behold the gates of hell
It suddenly came to me as for the umpteenth morning I looked out into the foggy damp, Ἰδοὺ πύλαι ᾅδου,
the realization that none of this is real earthly life. ὁράω. And only I or another Narnia fan could see it, see, perceive, ἴδωσιν, realize, understand, get it. In "The Last Battle" the Pevensie children are present, Peter, Edmund and Lucy (not Susan, a skeptic and worldly nonbeliever, but the other three). Not to do a spoiler because who hasn't read it isn't about to do now; but at the end of the story it turns out that the children had been killed in a train wreck and instantly, by Aslan, transported into Narnia to lead and win the battle. Who doesn't understand (Lorrie Morgan 1992), "I guess you had to be there" reading the Narnia stories with my middle school kids, some of whom are looking at thirty. So, here I am for real: ᾅδης, fog and damp, silent, no sound behind the glass of my cell as cars pass by, yes, hell for me is filled with cars I cannot get to, it is not possible for it to be otherwise anymore than a prophet can be killed outside Jerusalem.
Linda, I don't think Linda is buying this, but she is just a phantom of my imagination here in ᾅδης with unreachable cars and perpetual predawn or dusk semi-darkness of foggy damp, she is back in 7H and I am here, either in purgatory for cleansing, or in hell. Or it could be a dream as in another of C S Lewis, "The Great Divorce", narrator walking abandoned streets in the chill, drizzly, eternal half-light of Hell. Or with Emily and Mother Gibbs up the hill outside Our Town as memories and attachments to life and the "living" fade.
Hell is where Untermensch enter a house of God or a school or a mall or a theater shooting and killing innocent people because of hatred that they are different. Hell is where some are excluded because they are not the same; unknowingly, I grew up there, as innocently guilty as the governor of Virginia in his blackface. We live and do and think and know because we are there before the Time that makes ancient good uncouth. Christchurch: how could even the most evil of beings hurt a child.
the realization that none of this is real earthly life. ὁράω. And only I or another Narnia fan could see it, see, perceive, ἴδωσιν, realize, understand, get it. In "The Last Battle" the Pevensie children are present, Peter, Edmund and Lucy (not Susan, a skeptic and worldly nonbeliever, but the other three). Not to do a spoiler because who hasn't read it isn't about to do now; but at the end of the story it turns out that the children had been killed in a train wreck and instantly, by Aslan, transported into Narnia to lead and win the battle. Who doesn't understand (Lorrie Morgan 1992), "I guess you had to be there" reading the Narnia stories with my middle school kids, some of whom are looking at thirty. So, here I am for real: ᾅδης, fog and damp, silent, no sound behind the glass of my cell as cars pass by, yes, hell for me is filled with cars I cannot get to, it is not possible for it to be otherwise anymore than a prophet can be killed outside Jerusalem.
Linda, I don't think Linda is buying this, but she is just a phantom of my imagination here in ᾅδης with unreachable cars and perpetual predawn or dusk semi-darkness of foggy damp, she is back in 7H and I am here, either in purgatory for cleansing, or in hell. Or it could be a dream as in another of C S Lewis, "The Great Divorce", narrator walking abandoned streets in the chill, drizzly, eternal half-light of Hell. Or with Emily and Mother Gibbs up the hill outside Our Town as memories and attachments to life and the "living" fade.
Hell is where Untermensch enter a house of God or a school or a mall or a theater shooting and killing innocent people because of hatred that they are different. Hell is where some are excluded because they are not the same; unknowingly, I grew up there, as innocently guilty as the governor of Virginia in his blackface. We live and do and think and know because we are there before the Time that makes ancient good uncouth. Christchurch: how could even the most evil of beings hurt a child.