Alberto D. Hetman
04-20-2009, 01:41 AM
In Heaven,
after the end of Hell
It was not the day or night because God illuminated every place with his presence. For Christians this was Heaven; for those of another faith, whatever religion has promised when one was alive. Likewise, each one saw in God his God: the God that we would have been taught since we were small. And those that changed faith at least once, one would guess that they would seen in God the last one because changing faith means precisely to loathe what one believed true before but no longer now. Atheists like me finally had to accept the irrefutable evidence of the existence of God, just see him with your eyes (although for those that asked for it there was also scientific evidence in abundance). God was that bright light, much more than a sun, which hung in the sky like a cloud but which burned the eyes after a few seconds of looking at it fixedly.
There were no dates in Heaven. What purpose calendars could have in eternity, if one day follows and will always follow another. Anyway, rumours went around, probably true because in Heaven nobody lies beyond a few unimportant white lies, that more than one billion years had already gone by from the Last Judgement. ¿So many years already? And it seems to be yesterday when they bumped off all the bad guys to Hell. I remember, even now after all this time, having seen the face of Satan, the first to be thrown into the fire, a mix of terror and bewilderment. The other angels followed him after, Belial was the last one, it made me laugh that nobody wanted to be the second one. Little by little the condemned were taken to the edge of that precipice from which they were thrown into Hell. To some who refused to accept the facts and clung to the rocky edge of the precipice, or to antediluvian roots of already dry trees, it was necessary to push them with four or five angels. When the last convicted jumped, there was rejoicing in Heaven.
They let us know that God had forgiven all those condemned to Hell. I heard someone saying that we did not need explanations because God's will is not discussed, it is accepted. I could have added that God never makes mistakes, and that His Word was fulfilled verbatim, not more or less. Hell, therefore, ended. It seemed that it would be impossible for some to accept it, but nobody complained. What was whispered by the oldest ones, those who had died before the Flood, and the wiser, including Job, it was that they all deserve to repent if they do it with all their heart. Didn’t have they suffer already the hellfire for a billion years? An angel told us that they were taking everybody out from the pit, but it would take time because Hell was a very deep abyss. On the other hand, those there tortured were tired, and the only option was to climb the ladder resting against the wall of the precipice. Even though it seemed an old-fashioned method to me, soon I understood that one must earn Heaven with effort.
They took a long time to go up. I attributed it to two possible causes: that the abysm was very deep indeed, I conjectured that kilometres downwards, or that nobody would want to be the first one, proving to others by doing that that they deserved the grace of God. It could have been months or years, how could we know?, God's light illuminated day and night equally. Those who went up embraced and kissed us. Others thanked us for having forgiven them. One could see in their eyes the joy of eternal life. Some asked us for fruit juice just looking over the edge; I saw that they were thirsty. Nero I was told was among them, I remember when he threw himself at the feet of an angel and kissing his feet said: "Thank you, thank you, thank you". Nero's eyes were full of tears, he rinsed them with the side of a hand lacerated for a billion years of torture. The last one in going up was Satan who said loudly: "Praised be God that did all these wonders", with one hand he was covering the horizon and with the other he crossed himself. Or so it seemed to me. When Satan went up, and we saw that he was going to be the last convicted in going up, there was rejoicing in Heaven. Anyway, we waited awhile. Who would believe Satan that what he swore by God was true?
It was fulfilled what Isaiah prophesied about these days:
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den."
The cherubim gave us the news that there would be a banquet in Heaven, as it has never been seen before, nor it will be ever after. Everywhere there were identical scenes of love and forgiveness. I did not give any importance to the fact that forgiveness is not a human attribute but divine. One can not forgive fellowmen, only God can. But that was a detail.
