-- John Milton
Meditation: by David R. Slavitt a poem entitled “Hell” (from Falling from Silence: Poems)
Hell is very much like heaven except
that the furniture there has somehow been misarranged,
a pipe in a wall is leaking (the plumber again
has failed to show up), and the freezer compressor is shot
so that food is defrosting, and where is that serviceman?
Such trivial things! Surely, the great-souled and wise
seem not to mind, while we, other and lesser
(but honest about our feelings)...do we know better?
And must we keep still? Don't we have the right to complain?
But where is a pen that works? And where are my glasses?
Reading: by the liberal theologian Rebecca Parker from A House for Hope: The Promise of Progressive Religion for the Twenty-first Century (p. 9)
Beginning in early-nineteenth-century America, some Christians argued that fear of hell and hope of heaven do not make an adequate religion. They saw the debilitating fear created by evangelistic preaching of the type Jonathan Edwards made famous in his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” [The activist and abolitionist] Elizabeth Cady Stanton, exposed to such preaching as a child, describes creeping out of bed at night, sitting on the stairs, shivering, seeking comfort in the glow of the lights in the parlor, because she was so frightened that the devil would come that night and take her off to hell…
The universalist Christians preached instead that God’s ultimate purpose is the salvation of all souls. Hell was not a postmortem realm – it is present in this world when greed, violence, and exploitation wreak havoc on human well-being and the earth. Universalists believed sinners would be held to account for the harm they caused, but that harm had to be redressed here and now, and God’s love had the power to ultimately transform all injustice and purify even the most sinful soul, even if it took most of eternity to do so! Heaven could be found in this world wherever love prevails and the gifts of life are stewarded with reverence and respect. And celestial, eternal heaven is where God’s love ultimately will transform all humanity…
Reading: by the professor of medicine Hilary Tindle from Up: How Positive Thinking Can Transform Our Health and Aging (p. 27)
Optimism is a general hopefulness for the future. Pessimism, usually considered optimism’s polar opposite, is a tendency to lack hope for good things to come, or to take a lack of hope one step further and expect the worst. … Optimism is the ability to see your own bright future as real, and bring it to the present. It’s as if you’re able to “borrow” from your own vision – like money in the bank – to get through the hardship today, in order to make that future a reality. But instead of borrowing money, you are borrowing the psychology of success – the confidence, conviction, and other myriad furnishings of your own bright future. And unlike with a true bank account, you don’t have to subtract from the total every time you make a withdrawal, because your ability to imagine is infinitely renewable.
Reading: a Zen Buddhist story (from Stories of the Heart, Stories of the Spirit, by Feldman and Kornfield)
A big, tough samurai once went to see a little monk. “Monk,” he said, in a voice accustomed to instant obedience, “teach me about heaven and hell!”
The monk looked up at this mighty warrior and replied with utter disdain, “Teach you about heaven and hell? I couldn’t teach you about anything. You’re dirty. You smell. Your blade is rusty. You’re a disgrace, an embarrassment to the samurai class. Get out of my sight. I can’t stand you.”
The samurai was furious. He shook, got all red in the face, was speechless with rage. He pulled out his sword and raised it above him, preparing to the slay the monk.
“That’s hell,” said the monk softly.
The samurai was overwhelmed. The compassion and surrender of this little man who had offered his life to give this teaching to show him hell! He slowly put down his sword, filled with gratitude, and suddenly peaceful.
“And that’s heaven,” said the monk softly.
Half Heaven, Half Hell
A Sermon Delivered on January 25, 2015
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
(Drink from glass of water. Hold it up. Examine it.)
What do you think, is this glass half empty, or half full?
(Take another sip. Examine. Put glass away.)
Last week I did a quick Google search of the world wide web, in order to determine the latest world wide wisdom on this question. And this is what I learned:
The optimist says the glass is half full.
The pessimist says the glass is half empty.
The realist says the glass contains half the required amount of liquid for it to overflow.
And the cynic... wonders who drank the other half.
The worrier frets that the remaining half will evaporate by next morning.
The fanatic thinks the glass is completely full, even though it isn't.
The entrepreneur sees the glass as undervalued by half its potential.
The computer specialist says that next year the glass capacity will double, be half the price, but cost you 50% more for me to give you the answer.
The insomniac will be up all night wrestling with the question.
The existentialist wonders what is the point of the question.
The nihilist breaks the glass.
