Hell & Beyond

by Michael Phillips

  “Are you saying that it is all untrue,” she said slowly, “everything you wrote? Is that what you are telling me, that God is real and Christianity is true after all?”

  “Yes, yes!” I said excitedly. I turned to the three children. “You dear young ones,” I said. “I apologize to you also. I know you do not know me. But I have done a great wrong in your family. When you understand and are able, I pray that you will be able to forgive me for it. Now go to your grandmother, you and your mother, and be healed as a family.”

  Already they had begun to fade from my sight. The last thing I was able to see was the dawning glow of truth upon the mother’s face, accompanied by a far-off smile. In my weak unbelief I did believe that my prayer had been answered. And I knew that I would meet the children’s grandfather again before my sojourn in this place was complete.

  Seventeen

  Healing the Past

  As I walked away from them, a strange feeling of warmth and completion flooding my heart, an incident rose before my mind’s eye. We were two young teens at the time, my best friend Danny and I. We were out with our skateboards and stopped into a small market for candy bars.

  The clerk at the counter was occupied with a customer in another part of the store. I was always the more daring between us. I picked up a copy of Playboy from the magazine rack and flipped through it. I opened the centerfold and turned it toward Danny. His eyes widened in disbelief. Quickly, I put it back when I saw the man returning to the counter.

  As the incident faded from my mind, it was revealed to me that that day had been the beginning of a lifelong addiction to pornography that had possessed my friend. He and I had not seen one another since high school.

  Even as I stood aghast at the horrifying realization of what I had done, I saw a man approaching. I should not have been surprised. I recognized him instantly.

  “Danny!” I cried. “I did not expect to see you here!”

  “Why not?” he asked. “You will encounter many of your friends from the past. We all have many cruelties to undo from the days of our youth. I have come to remind you of a day when you made fun of me on the playground for missing a fly ball. Your words hurt. My self-esteem was shattered. They remained with me for years.”

  “Oh, Danny—I am sorry! I remember it now. My words were nothing short of cruel. You were trying your best and I mocked you for it. Can you ever forgive me?”

  “Of course I forgive you. This is the land of forgiveness.”

  He began to walk off. I knew that if I chose I could let the moment pass and not mention the other incident. Then I remembered the words: Duty is imperative. It must be done. Putting off is of no use. Do not force God to compel you. God is determined to have his children clean.

  “Danny,” I said after him.

  He stopped and turned.

  “I have more than that to repent of,” I said sorrowfully. “I once showed you a photograph from a Playboy magazine. It was an unimaginably dreadful thing to do. I am sorrier than I can say.”

  “I don’t even remember it,” he replied. “Though I admit, I have always had a problem with pornography.”

  “It is my fault, Danny. It is on my head. I will pray to God to let responsibility fall to me, not you. Please forgive me. I am sorry.”

  Again we parted, this time with a handshake, a hug, and looks of great affection. Though I had not kept track of him, somehow I knew that Danny was also dead, and that the encounter with me was part of his own journey of learning to see and understand.

  I should not have been shocked at the next person I encountered. I had thought of her many times crossing the desert. I had been reminded of my indiscretion with sickening dismay as the faint smell of her perfume had risen from some flower or another in the garden. It burned my nostrils with a horrid and bitter fragrance, so different from the intoxicating allure it had exercised upon me in my former life.

  It had been a mere two-day affair when I was in London on a business trip. My wife and I had been married three years, and happily so. I had been swept up in the moment. I never saw the danger coming. Before I knew it I was alone in the woman’s hotel room. I did what I suppose many men do when they find themselves in such situations. I was weak, and I fell. The guilt was overpowering, but not strong enough to keep me from being drawn, like the moth to the flame, to her room again the next night. Then it was over. I never saw her again. My wife never knew. As the years went by, I almost managed to convince myself that the whole thing was a figment of my imagination. It is the way most wrong is dealt with—shoved to the back of the mind and not dealt with. I pretended the thing had never happened.

  Now the day of my repentance was at hand. It would not be easy.

  She came toward me. Our eyes met. I had the sense that she had been looking for me. I opened my mouth. Even being here, however, did not prevent that occasional awkwardness when two people begin to speak at the same instant.

  “I want to—”I began.

  “I’ve been hoping—”she said simultaneously.

  We both hesitated and smiled.

  I nodded for her to go ahead.

  “I’ve been hoping to see you,” she began again. “Those two days we spent together have weighed on me with tremendous guilt. I have repented many times to God. But I have been praying that I would see you so that I could apologize to you.”

  “That is exactly what I wanted to say,” I rejoined. “I took advantage of you and I am very sorry. Can you forgive me?”

  “Oh, I do! But it was I who took advantage of you. I knew what I was doing when I invited you up to my room after the meetings.”

  “Do you mind if I ask you a question?” I said.

  “Of course not.”

  “Are you… it seems funny to say it. But… are you dead?”