Since there was no longer sin, we were again like Adam and Eve before the Fall. Abel forgave Cain that murdered him in cold blood; Julius Caesar, forgave Brutus who stabbed him without thinking it twice; a Jew, forgave Hitler that buried him almost alive in an well; Gandhi and his murderer kissed each other’s cheeks; Trotsky roared with laughter with whom stabbed him; Cicero hugged Mark Antony’s wife who cut off his tongue before the soldiers murdered him; Nero and Poppaea, whom he murdered by kicking as they say, shook hands; I heard other names: Caligula, Rasputin, Martin Luther King Jr., and even others who I did not know but who forgave each other. The worst crimes were said aloud and then forgiven. Nobody bore a grudge against the other. It was finally like a weight off one’s shoulders. Did not a preview of eternity have erased all remorse that in those few years we accumulated in life? What a joy to see Satan be raised again to be the most beautiful angel before the presence of God! And perhaps was it not true? "Beloved be our God above all vanities of existence", he told us.
Even I, and knowing that I am hard-hearted, hugged my brother and forgave him for having abandoned our dying mother just to me as if she had been a burden, the mother who gave him life, and I also forgave him that our father did not even see a small passport photo of his grandchildren before he died. I thought the same thing as everyone else, that time heals all wounds. Likewise my parents forgave their son, my brother, who promised them to try to find his children in the crowd to let them see them after all. I suggested that he asked a angel one day, not today because we were having a party and too busy. If they don’t know, who then?
Suddenly, there was silence. The voices began to be quiet down from the east, and the ubiquitous silence swooped on us first and then continued to the other cardinal points. At first we perceived it like a distant noise, or perhaps he began whispering, with fear, but gradually we were able to make out a voice in the crowd. The fellow was about one hundred meters away. I approached him to hear what he was saying. We were lucky on that, I think, since those who were farther away did not hear anything, and ask each other what was happening.
This was just what I heard:
"...But you are crazy, or are you blind? That one over there, the one that is looking down (he pointed him out with a menacing finger) was called Cain. Do you know what he did? He buried his brother Abel when he was still alive. And do they forgive each other? And that one, isn’t he Nero? He killed Poppaea by kicking her! Then he drank wine and slept with two servants, while his wife's body was still warm."
His list of names was long, most of them I knew from the history books, others were more contemporary; who spoke was probably from the 1960s. There were other crimes that he did not mention, because he did not know them, or he had already died when they were committed.
"And Satan, who can forget the life we lead for his designs? He went to and fro in the earth committing any imaginable crime. I would have better committed them myself if I would be forgiven. Satan I do not forgive you; neither you Nero, I will never forget that you set tire to Rome, for nothing; nor you Cain, I would throw you myself back again to Hell, and if the fire was put out (as they say) I would light it again with my own hands."
In that instant I saw four angels that approached him from behind. Two of them with flaming swords in their hands dispersing the crowd gathered there; the other two, grabbed him from behind, they bent his arms, resting a knee on his back they pushed him into the ground, and tied his wrists. He wanted to continue talking but a fifth angel came flying, his wings stirring the air, and gagged him. They took him away and no one stopped them doing so.
We heard a loud bang, probably bugles and trumpets blown in unison, as we saw Jesus coming down on a cloud. A choir of angels sang Hallelujah. I conjectured that those who professed other religions would see their respective Messiah in the person of Jesus. I deduced it because I heard someone babbling "Kalki" behind me, the last avatar of Vishnu. Perhaps some ancient Aztec Indians saw Quetzalcoatl in Jesus. Or the ones from the Easter Island saw one of those gods who came from beyond the horizon. For me, it was Jesus descending from the skies with more glory than that of a pharaoh of ancient Egypt. We all knelt down to worship him. When I crouched, I looked to one side but the five angels had disappeared along with that stranger.
It was not by chance that I have remembered these events. There has not been a moment of peace in my life in Heaven, I feel depressed, despite the fact that Lucifer (not anymore Satan) taught us to love our neighbour, and serve our God. I wondered what happened to that fellow. I asked several people, but nobody remembers the incident. My parents that were behind me say that God knows what he does (and I don’t doubt it for s second) and add that I should forget the subject. But I cannot. I'm wondering about the fate of that stranger.
Where did they take him if there is no Hell?
Why did he challenge God's unequivocal will?
Who was him?
Are our destinies already written, despite the fact that the books on whose pages they were written were closed forever in the Last Judgement?
Did God know that that fellow was going to speak up the way he did? Why didn’t he prevent it? Why did he send five angels to take him away after he spoke and not before?
