Confessions of a Shiftless Mind

You may remember her as the blonde who used to do handstands and had a squeaky voice.  I was reading an interview with her and she told a story of one time when Al Franken caught her in the hallway and called her out for acting dumber than she really is.

Al Franken came up to me in the hallway alone and said, “I just want to tell you something. This really offends me but you act like an airhead all the time and you’re really smart. And it really bugs me.” It was like someone hit me in the face. Because I hate fake people and I always think I’m never fake. I said, “Well, my voice is weird and I can’t help that, but maybe I act giddy and happy and silly or something because I’m over-compensating for what I’m really thinking inside, that everyone here is going to hell and I’m supposed to tell them about Jesus.” And he looked at me, his face went red and he walked away.

Wow.

There is no escaping it - if you believe that Jesus died for your sins and you believe that the Bible is accurate as far as what it says (and by the way, it is - every time scholars have tried to hang a historical inaccuracy or fiction on it, the Bible has been proven right by archaeology), then you have to face the reality of hell.  Not Hell as a punishment (which is the commonly held perception), but hell as a separation from God, chosen by man.

It is a choice to go there.  Perhaps part of the problem with the idea of hell is that the firey caves that have been historically used to depict it are artistic ideas of how to render a concept that is completely beyond our experience as living humans.  There are two things we simply cannot imagine: heaven and hell.  The idea of eternity, perfection, and direct relationship with the creator of the universe is staggering.  But hell is just as foreign.  This is because again, contrary to popular perception, God is here on earth with us now.  God is omnipresent.  He sustains the universe constantly and acts continually.  The universe is not a clock that has been wound and runs on its own.  His presence as the Holy Spirit is what keeps so much selfishness and evil at bay in our every day lives that life is unimaginable without his presence.

Even in the most ghastly pit of cruelty and inhumanity that we have ever heard of or seen, God is still there, weeping for us.  More than that, he sustains life and even can create beauty in the midst of destruction.  I am reminded of a picture I saw of a forest fire’s scorched landscape, and the beautiful flowers that popped up, even weeks after the fire, dots of colour against charred soil and wood.  To fathom his complete absence is hard, but it will be even harder for those who do not come to know Jesus in life.  Because hell isn’t just eternal blackness.  Or even eternal pain.  Where does that pain come from?  I believe the pain and anguish that characterizes hell is of our own making - it has to be.  When a person goes to hell, he or she is eternally separated from everything forever.  But more, they are sent there, after having met Jesus, face to face.  So the pain comes from finally meeting, face to face, your creator, your sustainer, and your redeemer.  It comes from recognizing that God had been crying out to you to come to him your entire mortal life, but you ignored him, shunned him, or even actively fought against him.  Your pain comes from realizing that you have given away the chance to know a pure love unlike any other, and all you needed to do was say to him, “Yes, Jesus.  Not my will, but yours.”  The knowledge of how easy it really could have been, and the eternal reward you have forwarded, causes a torment that cannot be fathomed in a life where we fool ourselves into thinking we are merely finite bunches of atoms that came from oblivion and will return to oblivion once our body wears out.

So when she says she is acting like a flake to mask the pain of not knowing what to do to help people see everything they are throwing away and how small a price it is to buy eternal life with God, I identify.  I am seeing this more and more in myself - a frustration with not knowing what I can do to tell them.  It is hard to get to know people better and better, but having to deal with your heart attaching itself to someone who, once they are dead, you’ll never see them again.   It hurts.  What do you do with that?  But it should drive us to, as Peter teaches, “always be ready with an answer for the hope that is in you.”