(from http://www.businessballs.com/glass-half-full-empty.htm)
Jonathan Edwards, the preacher who in 1741 memorably envisioned sinners in the hands of an angry God, writes, God “holds you over the Pit of Hell, much as one holds a Spider, or some loathesome insect, over the Fire… he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast in the Fire…; you are ten thousand Times so abominable in his Eyes as the most hateful venomous serpent in ours… It would be dreadful to suffer this Fierceness and Wrath of Almighty God one Moment; but you must suffer it to all Eternity: there will be no End to this exquisite horrible misery.”
I think it is safe to say, Jonathan Edwards was a “glass-half-empty” kind of guy.
Our Universalist forebears disagreed with him, and offered a more hopeful “glass-half-full” alternative. They preached that God is not angry but loving, and that God’s love will ultimately transform all injustice and purify all souls.
But perhaps more significant than the Universalists’ conviction that God is more interested in heaven than hell, is that they envisioned both heaven and hell not as other-worldly realms awaiting us after death, but rather realities we encounter in this world, here and now. Hell is wherever we find greed and violence, exploitation and cruelty. Heaven is wherever we find love and justice. Heaven is wherever we embody reverence and respect.
* * *
Are you a glass-half-full or a glass-half-empty kind of person? When I look at my own life, I am undecided.
Last week a good friend died suddenly, and I felt very bad about it. I felt bad that I didn’t have a chance to see him during a health crisis that turned out to be the final weeks of his life. And I felt bad for his family, whose grief is surely much more deeply felt. I was reminded of other losses, and the sadness that is an inescapable aspect of life. I was in a very glass-half-empty frame of mind.
But there were moments when I was reminded that my friend had lived a long and rich life. And that I was fortunate to spend many happy moments with him, during which I enjoyed his wit and quirky humor, his imaginative way with words, and knack for telling stories that broadened my own perspective, and deepened my appreciation for life’s small everyday joys. And I could see how, even amidst a sense of sadness there was much for which to be grateful. It was a distinct glass-half-full feeling.
* * *
After two decades of clinical practice Hilary Tindle has come to the conclusion that whether we look at life optimistically or pessimistically makes real difference, not only in terms of our subjective sense of happiness, but in objective measures of physical health.
A hopeful outlook can provide us the gumption we need to seize opportunities we might otherwise dismiss as too doubtful or demanding, Tindle says. A pessimistic outlook can lead us to sabotage any sense of hope for healing and improvement.
Whether positive or negative, or some combination, everyone has an outlook on life. Our respective outlooks, Tindle writes, “both precede and predict our risk of heart attack, stroke and cancer: the number one, two, and four causes of death among U. S. adults according to the latest CDC report. What’s more [our outlooks] predict the very risk factors that are known to cause major illnesses of aging – risk factors such as smoking, obesity, high blood pressure and cholesterol, and diabetes.” (p. 27)
And more importantly, we each have the capacity to control our outlook. And this, in turn, is perhaps the most significant way we can influence our own health and well-being. We can learn to see things in a different light. With practice and over time, we can consciously cultivate a different perspective.
But sometimes our outlook can also shift suddenly. “It may be brought on by a shocking or catastrophic event, such as the illness of a friend or family member,” Tindle writes. “In my own case, bouncing back from my life-threatening heart condition in college brought all of my blessings into sharp relief.”
When Tindle was in her early twenties, she discovered that she had a congenital heart condition. Previously undiagnosed, she realized that she had had several brushes with death during childhood without knowing it, every time she almost collapsed after strenuous exercise.
She writes,
“Ironically, feeling close to my own mortality provided a rare and valuable reference point that only bolstered my hopefulness. During open heart surgery, my heart stopped beating for two hours on bypass, but I woke up – knowing that every day is a gift that it is possible to overcome the most dire of situations. Looking back twenty years later from the vantage point of an… academic physician, wife, and mother, I realize now it was the first time a serious situation had forced my “outlook” hand, and, instinctively, I played the hope card. This somewhat unconscious act, as well as the positive outcome itself – a 360-degree spin from healthy young woman to invalid and back again – began the evolution of the can-do attitude that [now] often becomes my default.” (p.4)
* * *
Sometimes we may think that our outlook depends on the cards we are dealt by life. Some of us are luckier than others. Those of us who are healthy, successful, smart, and blessed with a loving family and partner, we imagine, will consider the glass of life half-full. Others who are afflicted with painful chronic illness, who toil at poorly paying jobs with nasty bosses, and often feel unappreciated and lonely, will invariably conclude that their glass is half-empty.
But this is not necessarily the case. The events of our lives don’t determine our outlook. In fact, just the opposite may be true.
