to the propagation of fear.
It is, I believe, their
fondness for fear that disposes them to applaud visions of interminable Hell.
Not one in bizillion
"conservatives" measures up to 1 John 4:18 - "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out
fear, because fear has to do with punishment." http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4%3A18&version=NIV
Fear has to do with
punishment.
There is no fear in love.
Yes, there are things to fear
in this world.
But humor must hold the upper
hand. (Not surprisingly, the really funny people are left-of-center. Rev.
William Sloan Coffin got it right when he said: "The heart leans to the
left.")
At minimum, it is every
Christian's obligation to refrain from propagating fear beyond reasonable
bound, even if staying within reasonable bound welcomes martyrdom.
With virtual unanimity modern
Christians are quicker to kill than to lay down their lives.
Where is
"literalism" when needed most?
“You have
heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor[a] and
hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your
enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that
you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on
the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the
unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what
reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And
if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not
even pagans do that? Be complete, therefore, as
your heavenly Father is complete." Matthew 5:43-48
Shifting gears...
Increasingly, I see
salvation-or-damnation-in-the-afterlife as a distraction.
Obsessed by individual fate,
we labor within the confines of our own souls, pursuing the personal trappings
of "salvation," forgetting that "the kingdom of God is among
us" even more, I think, than within us.
Thus distracted, we isolate
ourselves in pursuit of "heavenly" self-interest and on that
egotistical course renounce "the general welfare" of humankind.
I think God would not be
happy.
Dickens nailed it:
As Marley discovered, so too
is America's "trade but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of our
business."
Will we wake from this
self-imposed nightmare - deliberately devised, long labored and at last
exported?
Will we, at minimum, have
courage to confess our reward? The reward of business? The reward of Mammon?
The reward of The Golden Calf? http://www.stormfax.com/1dickens.htm
"I tell you the truth," said the Nazarene. "They
have received their reward in full."
We are
burdened by busyness, much of it the busyness of seeking our own salvation.
Against
this graspingness, Judaism's demotion of the afterlife is a useful antidote.
Without the perpetual anxiety surrounding "Salvation!" -- and the
sirenic distraction, "Will I make the cut?" -- Jews focus
their lived lives and delighting in the gift that IS -- and their
responsiveness to it -- as their primary obligation.
L'Chaim!
In the
Old Testament, when God first identifies "himself," "he"
declares (as if "speaking" Being into Being) "I am who am."
Was
there ever such a sentence? The verb "be" used twice in four
word span.
Given that God dwells
here-and-now Judaism wisely focuses what is this moment, The Eternal Present.
(My sister Janet has a priest friend who says - and I paraphrase - 'Heaven has
begun. And when we die it will only deepen.")
In pursuit of salvation, we
Christians drive ourselves to distraction, fretful, fidgeting and afraid.
(Ironically, the Siamese qualities most likely to obstruct salvation are
fretfulness and fear.)
By fixating The Grand
Prize of heavenly afterlife, our left hand knows all too well what
the right is doing. And so haunted we distance ourselves from God's dwelling
among us.
Recently, Janet and I were
discussing our Catholic upbringing, and how it was clear to us (in the 1950s)
that monks resided at the "heart of things" and that the administrative
hierarchy was a utilitarian superstructure that discharged crucial functions
but was not "the juice."
In closing, I will address
my most recent epiphany.
The range of Christian
belief is so vast -- the Amish at one end subscribing to absolute pacifism and
bible-bangers at the other eagerly anticipating "the next war."
Given this diversity -
given that one sect's credo is another curse - what, in God's name, makes us
think our tiny slice of the religious spectrum is The One and Only Truth?
I do not say this in
contempt of well-defined positions. "Purpose" is a marvelous quality
just as the purpose of Mormon family life rescues that religion from the vain
megalomania of its sexually-abusive prophet. http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/04/romney-mormonism-and-christianity.html
Rather, I criticize
self-certainty to defend the Magnum Mysterium in whose
unfathomable depths humility takes root. However awkwardly I inhabit the
outskirts of humility, it tell me this: "Southern Baptists have a point.
Methodists have a point. Presbyterians have a point. Lutherans have a point.
Anglicans have a point. Episcopalians have a point. Store-front black churches
have a point. Rev. Fred Phelps has a point. Apocalypse Cheerleaders have
a point. Quakers have a point. The Pope has a point. Holy Rollers have a point.
Shakers have a point. Anabaptists have a point. Catholic Workers have a point.
Jesuits have a point. Paulists have a point. Benedictines have a point.
Trappists have a point. Franciscans have a point. Dominicans have a point. The
Servants of the Paraclete have a point. The Desert Fathers have a point.
Catholic nuns have a point. Mother Teresa has a point. Mercy Sisters have a
point. The Sisters of St. Joseph have a point. Liberation theology has a point.
Mega-churches have a point. Mormonism has a
point. Mahayana Buddhism has a point. Hinayana Buddhism has a point.
Zen has a point. Taoism has a point. Jainism has a point. Hinduism has many
points. Orthodox Judaism has a point. Reformed Judaism has a point. Zionism has
a point. Bahai has a point. Islam has a point. Sufism has a point.'
The litany ambles on making
it ever more clear that reverence for The Mystery -- the insoluble Mystery --
sounds the only cautionary note that can prevent us from using our self-certain
individual "points" to burst every balloon but our own. (Ever notice
that "The Bible Belt" is a weapon - used buckle end first?)
I would surrender my
earthly fortune if every Christian were to read "Amish Grace: How
Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy." http://www.amazon.com/Amish-Grace-Forgiveness-Transcended-Tragedy/dp/0787997617
I am not a pacifist, but I
openly confess that Amish pacifism shames me.
Standing in the brilliance
of "Amish light" -- with its pacifism and forgiveness and
determination to love their enemies (if indeed that is how they see them) -- my
darkness is defined and I am shamed by my self.
In comparison, other
"Christians" -- myself included -- are petty minions of Satan living
our manipulated lives, pretending that God Almighty wants us to bomb Vietnam
back to The Stone Age; that God wants us to slaughter countless Iraqis as fit
retribution for 9/11; and now God wants us to invade Iran because -- of course!
-- the Mahdi is about to return and those diabolical mullahs will forsake all
human restraint.
The Amish put their lives
where their beliefs are.
The rest of us put somebody
else's life where our zoological belligerence is.
If one heeds only the words
Yeshua himself spoke, it is obvious to me that the Amish are servants of The Good
News and that "the rest of us" -- despite noble moments --
are altogether too eager to engage deadly animality, claiming, of course, that
"It is the Will of God."
Yeah. Right.
The certainty that we are
right is the surest way to go wrong.
On Judgement Day, we will
-- every one of us -- throw ourselves on "the mercy of the court."
How could it be otherwise?
We have it on high
authority that whores and tax collectors will enter heaven before all the
"good people" who study the law and discuss "what is best."
In Jesus' time, tax
collectors were viewed as traitors and thieves, employed by the Roman occupying
army to extract revenue from devout Jews - money that would be used to finance
the occupation and, eventually, the destruction of The Temple, a building
immeasurably more important to the Jews than The Twin Towers were
to us. http://www.allaboutjesuschrist.org/tax-collector-faq.htm
Pax-Shalom-Salaam
Alan
PS Check out Stephen Colbert
- http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2012/05/stephen-colbert-jesuit-thomas-reese-ayn.html
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