Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 24, 1994 TAG: 9412070039
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A31 EDITION: HOLIDAY
SOURCE: NEIL DUNNAVANT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
All of these people live alone. Their homes are miles apart, and they have no need to go anywhere or do anything. They live by choice in utter solitude on a vast, lifeless plain. No animals. No plants. No neighbors in easy view. No cars, no stores, no cinemas or restaurants.
This place is closer than you might think. It is called Hell.
Hell, it turns out, is divided into two by a mountain range whose peaks touch the depths of the Earth.
This first part is for those who on Earth found other people irritating and threatening. They slowly but surely carved people out of their lives - upsetting people, agitating them, but mostly just feeling disappointed with everyone. Carving away like a knife to a turkey until all that remained was the bony carcass of the lonely self.
No one seemed to treat him with the respect he thought he deserved. No one could live up to her high standards. By the time they were knocking on death's door, they were already alone on Earth. Hell was what they already had, what they thought they wanted, and certainly what they expected of the afterlife.
Of course, they thought they were in Heaven. Eternal solitude, a sweet and perfect bliss!
Until finally over the radio, to avoid human contact, a message was made about the bus trip. If you wanted to leave, you could. Or if you just wanted to go up for a quick visit, you could.
It was the word up that really got to them. Up for a visit! Was it just a figure of speech? Or something more?
So the people would venture out to the bus stop, mostly just to make sure where they were. And it was there they would find out they were in Hell. A big billboard right beside the bus stop said ``Welcome to Hell,'' and in smaller letters underneath, ``It's what you asked for; it's what you deserve.''
At the bus stop the quarreling would begin, and those there for the first time would reassure themselves that, yes, people are just impossible to live with, congratulate themselves for winding up in Hell, and walk back home where they would live in eternity denying their loneliness, their own faults, the great love they had shoved out of their now cold, frosty hearts.
``Let them rot in Hell for all I care,'' we say. Which they did. But someone cared, and that someone was God. Which is why the bus ride was offered once a month. Just in case someone came to understand where he had gone wrong.
However, most of the people at the bus stop knew they were in Hell and were going up to Heaven to search out old acquaintances. Not to bury the hatchet, but to stir up old hornets' nests. Alas, to get another chance to make a point. To say something like, ``Now, do you understand why I left you? I'm sure you see now that I was right and you were wrong!''
As you might expect, the trip to Heaven always proved to be for Hell's citizens a great disapointment. In Heaven, people didn't remember or care about any of that stuff. And they were too busy anyway to discuss such petty nonsense.
They were forever making trips to Earth, where enormous amounts of help were needed.
``Look,'' the Heavenly people would finally have to say, ``if you've come here to stay, welcome! But if you've come here just to justify your sad, selfish life, then excuse me. I've got work to do."
``Some people are so stubborn,'' the Hell-dweller would mutter, gladly getting back on the bus for the trip down.
There was, on the other side of the mountains, a different sort of Hellcat. They were the people who enjoyed being around others. They enjoyed using people, manipulating, torturing, tricking, browbeating. Extroverts all, they would have died of loneliness in the plain of solitude.
Their situation was somewhat worse, I think, because they fought and clawed and tried every trick in the book to abuse and misuse their fellow Hellians. But got nowhere because everyone was an expert, a professional at abuse!
They became in the end like shadowboxers, an eternal cacophony of tortured motion with no successes, no wins, no knockouts! I think it was pure Hell.
They were the ones more likely to see the light, to ache for love, to take the bus up to Heaven and stay. And they often became the best angels, first to volunteer when the people of Earth prayed up for the angelic legions to come down.
One other comment needs to be made: On the way up, the bus always made a brief stop on Earth before the final ascent to Heaven. And the bus driver, a citizen of Heaven, had lived on Earth in Fincastle, so he chose Fincastle as his stop. It gave the passengers a chance to see something worth seeing., and they always commented to the driver that Fincastle looked even better than Heaven itself -Heaven, by its sheer numbers, looking more like the suburbs of Washington, D.C., than any quaint or charming place. The citizens of Heaven will tell you that your best days on Earth are as every day in Heaven. And if your days on Earth have not been good, then they will become, of course, better than ever.
The citizens of Fincastle have been told to be thankful, and all of the Roanoke Valley likewise. And while the bus continues to stop once a month on the corner of Main and Roanoke streets at 3:30 in the morning, the doors do not open. The very bus doors of Hell shall not prevail against us. And for this, let us give thanks!
For this and for all the rest: our neighbors, our churches, our schools, our land, for the wild animals and the dogs and cats, our homes, our food, for music and books, for artists and musicians, teachers and people of business, for our families and our friends, for moments and days of Heaven on Earth, for the capacity to love and the gift of being loved, for all this and more, let us be thankful.
Neil Dunnavant is pastor of Fincastle Presbyterian Church. This story was inspired by C.S. Lewis' "The Great Divorce."
by CNB