  “Yes, aren’t you? I was killed on 9/11. I was transferred from London to New York. I had been working at the World Trade Center for several years. Why, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, I am too. I think I may have died of a heart attack. Actually, I’m not really sure. But I’ve encountered several people who are still alive to whom I need to repent. Everything here is still a little confusing. I only just arrived in my City of Debt. You’re only about the fifth or sixth person I’ve encountered.”

  “This is your City of Debt?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “It’s mine too. That is extraordinary. Though I presume we are encountering different people.”

  “How long have you been here?” I asked.

  “For years! Centuries, maybe. But I had never run across you. I knew I needed to.”

  “The fact is,” I said, “we were both wrong. Our sin was great. We sinned against ourselves, against one another, against our families, and against God.”

  It was obvious that she had been here longer than me, for what she did next seemed as natural to her as breathing. She went to her knees and bowed her head. I did the same and knelt beside her.

  “God,” she prayed, tears streaming down her face, “again I come to you repenting of my sin. I am so sorry, Lord! I repent to you, and I repent to this good man whom I selfishly led into sin. May you both forgive me.”

  She burst into great sobs of remorse. She continued to cry as I prayed my own prayer of repentance.

  “I, too, am sorry, God. I was weak and foolish. I was not strong enough to protect this dear one of your children from my sin. Forgive me!” I began to weep as well.

  When we rose some time later, after the tears had done their work, I saw that her knees contained great blisters and calluses and scabs. It was clear that she spent much time on them. We faced one another, eyes and cheeks wet, then embraced. It was the pure embrace of a man and woman who were trying to learn what it meant to become children. We parted without further words. But I knew that the last farthing had not yet been fully paid. I still needed to ask my wife’s forgiveness.

  I walked away, thinking more than ever how desperately I hungered to be clean… utterly cl
eansed from every impurity inside and out.

  Even as if in response to that desire, my wife now came to me. Was she actually there… was she dreaming… was I dreaming? I do not know. But I perceived her with me. I clasped her to me and wept such hot tears that they stung my eyes as if with burning acid. I cannot recall the words of grief and contrition I spoke to her, nor her words of reply. But our embrace, with or without words, was one of forgiveness and eternal love.

  I did not know if she would know the reason for my tears and my repentance. I hoped she wouldn’t. Why mar her memory of our marriage with yet more pain added to my early death? But I had to repent, even if in her present life she did not know it. I must release her from the power of my sin. I must be clean of my sin. I would have to leave to God what my wife felt—a strange thing to say since she did not believe in him any more than I had. But if I was learning to trust him, I would have to trust him for my loved ones, too. From that moment on, I began praying that my wife and children would come to know him in their present lives and would abandon the false teachings I had left behind.

  My wife faded from sight. I think I slept, though where was a mystery. Exactly how time passed, nights and days, sleep and waking, was a blur.

  I next found myself in a train station, or so it seemed, though I had seen no modes of transportation here other than one’s own feet, and I had only heard the mention of the bus.

  I glanced about. A woman seated across the room drew my attention. She was reading a book and did not look up. But she seemed familiar and I perceived that she was the object of a debt of repentance that I must pay. I approached her.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I think I am supposed to know you, but I cannot remember.”

  “You were rude to me once on a train,” she said, as if she had been expecting me. “I was reading a book by Billy Graham and you saw it. You despised me in your heart for it. Sometime later, when I tried to sleep, you became intentionally loud and rude and made comments about the stupidity of Christians.”

  “I am very sorry,” I said. “I am having to make many apologies for my rudeness to Christians. I was wrong. I hope you will be able to forgive me.”

  “It may seem like a small incident,” the woman went on. “But your insensitivity kept me from getting sleep I badly needed. Driving home from the train station after my arrival that evening, I fell asleep at the wheel of my car. I hit a pedestrian standing on the side of the road. He was a man with a wife and three small children. He was killed because of my carelessness. I have to take account, too. I should not have tried to drive when I knew I was sleepy. But if you had been more considerate and had let me sleep in the train, it might not have happened. Your self-righteousness may have cost a man his life.”

  I stumbled out of the station a few minutes later, horror-stricken at the consequences of my thoughtlessness. Tears pouring from my eyes, I found myself praying again, this time to be led to the man and his family and whomever else had been injured by the series of events I had set in motion.

  Eighteen

  The Waters of Forgiveness

  How long it took to discharge all my debts and humble myself before those I had hurt, wronged, deceived, been rude to, spoken crossly to, dishonored, envied, thought myself better than, been jealous of, lashed out in anger against, smoldered in silent resentment toward, lusted after, unjustly criticized, or ridiculed in my mind, I did not try to imagine. Time had long ceased to matter. I was only eager to cast from between me and each one any possible or remaining offence. It may have been centuries by the reckoning of my former life.

  Every direct act of selfishness or rudeness or cruelty had effects of consequence in hundreds of lives, in some cases thousands. It took me whole lifetimes to find them all.

  Many of those I encountered were the same ones I had seen in the sea of faces shortly after my arrival. I owed a debt of repentance to any and all who had read my book promoting the Great Lie. To them I confessed the falsehoods to which I had contributed and abjured the evil I had caused to be birthed in God’s creation. I hoped it would get easier. But each time, the realization of what I had done ripped at my heart anew. How I wished I could have had my book destroyed and stricken from the history of the century in which I had lived.

