Reflections

This will be the final entry in my log.

I am home now, and fully recovered. I feel every particle of my being has been renewed. Consequently, I am capable of a bit of reflection on what I have seen and heard, although I shall, I admit, be glad to finish with this topic.

My first thought is that - all glory be to God! - our gracious Lord is kind to those who do not care for him or even despise him. Nobody in Hell wants God, so he gives them very little of himself, but not so little that they can delude themselves into believing he does not exist. He gives them also very little of his works: Hell is a very insubstantial place, just enough for them to have a place to exist, but little more. For the very rocks are his creation, and even they, though drab and insubstantial, smell of God, much though the inhabitants of Hell dislike it.

I am reminded of God hiding Moses in a cleft in the mountain to protect him as he passed by, and allowing Moses to see him just in part, not fully, which would have been to much for him. If the full glory of God's face would have destroyed a righteous man such as Moses, think what it must do to a rebellious man or woman.

On reflection, what I find most interesting is that while nobody in Hell liked it - though some found it tolerable and others found it torture - none of them wanted to leave. None of them wanted to go to Heaven.

It would be, I conclude, much like putting a fish in a beautiful meadow with bees buzzing and the smell of flowers in the air. No matter how pleasant such a location would be to us, to them it is death. And to these, Heaven is the smell of death and the blaze of fire. Some simply would prefere their little Valhalla, no matter how inferior, no matter how painful, no matter if its very existance could be shown to be little more than an illusion.

Now I am done. Gladly done. And I am more than happy to turn my reportorial skills back to publishing each hithertofore undreamt of glory of our God, as his infinite goodness and love and greatness unfolds before our eyes.