In 1989 a study published by researchers at the University of Melbourne, Australia, tried to show to what extent life events on the one hand, and our outlook on the other, affects our happiness. The researcher figured our outlook might account for 40 percent of our happiness, and life events might account for 60 percent. Or maybe the other way around.
The researchers interviewed people on several occasions over many years, and carefully gathered data. But they soon realized they had made fundamental mistake. The psychologist and neuroscientist Elaine Fox writes:
“As their study progressed, it was clear that the same kind of thing kept happening to the same people over and over again. Lucky people were lucky again and again. Likewise people with lots of bad experiences, like relationship breakups and job losses, seemed to encounter one bad thing after another. [The researchers’] assumption that [outlook] and life events would have separate influences on happiness was wrong. Instead, [outlook] itself had the strongest influence on what happened to people. The optimists had more positive experiences, while the pessimists had more negative experiences.”
If we stop and think about it, this shouldn’t be a complete surprise. Elaine Fox says,
“Picture a bubbly, outgoing child who is warm and friendly. People are much more likely to respond to this child with smiles and physical affection than they are to a withdrawn, unsmiling child. If [the child] behaves consistently, the social world of the happy child will inevitably be more positive than that of the frightened child. There’s no luck involved: the emotional style of the child is playing a part in the kind of social world she inhabits. How we act in the world changes the kind of environment we experience and hence the range of opportunities and problems likely to come our way.” (Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain, p. 3, 4)
* * *
Are we destined for heaven, or are we destined for hell? Our answer to that question is more than idle speculation about the final destination of our lives. The answer we choose may determine the course our life will take.
For Elizabeth Cady Stanton, frightening visions of a fiery hell, and a devil who could come out at night and whisk her away, left her sitting on the stairs as a child, terribly scared, comforted only by the sight of the lights glowing in the living room.
As she grew older, she realized how damaging these frightening images were to her own sense of health and happiness. She had the courage to question, and finally reject them. When she was much older, looking back on her life, she wrote, “The memory of my own suffering has prevented me from ever shadowing one young soul with the nonsense and terror of the old theologies.”
The nineteenth-century Universalist preacher Hosea Ballou shared her views. He challenged Edwards’s notion of an angry God bent on damnation, not only on theological grounds, but also social grounds.
Imagining an ultimate divine division of the saved and the damned, makes it too easy to find a theological justification for the separation of humanity. We separate us and them, good and bad, those who deserve a larger share of wealth and power on one side, and those justifiably condemned to poverty and powerlessness on the other. Hosea Ballou said, if people imagine a divisive punishing God, they will model themselves after this God and feel justified in being cruel themselves.
Ballou firmly believed “God’s love embraces the whole human race.” And because it does, we should strive to resolve our divisions and conflicts through peaceful means. We should strive to love as God loves.
* * *
Asking ourselves, is the glass half-empty or half-full is really the wrong question. The question implies that the answer must be one or the other. Whereas the truth is, it is both. Our glass is both half-empty and half-full.
Every life has moments of hope and moments of despair. Every life has moments of anger and moments of love, moments of sorrow and moments of joy. Every life has moments of violence and moments of peace.
These are our experiences of heaven and hell. And as the samurai in our story learned, we can move from heavenly realms to the depths of hell and back again in a heartbeat.
Like the samurai, we will each have moments when we are consumed with anger, when we speak harshly, and unthinkingly hurt others – often those closest to us, often those we care most about.
And like the samurai, we will each have moments when we realize that we are recipients of kindness and compassion, most of it undeserved. From our earliest childhood, we were sustained, clothed and fed, through acts of kindness and love we did not earn. When we remember the love that surrounds us and sustains us, and when we remember to share the kindness we have known, extending it to others – we will experience peace and deep gratitude.
* * *
Heaven and hell aren’t places at which we arrive when our lives come to an end. They are places we visit each and every day, often without even realizing it.
If we pay attention to our outlook, we can recognize where we are. If we realize that we are drifting toward hell, we can chose to change direction. If we realize we are stuck in a hellish place, we can shift our perspective and get to a different place.
Sometimes this will be easier than others. But if we try, if we practice, we will get better at it.
If we pay attention we will realize that hell is very much like heaven. Heaven is very much like hell. The differences are minor. The furniture is slightly misarranged, a pipe is leaking, the freezer compressor is shot. The wise ones among us will not be too concerned about these trivial things.
Heaven is within our reach. It is our own bright future, which we can bring into the present. We can create heaven, when we clearly envision a world of justice, and firmly embrace a spirit of hope, and put that spirit into action.
May a spirit of hope grant us wisdom and strength
That our every word and deed might help build heaven on earth.
Amen.
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