  In all these wrongs lived the willing choices of the being that was me. Accountability was solely mine. I made what atonement lay open to me with everyone I had injured or offended. As I did, every human soul whom I had caused so much as a troubled thought grew newly and wonderfully precious to me.

  I longed to make amends to all against whom I had sinned. Yet how to make fourfold restitution? Countless services I envisioned to render them! I dedicated myself to using the whole of eternity, if such were possible, to turn the tears I had caused into the laughter of joy. I would become the happy slave of all!

  The most shocking encounters, like the one in the train station, were those where at some distant point far removed from me, a family suffered the loss of a loved one as a result of a chain of events I had myself set in motion. Especially bitter were the suicides of people who had believed my lie and felt that life was hopeless without God. Once accountability was forwarded to its full and inevitable conclusion, I saw that my words and deeds had had outwardly rippling impact I scarcely could have imagined. I had to seek and find all who had suffered, directly or indirectly, at my hand. I wanted to face them with my repentance. Whether others found their own accountabilities so pervasive and widespread in their Cities of Debt, I do not know. But such I found mine.

  At length—perhaps it was a thousand years!—I knew that my debts were paid. I felt such peace in my heart that all I could think to do was to lie down and sleep.

  I awoke some time later to the soft sounds of a woman’s voice singing over me.

  Hush little baby, don’t say a word,

  Mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird.

  If that mockingbird don’t sing,

  Mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.

  I opened my eyes a crack, luxuriating in the dreamy state of half-sleep. I felt the greatest peace imaginable. As I came more fully awake, my mother stood beside me singing as if I were back home in the room of my earliest years!

  I leapt to my feet.

  “Mom… it’s you—I can’t believe it!” I exclaimed.

  We embraced in great joy. That same moment, I saw my father behind her.

  “Dad!” I cried and hurried to him. He embraced me with all the love of a father’s heart. I broke into tears, clinging to him as if for life itself. I was a child again!

  “I had been intending to reply to your letter,” I said as we both backed away. “It was very considerate of you. Thank you. I never knew you felt that way about me.”

  “I always did,” answered my father with a warm smile.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t answer it. I didn’t know what to say.”

  “I think our hearts will be able to speak of such things more easily here than our words were able to there. I know your heart.”

  He looked deeply into my eyes. As I returned his gaze, I saw into my father as never before. Perhaps I was finally learning to see truly as everyone spoke of here.

  Suddenly I knew him.

  A world of knowing burst into my brain with explosive force. With powerful clarity I saw that my former perceptions had been upside-down. He had not wounded me. I had wounded him by misunderstanding his love, by expecting him to be other than he was. The expression he cast upon me was so full that all at once I remembered where I had seen the same look before. I had seen it in the Lord’s eyes when he had met me.

  At last I understood!

  My father had never been intended to be a perfect father, only a reflection of God’s Fatherhood in human garb. His very imperfection had been intended for my benefit, perhaps to teach me of my imperfections. He had loved me, to the broken and fragmented extent of which he was capable, with a reflection of God’s own love. With that stunning realization, I saw that I ha
d prevented his love finding a home. His fatherhood had been unable to find a place to alight and send down roots into the soil of my heart. I had kept those roots of fatherhood from growing within me.

  He was the man given to me to serve as the earthly reflection of God’s Fatherhood. Perhaps that reflection was not easy to see. Yet to train myself to see it was one of the first lessons life had been supposed to teach me. I saw that reverence for what my earthly father had been given to do was the most important doorway into intimacy with God. The role he had been given was to stand in God’s shoes. Whether he fulfilled that duty well or poorly was not mine to question. I was to honor that holy office, not criticize his job performance.

  My father had not, of course, taught me about God. Nevertheless, the responsibility had been upon me to find the divine reflection of the eternal among the human limitations that my father brought into our life together as father and son. All human fathers bring imperfection to that life-equation. Yet human fatherhood was God’s chosen tool. It was my responsibility to learn what Father meant. The charge given me was to honor him, not for being a perfect father, but for being my father, for giving me life, and, in a deeply mysterious way, for being God’s earthly representative to me of the divine nature.

  I embraced him again, this time as a son who was at last ready to receive his father’s love.

  “Oh, Dad,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t know you.”

  “My son, my son,” he replied, weeping, “I love you and I knew you would know me one day. Of course, we did much wrong. All parents do. We grieve for our wrongs. I know I hurt you. But that is my story. I am learning to repent for my own sins. Your story is to forgive me, and to forgive all whom you felt injured you in any way, depending not on their repentance, but on yours. Perhaps some will not repent. That is their story. Your story is to forgive without qualification. This is the land where all accountability that can be taken is taken on one’s own shoulders. Here there is no waiting for another to go halfway. This is not a land of fifty-fifty accountability or fifty-fifty repentance. This is the land where all accountability is one-hundred percent—our own.”