I'm afraid to know the answers.
after the end of Hell
It was not the day or night because God illuminated every place with his presence. For Christians this was Heaven; for those of another faith, whatever religion has promised when one was alive. Likewise, each one saw in God his God: the God that we would have been taught since we were small. And those that changed faith at least once, one would guess that they would seen in God the last one because changing faith means precisely to loathe what one believed true before but no longer now. Atheists like me finally had to accept the irrefutable evidence of the existence of God, just see him with your eyes (although for those that asked for it there was also scientific evidence in abundance). God was that bright light, much more than a sun, which hung in the sky like a cloud but which burned the eyes after a few seconds of looking at it fixedly.
There were no dates in Heaven. What purpose calendars could have in eternity, if one day follows and will always follow another. Anyway, rumours went around, probably true because in Heaven nobody lies beyond a few unimportant white lies, that more than one billion years had already gone by from the Last Judgement. ¿So many years already? And it seems to be yesterday when they bumped off all the bad guys to Hell. I remember, even now after all this time, having seen the face of Satan, the first to be thrown into the fire, a mix of terror and bewilderment. The other angels followed him after, Belial was the last one, it made me laugh that nobody wanted to be the second one. Little by little the condemned were taken to the edge of that precipice from which they were thrown into Hell. To some who refused to accept the facts and clung to the rocky edge of the precipice, or to antediluvian roots of already dry trees, it was necessary to push them with four or five angels. When the last convicted jumped, there was rejoicing in Heaven.
They let us know that God had forgiven all those condemned to Hell. I heard someone saying that we did not need explanations because God's will is not discussed, it is accepted. I could have added that God never makes mistakes, and that His Word was fulfilled verbatim, not more or less. Hell, therefore, ended. It seemed that it would be impossible for some to accept it, but nobody complained. What was whispered by the oldest ones, those who had died before the Flood, and the wiser, including Job, it was that they all deserve to repent if they do it with all their heart. Didn’t have they suffer already the hellfire for a billion years? An angel told us that they were taking everybody out from the pit, but it would take time because Hell was a very deep abyss. On the other hand, those there tortured were tired, and the only option was to climb the ladder resting against the wall of the precipice. Even though it seemed an old-fashioned method to me, soon I understood that one must earn Heaven with effort.
They took a long time to go up. I attributed it to two possible causes: that the abysm was very deep indeed, I conjectured that kilometres downwards, or that nobody would want to be the first one, proving to others by doing that that they deserved the grace of God. It could have been months or years, how could we know?, God's light illuminated day and night equally. Those who went up embraced and kissed us. Others thanked us for having forgiven them. One could see in their eyes the joy of eternal life. Some asked us for fruit juice just looking over the edge; I saw that they were thirsty. Nero I was told was among them, I remember when he threw himself at the feet of an angel and kissing his feet said: "Thank you, thank you, thank you". Nero's eyes were full of tears, he rinsed them with the side of a hand lacerated for a billion years of torture. The last one in going up was Satan who said loudly: "Praised be God that did all these wonders", with one hand he was covering the horizon and with the other he crossed himself. Or so it seemed to me. When Satan went up, and we saw that he was going to be the last convicted in going up, there was rejoicing in Heaven. Anyway, we waited awhile. Who would believe Satan that what he swore by God was true?
It was fulfilled what Isaiah prophesied about these days:
"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the cockatrice' den."
The cherubim gave us the news that there would be a banquet in Heaven, as it has never been seen before, nor it will be ever after. Everywhere there were identical scenes of love and forgiveness. I did not give any importance to the fact that forgiveness is not a human attribute but divine. One can not forgive fellowmen, only God can. But that was a detail.
