Wednesday July 28, 2004
Subtle differences
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What\’s the difference between Heaven and Hell? The difference is not that one is an lush oasis, the other a lake of fire. Those images come to us mostly from the Koran, the biblical book of Revelation, or Dante\’s Inferno.
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam includes the famous description of paradise, “A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and thou beside me…”
These are, of course, all fanciful figures of speech. No one has ever gone there and come back to tell us about it. The only person documented to have returned from death told us nothing about life on the other side. The gospels record not one word from Jesus about his experiences beyond the tomb.
Rachel Naomi Remen offers a different kind of image, in My Grandfather\’s Blessing: “In Hell people are seated at a table overflowing with delicious food. But they have splints on their elbows and so they cannot reach their mouths with their spoons. They sit through eternity experiencing a terrible hunger in the midst of abundance. In Heaven people are also seated at a table overflowing with delicious food. They, too, have splints on their elbows and cannot reach their mouths. But, in Heaven, people use their spoons to feed one another.”
Remen concludes, “Perhaps Hell is always of our own making. In the end, the difference between Heaven and Hell may only be that in Hell, people have forgotten how to bless one another.”
It made we wonder how many other situations could be either Heaven or Hell, depending on very slight differences.
Alternative scenarios
\”Times New Roman\”> Every summer, at about this time, I rant about people who have no difficulty dragging cases of beer and bags of munchies down to the waterfront, but they\’re too exhausted to drag their empties back out.
So Hell might be a waterfront park, where every person left litter behind. Heaven might be the same park, where everyone cleaned up any trash lying around.
Or Hell might be Highway 97 on a Friday afternoon, where every driver took offence at every other driver\’s action. Hell would be full of horns honking, fingers flashing, and curses flying. Heaven could be the same stretch of highway, with everyone allowing other drivers into their lane, and cheerfully arriving five minutes late at their destination.
Or another possibility – Hell could be a religious conference, where everyone was so convinced that they had the only way to Heaven that they shouted down all other viewpoints. In that case, Heaven would be a conference where people listened to each other\’s faith experiences with respect.
Intriguing images? Yes, but notice something – nothing puts these ideal conditions, or these horrific conditions, some time in the indefinable future. They\’re all possible right here, right now.
John Milton, who shaped many of our visions of Hell in Paradise Lost, had Lucifer utter this insight:
Can make a Heav\’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav\’n…
Copyright © 2002 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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