Sandcastlefaith: The Potty-Mouthed Pastor's Wife
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Because life's a beach.

You walk the shoreline, alternating between sinking, and feeling random sharp objects prick your soles.
You encounter crap people dump.
You still find sand in your underwear three days later.

And yet...

...you get the occasional whiff of salt breeze, and feel the warmth of the sun and...

Breathe.

Ocean sounds

Hell and Judgement: Part 2

8/9/2014

 

Going Knurd

Picture
After my post on heaven and how it fits in with locus of control [Part 3 of 3: Getting a Grip on Control], the question came up of where does justice arise from judgement? Let’s face it—although it’s not our place to sit in judgement over others, we relinquish that right or duty over to God in a belief that ultimately, justice shall be served in a more righteous and pure manner than we can achieve personally here on Earth.

What of the souls, the remnant or essence of our being, which, for reasons of what is truly just, simply do not and cannot fit into the new creation that God has in store for us after death?

Sure, we joke about how all the people that are more fun will be in “the other place”. But seriously, is the image of an eternal backyard beer-and-BBQ something we truly wish as restitution for wrongs done to us and others? Are cutesy horns, tails and pitchforks a suitable alternative?

Obviously, I cannot give an objectively proven answer of what will happen, and to whom. But I’d like to explore a few ideas from my mind and from what I’ve read.  This week I’d like to review the concept of judgement.

In Part 2 of that series [Part 2 of 3: Get a Grip on Control], I referred to C. S. Lewis’s The Great Divorce. Souls in hell visit the foyer of heaven, and give up the seeds of sinful actions, by ridding themselves of sinful, unhealthy, or bullshit thoughts and beliefs. The process is challenging, uncomfortable, and at times hurts like a bitch. Facing reality is rarely easy.

Terry Pratchett has a wonderful term for explaining facing reality as it is: “knurd”. Here is an excerpt explaining “knurd” from http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/index.php/Knurd

Consider the following scale:

§  Being drunk is to be intoxicated by alcohol to such an extent as to be unable to perceive the world clearly through the senses.

§  Being sober is to be able to perceive the world clearly through the senses, yet humans are quite capable of giving themselves illusions and little stories to make life more bearable.

§  Being knurd is to be (un)intoxicated with Klatchian Coffee to such an extent that all such comfort stories are stripped away from the mind. 
This makes you see the world in a way 'nobody ever should', in all its harsh reality.

People generally find being knurd excruciating, as their comfortable illusions are stripped away and all of life's terrors are exposed. [...] When accidentally knurd, people hurry to get alcohol into them to restore the balance. In fact, they generally go too far, getting very drunk in order to a) make certain they aren't knurd, and b) get so comfortably illusory that the mind can't recall those terrible realities.


We all walk around with our own “pink cloud” that shields us from the reality of our own shittiness. How often have you sat in a conversation, and had to keep your jaw from dropping, because the other person complained about a quality or behaviour that they are known for doing themselves? That’s the pink cloud.

Moments like that, I really want those clouds to lift so the other person finally “gets it”. And, as we go along our lives, at times some situation, inspiration or hardship will poke holes in one or two areas of pinkyness.

But stop for a moment, and realize—those are just holes. Imagine what it would be like to go entirely knurd. No comfy remnants of fuzziness to soothe you. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Each turn of thought exposes a new horror. And each horror is not a funny bogeyman who disappears when the lights turn on; in fact, the lights are already on, and you have to face the bogeyman in the mirror.

Last week’s post was a blink on what that could feel like. We have people who experience that kind of hell through recovered memories of abuse, through George’s eyes of past madness through his eyes of “sanity”, or  through post-traumatic stress disorder (what used to be “shellshock”).  

The point I am making is that when we consider judgement, and the cleansing of ourselves from the evil we have “innocently” or intentionally harboured, it is not necessarily a soft and cushy process. I think part of justice will be that for those of us who have chosen evil, there will be judgement, and the more ugliness we have nurtured, the more hellish that reality will be. 



 

Hell and Judgement: Part 1

8/3/2014

 

The Unbearable

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Many thanks this week to La--Boheme, who kindly gave permission to share her piece "Between Heaven and Hell"  to be viewed here. You are invited to see more of her art on her website: 
http://la--boheme.wix.com/la-boheme

Dear Readers,

This week’s post is raw, visceral, disturbing and in some areas graphic. It may trigger an unwanted response. Sensitive readers are advised to skip it and wait until the next article is posted.