Since there was no longer sin, we were again like Adam and Eve before the Fall. Abel forgave Cain that murdered him in cold blood; Julius Caesar, forgave Brutus who stabbed him without thinking it twice; a Jew, forgave Hitler that buried him almost alive in an well; Gandhi and his murderer kissed each other’s cheeks; Trotsky roared with laughter with whom stabbed him; Cicero hugged Mark Antony’s wife who cut off his tongue before the soldiers murdered him; Nero and Poppaea, whom he murdered by kicking as they say, shook hands; I heard other names: Caligula, Rasputin, Martin Luther King Jr., and even others who I did not know but who forgave each other. The worst crimes were said aloud and then forgiven. Nobody bore a grudge against the other. It was finally like a weight off one’s shoulders. Did not a preview of eternity have erased all remorse that in those few years we accumulated in life? What a joy to see Satan be raised again to be the most beautiful angel before the presence of God! And perhaps was it not true? "Beloved be our God above all vanities of existence", he told us.
Even I, and knowing that I am hard-hearted, hugged my brother and forgave him for having abandoned our dying mother just to me as if she had been a burden, the mother who gave him life, and I also forgave him that our father did not even see a small passport photo of his grandchildren before he died. I thought the same thing as everyone else, that time heals all wounds. Likewise my parents forgave their son, my brother, who promised them to try to find his children in the crowd to let them see them after all. I suggested that he asked a angel one day, not today because we were having a party and too busy. If they don’t know, who then?
Suddenly, there was silence. The voices began to be quiet down from the east, and the ubiquitous silence swooped on us first and then continued to the other cardinal points. At first we perceived it like a distant noise, or perhaps he began whispering, with fear, but gradually we were able to make out a voice in the crowd. The fellow was about one hundred meters away. I approached him to hear what he was saying. We were lucky on that, I think, since those who were farther away did not hear anything, and ask each other what was happening.
This was just what I heard:
"...But you are crazy, or are you blind? That one over there, the one that is looking down (he pointed him out with a menacing finger) was called Cain. Do you know what he did? He buried his brother Abel when he was still alive. And do they forgive each other? And that one, isn’t he Nero? He killed Poppaea by kicking her! Then he drank wine and slept with two servants, while his wife's body was still warm."
His list of names was long, most of them I knew from the history books, others were more contemporary; who spoke was probably from the 1960s. There were other crimes that he did not mention, because he did not know them, or he had already died when they were committed.
"And Satan, who can forget the life we lead for his designs? He went to and fro in the earth committing any imaginable crime. I would have better committed them myself if I would be forgiven. Satan I do not forgive you; neither you Nero, I will never forget that you set tire to Rome, for nothing; nor you Cain, I would throw you myself back again to Hell, and if the fire was put out (as they say) I would light it again with my own hands."
In that instant I saw four angels that approached him from behind. Two of them with flaming swords in their hands dispersing the crowd gathered there; the other two, grabbed him from behind, they bent his arms, resting a knee on his back they pushed him into the ground, and tied his wrists. He wanted to continue talking but a fifth angel came flying, his wings stirring the air, and gagged him. They took him away and no one stopped them doing so.
We heard a loud bang, probably bugles and trumpets blown in unison, as we saw Jesus coming down on a cloud. A choir of angels sang Hallelujah. I conjectured that those who professed other religions would see their respective Messiah in the person of Jesus. I deduced it because I heard someone babbling "Kalki" behind me, the last avatar of Vishnu. Perhaps some ancient Aztec Indians saw Quetzalcoatl in Jesus. Or the ones from the Easter Island saw one of those gods who came from beyond the horizon. For me, it was Jesus descending from the skies with more glory than that of a pharaoh of ancient Egypt. We all knelt down to worship him. When I crouched, I looked to one side but the five angels had disappeared along with that stranger.
It was not by chance that I have remembered these events. There has not been a moment of peace in my life in Heaven, I feel depressed, despite the fact that Lucifer (not anymore Satan) taught us to love our neighbour, and serve our God. I wondered what happened to that fellow. I asked several people, but nobody remembers the incident. My parents that were behind me say that God knows what he does (and I don’t doubt it for s second) and add that I should forget the subject. But I cannot. I'm wondering about the fate of that stranger.
Where did they take him if there is no Hell?
Why did he challenge God's unequivocal will?
Who was him?
Are our destinies already written, despite the fact that the books on whose pages they were written were closed forever in the Last Judgement?
Did God know that that fellow was going to speak up the way he did? Why didn’t he prevent it? Why did he send five angels to take him away after he spoke and not before?
I'm afraid to know the answers.