A Theory of Heaven and Hell
INTRODUCTION
Wittgenstein says someplace he won’t offer footnotes or other references. He was fairly confident that what he was up to was original enough. I am sure things I shall say are equally to be found in the thought of others. But I am not going anyplace to source this save what courses within my mind. So this is not a treatise with antecedents. It’s my sense of how things are.
I choose to write in a semi-poetry. It frees me to be more revealing. I shall continue this as a series of poems until I have said all I wish to say.
My title is intentionally provocative. We are awash in theorizing. I am spinning things from an area none know. Be content, if you will, with what Ludwig called nonsense, not because he devalued it, but because it was not a chair or a table or a rabbit or a duck
1
There is no hell that is objective.
There is no place that’s hell.
There is a lively sense of
hell’s existence
but it is sense and
little else.
Hell is of course reality
as all else is
but nothing says realty
must be more than yours or my
bad dream.
And the chair I sit on
and the table before me.
And my still unresolved thinking
about Ludwig!
2
There is a place called heaven
places actually
myriad
unseen
as many are as needed for what it is
a place like no other
I’ve no idea save this:
Abba is there!
It is his dwelling place
whatever that may mean
It’s where his voice originates.
3
Abba is word
add capital W if you wish
Abba goes along with us
We occupy the same time.
Perplexing yes
but key.
Abba’s the One
Jesus addressed
as many others do.
Is he the one who said
I AM?
And if not
was that simply some ancient writer’s
golden intuition,
surmising what lay behind or in
the fire?
4
If you think I have this all worked out
I smile
Somehow I see Abba
as our connection
and Force as that which
continually moves
and creates everything.
And for this reason all silly notions of deity
fly out my window
and join the pigeons in the ledge.
5
Abba is straight up counselor and friend.
He does not make petulant storms
or guide DUI drivers
or kill with impunity.
He is like many thoughts
Jesus wafts at us
like common sense
like decency
not priestly not perverse.
6
So when I think of heaven
first off
it stems from the Abba Prayer
to Abba
whose home is
in heaven.
7
This is my first salvo
and it is huge for
I am saying yes
there is necessity
not able to be conceived
without creating
at least some porousness and space
for mysteries
that do indeed
reveal themselves.
Heaven is
here with us
beyond us too.
Hell is what heaven
may be to all
at times we face
the lives we led.
