Reality & Hell

It seems that in no time at all the topic of faith comes up at work. Some where in the hustle and bustle of task lists and action steps there is enough down time to probe into your co-workers soul and find out the lenses through which they see this world. As usual, I am the first to be found out: "God Damn it!" One says, then slowly looks toward the new guy and asks "are you offended by such vulgarities?" After nodding, I am labled: Conservative Baptist. If I had merely shrugged and said "not really" I would then be emergent and liberal. Either way, I am at one end of the awkward boat of Christiantity sailing on the breast of allegorical waters being blown by subjective imagination.

Regardless of the label, I am known to have a specific way in which I see the world around me. This was precisely the case the other day at work with one of my two co-workers. Paul, a tall lanky man in his early fourties with a lingering drawl from the South Dakota sheep ranch he grew up on and a hummus dry hummor. Just down to earth.

He unabashedly told me that he renounced Christianity on one basis: Eternal Damnation. He couldnt swallow that concept and hated what the concept did to divide peoples and cultures. My own soul beats in unison with those sentiments. Its very true what eternal damnation does to section off groups and societies.

We talked a lot about what lead him to that, I asked if that was all, or did he jettison Christ as well? Was it just this pont he wrestled with or was there more? We came to the crux: Hes homo-sexual and knows this cannot be as a proffessed Christian. I agreed.

I left work rather heavy hearted- one might sympathize with me here. I wrestled with the idea of hell, or, actually, the reality of it. Like Soloman says, "God has put eternity in the heart of man" and I cant deny that my own soul speaks of these grim realities. We all know it and it cant be denied. Psychologists have done a mighty fine job at rationalizing the fable of heaven and hell and making it a purely psychological issue. Yet they themselves have the same soul I do with the same inclinations; they just have sharper wits to create thier own fables that make the issue palatable, more sensable to our "developed faculties". How do I respond to the issue of hell? As a Christian, like the Peter says, I should be able to answer this with a sound conscience. I have to deal with it myself! I often believe I am destined for hell. Thats when I look merely at my hand that holds Christ and not His that holds me.

I began stumbiling through explanations, allegories, illusions etc on why hell exists and what to do about it. They all skirt the issue. Its sin. Thats what Sin is, Sin is Hell and thats that. A better vision of what sin is, imagine the rent body of Christ, that in essence is the image of Sin that God desires we see. What else, though, is there to Hell and Sin?

Apart from the graphic explanation Christ gives about gnashing teeth and perpetual burning, there is something I think is magnificently worse, boiling down to one thing: The absence of Christ Himself. I cant imagine a worse place to be. "Remember that you were at that time sperated from Christ, allienated from the commonwealth of Isreal and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and with out God in the world" (Eph. 2:12) is a verse that I think - along with Christs depiction - explains the essence of Hell.

I began to think about that, mulling over what makes hell so gnarly. I hate excessive heat, I hate it when people gnash thier teeth at me (it happens a lot in Denver) and I hate worms and bile. But, would all that be so bad if I had a hope for something better? Or, if in the dusk of humanity I knew a glorious twilight was coming? I think it would be at least bareable. As a matter of a fact, I think thats where all humanity sits right now. Truly. Heres an excerpt that might clear up what I am trying to say from Lewis' "The Great Divorce". Its in the middle of a dialogue with the person writing and George MacDonald (a Scottish writer and theologian) in talking about the concept of Heaven and Hell, it reads:

"They (mortals) say of some temporal suffering, "no future bliss can make up for it" not knowing that Heaven, once attained, will work backwards and turn even that agony into a glory. And of some sinful pleasure they say "let me but have this and I'll take the consequences": Little dreaming how damnation will spread back and back into their past and contaminate the pleasure of the sin. Both proceses begin even before death. The good mans past begins to change so that his forgiven sins and remembered sorrows take on the quality of Heaven: the bad mans past already conforms to his badness and is filled only with dreariness. And that is why, at the end of all things...the Blessed will say, 'we have never lived anywhere but Heaven' , and the Lost ' we were always in Hell', and both will speak truly..."