When I used to live in another city, I had a friend at church who was bipolar. Being in evangelical and charismatic circles, George (alias) was encouraged to live out Christ’s resurrection and healing without medication for his mental health. As George’s mind began to spiral into a manic phase, others (including some church leaders) praised him for his visions and spiritual connection. Finally, George isolated himself, and was institutionalized because he had become a potential danger to himself and others.

You may think this article is going to be about the sheer dumb-assedness of the brainless fucks who enabled this destruction of a man’s mental health (thank God only temporarily). I won’t waste air on those shits today. You see, there is something even more soul-chilling than their blind devotion to a trumped-up image of Christianity.

When I visited George in the mental hospital as he slowly healed, he confided that unlike many people who suffer from bipolar to the extremity that he did, he could remember every detail, every moment, every action, every word that he spoke during his manic phase. He recalled the near-gibberish he spewed to others, and his haughty way of belittling vulnerable people he knew and loved. He recollected his shameful, vulnerable public act of nudity. He remembered the weapon he wielded, and what permanent damage he would have done to himself had the police not intervened. 

The sweet omnipotence, omniscience, super-being, all lost their seductive patina in the cold, metallic taste of sanity. George steely prepared himself to take any measure available to him, even electroshock therapy, to ensure that his mind would never take that turn again.

How does it feel to have your dreams come true? Not those lovely, soft embracing dreams. Ones whose butterfly wings rouse fluttering, drowsing, warm skin, luxuriating in the blur between subconscious and the present...

Dreams; perturbing, surreal, nonsensical dreams that you have no connection to in real life—abrupt, cutting, dread-giving dreams.  Dreams that pierce the veil from your reality to the other side of what is real....

Daddy, what is this?

Susurration, coming closer.  In and out of focus.  Is it about me?

It’s a kaleidoscope, dear.

The sky blackened. The ground shook.

They are murmuring. It’s about me, isn’t it?

But what IS this? It’s just pieces.

Susurration, marching on, they’ve made their decision, and I have no say. I’m powerless.

The sky fell.

I found an ear under the scrubs over there.

Daddy? What are these pieces?

The boots are thick, but the foot feels an object squish in the mud through the soles.  It is a finger.

Ma’am, I’m sorry to have to inform you...

Marching on, they’ve made their decision, I have no say. I’m powerless.

These pieces don’t make any sense.

Is this a heart? Or a piece of liver? Is it tagged under “miscellaneous”?

The veil was rent from side to side. Nothing else hidden.

My BABY!

Daddy, I don’t like this toy, the pieces don’t make sense.

LOOK what you made me DO! You keep TRIGGERING me, that’s why!  I can’t help it! It’s not my FAULT!

I made arrangements to meet her. I drove to her house, and we--

Daddy, answer me!

This hand grabbed the smaller hand, and squeezed very hard, just to make it stop, and discovered.....a finger...

I’m so sorry. It wasn’t about you. It was just like we were meant to get back into touch with each other.

I SAID, I don’t LIKE the kaleidoscope, take it away!

A body falling from 3 stories onto cobblestones sounds like a gunshot, or the amplified smack of a slab of meat slapped onto a butcher’s table.

Murmur, murmur, on the wall, who’s the loneliest one of them all?

The pieces are scary, TAKE it AWAY!

I have to make you shriek like a rabbit. I HAVE to because...I can’t...

OH MY GOD! TAKE THE KALEIDOSCOPE AWAY! TAKE! IT AWAY! NOW!

My child, I hear you. I cannot take it away.  The kaleidoscope are your eyes.

Then God, please, pull my eyes out, I don’t want to see this anymoreohpleasegodtakeitaway...

My beloved child, I will not. Those eyes are a part of you. And if I would take them out, nothing would change. The pieces will still be there. This is reality.

NO!

            We, the children God, have the power to live out Heaven on Earth. We have to. Hell is here too.

                                                                                                                                                 Be silent.

                                                                                                                                        Light a candle.

                                                                                                                                                      Pray.

                                                                                                                                               No words.

                                                                                                                                            Words hurt.

                                                                                                                                                      Light.



 
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