They go on and discuss in greater depth how to wrestle with this. I wont bore with those details because they prove to be confusing and perhaps, misleading. Nevertheless, I find this excerpt to speak poignantly.

I am not writing this to give answers or produce explanations or better ways of talking about Hell. It would be unbearably hard to live knowing in our souls of a finality to life, and to not have hope, living in the dreary dusk of humanity. The expression we often use for ehpemeral pain "this is hell on earth" would be best used here. What hope is it that we as shining stars in the dark hold out to humanity?

Heroic Resonance

"its friday night and I aint got no body;
I got some money 'cause I just got paid
oh how I wish I had some one to talk to
I'm in an awful state"

Spoken like a hero who's swung the blade against depression, Cat Stevens lyrics surface. I was released from work today and this stanza kept repeating it's self. I remembered that durring the first few months of living in Spain I would listen to Cat non-stop and -then also battling lonliness- these lyrics gave me humorous comfort. Seems like thats all I write about lately; well...its a big deal being along for a few weeks!

Of Mice and Pen

"S'pose you didnt have no body.S'pose you couldnt go into the bunk house and play rummy...How'd you like that? S'pose you had to sit out here an' read books. Sure you could play horse shoes until it got dark, but then you got to read books. Books ain't no good. A guy needs somebody - to be near him...a guy goes nuts if he ain't got no body. Dont make no difference who the guy is , long's he with you. I tell ya...a guy gets too lonely an' he gets sick."

~Of Mice and Men

A small cave and a big personality

Yes. This is what being in a small apartment in a strange city will do to a man. I stood arms length from the mirror and took a small fine point sharpie and began to trace the homley visage. Why is he saying that? I think he is satisfied with having cleaned the whole house and made an awesome dinner...for himself.

It was just yesterday when I was prancing through glades of aspen and pine, knee deep in slush when I imagined becoming a hermit. Some one who knows me might roll thier eyes, or, if they are the more stern type, might remind me I am married and need to think like a responsible married man. I know. I am speaking more to the idea of hermitude, not to the possibility of becoming one. I once wanted to be a monk; or some deep woods recluse like Thoreau; a witty anti-contemporary who had his stack of theological and philosophical books amassing knowledge.

The wind hushed through the bare branches above me. I stood soaking in the sun. Nearby an old cabin up to its gutters in snow sat, lonely, cold, uninhabitted waiting the summer when the owners would occupy it. I imagined my self in it, what it would be like to live there the majority of my life. Joy undulated into a somber silence.

I resloved then, that I am glad to not be a hermit. So much about the life that the kid from Into the Wild lived is appealing to me, though. Then I remember his revelation: Love. To live is to love. This cant be done running from society and all its misconceptions on how to live, eat, dress. I want to shed that off like a useless garment; even the majority of religious ideology. There's always some theological talking head with a new emergent view on how to be a Follower of Christ. I am simply cloyed with information. I want nonsense. I want to join the wild and forget that this world and its people exist. Yet, those words come back to me: to live is to love.

As for hermitude and knowledge? What good is knowledge, said Paul, if its for your self? It only puffs up. But love, oh true love like Christ showed, builds up. This is truly eternal worth: To invest in another what God has put in. For me to become a cloister, it would be like that farmer whom Christ speaks of in the parable, who loaded his barn full and sat contented, only to be asked of his life that same night. What do I actually live for? was the undertone of my thoughts high in the Rockies. Is it really for my own satisfaction in life? What about my wife? This is the greatest opportunity to love a man can have this side of heaven! How selfish my thinking has been! How empty it would be to jettison all those in your life, and society, for the sake of some peace of mind and wanton pleasure. If Christ had not resurected and given me a living hope, then yes, I could rationalize hermitude. But he did, resulting in a living hope for an eternity full of the greatest, sweetest pleasures one could possibly conjure up. So, the final question I ask is this: What am I really living for and how will I make the action oriented choices to reflect that? I bought a beer; I figure I will start there for tonight.

Cheers!

Esposa Mia

A draft sneaks from under a
Rickety door cooling my feet.
Two empty chairs face me, asking
What my plans tonight are.
I stare.
This room and these rooms
Are empty chambers with out
A soul. The appearance of life;
my flimsy frame is all
It sees.
She’s the home this house needs

Xenophobes and Philanthropists go to Denver

A final good bye kiss was given Naomi as I slid into the 1988 U-haul. The upholstery gave off a cloud of dust when I sat down. All about me was cracked rubber, torn fabric and a scent of an old attic. This would be home for the next day as Byron, Jeremy and I made our way cross country to our new home in Denver, Co. It was 5:30 pm. A darkened sky faded from a lowering sun that we northwesterners imagined loomed over these bleak clouds. The windshield began accumulating droplets of water from a heavy mist migrating through the parking lot. Naomi dissapeared from the mirror as I turned the corner. First stop, PDX Intl. Airport for Byron, then, Vancouver for Jeremy. But as the photo so poignantly states, I anticipated many more stops with plenty of "brakes" for our humor, as the stir-craziness of hours in an "upholstered coffin" might prove detri-mental to our sanity. See? It lingers like cancer.

Custom for any road trip, since high-school, was to get completely distracted with superflous agendas, last minute suprises (faulty brakes, no food, forgot my board etc.) and lack of any direction from where we were going to where we wanted to go. Many trips were discovered as we went. Needless to say, there was some hesitancy to asking my two dearest friends to acompany me. I just couldnt see it any other way though, it had to be this way, perhaps one last time.

Yes. My two greatest freinds. We're older now, two of us married, one ambivalent but being convinced by the other two that he needs to tie it; we have jobs, bills that are being paid, its a more decisive way of living as opposed to the care-free frivolousness of youth. Dont be deceived by this picture, were actually in a debate over the posthumous works of Freud and Lewis. Byron the former, Jer the latter.

Over 1500 miles were to be driven since our final departure at 8:30 pm Saturday night. Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming before we actually made it to Colorado. We were all excited for the trip. None of us had driven this far east or seen these states on such a level before. We would alternate drivers. I drove the first leg through most of Oregon. Our conversation varied from the deeper waters of our personal life to nonsense. There were times of silence where I sat absorbing the company. When friendships come to a place where hours can pass with out a word and everyone feels as comfortable and joyous as if we'd been talking, you know you have a gem, refined by time and trial. We had been, too. I can remember a time when I was bitter towards Jer. He had once confessed I was really annoying; he was only being honest. I harbored angor for a long time over that, until, finally, I approached the cross with it and those wounds were healed. Byron and I, although always close and positive, have had our bouts. Once I threw a loaded mouse trap at him while he sat reading in the peace and quiet of a morning...for the hundreth time. It set off, not only itself, but a seething vehemence from my docile friend. He set my fridge on the street corner where, as he remembers, a crack-head came by and hauled it off. I didnt talk to him for nearly two months after that. Theres more, worse things, but those are for us to know and let go of. But as we sat, I reflected over the span of time we've known eachother and the love, commitment and joy that fortifies our friendship.

Our first legitamate stop was in Idaho, at a truck stop. All the other truck stops we'd driven by honking and laughing histerically at the images of crusty worn out men waking up swearing in thier cabs. This time we were the tired ones. We'd driven all night and it was roughly 6am; there was light snow falling through the crisp dry air.

A press-pot of antique Costa Rica was made, bananas and cliff bars were downed and we still felt like the grime that forms under a trucker arm pit.

After jumping back in the truck we jetted towards Utah. Utah. Whoa! UTAH! WHOAA!UUUUUUTTTTAAAAAHHHHHH! Whoaaaaaa! What took place was a revolutuon of the mind.We decided shortly after being in Utah that this is where every consiparcy is born. We listened to the creepiest radio stations ever. Found out that Ewin McGregor is a practicing lawyer there and many other absurd "facts" that led Byron deep into senility where he abducted Jer's common sense along the way. They began chanting some odd mantra and spoke of "the code", "the hand shake" and "the U" with sincere fondness. I pressed my face against the window and stared.

When both Jer and Byron were possesed by the spirit of Joseph Smith, we decided to pull over and breath, take a creative break and regroup our senses.

We continued along, flipping through radio stations, We stopped on one where a man with a soft captivating voice spoke. He spoke of Christ and the veracity of His humanity, the Son of God, by whose blood we were cleansed and on and on he spoke of the gospel. It was all true. I turned to Jer and said, "Watch, Mormon radio". Jer nodded, "it seems too stale, recited". Just then, over the radio we heard these words "...and we thank our heralding leader the closest friend of Christ and His greatest witness, Joseph Smith who was given the greatest testimony or our Lord Christ...". The words echoed in a silent cab. Goosebumps formed on our skin. It is amazing the deceptive quality the Mormons use. As we listened, we heard the gospel recited again, the nuances are linguistical, small clauses, prepositions and articles that are strategically placed to mislead. It was amazing how close it was to the Christian faith. We continued to listen to more creed recitals. The entire faith rests on works. Such a narrow door they make for themselves. Also, absurd politics and "happenings" which presidents and elders had experienced made us ill to think of the amount of lies they have to continually cover up.

Jer evoking the spirit...

Wyoming. Why Oming? Because thats all you want to do in this forlorn god-forsaken desolate inhumane state. Flat. Cold. Dusty. Angry. Thats about all I have to say about Wyoming.

There was a cool snow storm coming over the rockies, however.

At about 10 pm we finally made it to our new home. We unloaded then went right to sleep. My first impressions of the apartment were not so bright. I laid in bed wondering - again - if I had made the right decision. I fell asleep before I got to the answer. The next morning I was awakened by sunlight dripping through the blinds of our bedroom window. I could hear Byron and Jer snoring and ocassionally thrashing about the sleeping bags. "Yes", a slient reassurance settled into my heart from the night before. I got up and began making some coffee, soon I was joined by the other two.

As soon as we had finished unpacking the truck it began to snow. It snowed hard for close to an hour. It was so fitting. I am so snow deprived. All three of us soaked it up.

We spent the day wandering around DT Denver. We harrased the politicians at the Capitol building and ate some darn expensive -but good- food at the famous Pizza Calore.

The hours were dwindling away and it was soon time for them to go home. I tried to talk them into staying one more night, pulling the lonely husband with out his wife trick: nothing. I even threatened to drown my sorrows in beer; they're only concern was that it be a quality micro-brew. Needless to say we were on the road to the airport in no time. It was a sad drive for me. The weight of living here began to take its toll on me. Naomi has some time to spend with her kin before she flies out, and still, it will be difficult. This was it for me. And it too was very difficult. We pulled up to thier terminal and I was hoping they would miss thier flight, but Byron assured me they wouldn't. So I drove off, and as I passed them I snapped one last photo...

Its difficult to see, I know, its not even much of a photo artistically. It was on whim. Point and shoot. Yet, it still captured everything I want in a photo of my greatest friends. Byrons goofy contorted face and Jers compassionate one. Both were how they would prefer leaving me. Byrons humor has been medicine for the most fatel ills, and Jers compassion has been like wings God uses to lift a weary soul. So this is it. Im here, waiting for my most dear friend and lover, Naomi, and they are there, at home, living life. Things wont change so much, we will still live for Christ, eachother and the pleasures that both give. Until I see them next, farewell and good ridance you swine!

Denver ho!

JASON: Bits of styrophome, bubble wrap and cardboard lay strewn accross the floor of an empty apartment. We're moving today. Another empty apartment sits in Denver, void, waiting our arrival. The last item to pack up is this computer. We had'nt written anything on here about our move; no reason, just occupied with other things. There is not much to say either, since any one reading this knows our reasons for moving. This is simply an account of our endeavor. This is Jason, signing off.
NAOMI: We are sad to say goodbye to all that we leave behind...family, friends, memories. But we are excited for the adventures that await us ahead.