Larry
In response to Paul’s post and the post by Kamp Krusty.
It was a January Night in 2001 when I went to visit Larry. Larry was the maintenance guy at the call center where I worked. He was all smiles all the time….. a very kind man in his 40’s who was a friend and a father to everyone. Everyone got along with Larry. I’ll never forget his big gestures with his long skinny arms. He would always come by to check on me and joke with me, leaning on my cubicle wall. He would ask what I was doing. I would try to explain it and he would just smile and acknowledge that he had no idea what I was talking about. Our relationship was jokes, smiles, and pats on the back. I wasn’t close to Larry, but Larry was close to everyone, or at least it felt that way. I worked with his wife, and three of his kids.
On Sunday night one of his kids found him unconscious on the floor. A stroke.
Tuesday evening after work I decided to go and see him and visit with his family. When I walked into the hospital there was a stillness that spoke of bad news. It was bad news. His unconscious body remained still. His face was hooked up to the machine with large tubes going into his mouth, forcing him to breathe unnaturally. I couldn’t see his eyes, or his smile. It didn’t even feel like it was there.
What I didn’t realize is that I had walked in on the night that they were going to unhook Larry from the life support. The swallows became thick, laden with a heaviness too thick to put words to. Larry’s large family welcomed me in, and the heavy door closed. I don’t remember who I stood next to. I remember worrying that I wasn’t supposed to be there. I probably wasn’t, but they assured me that I was welcome. My hands were cold and sweaty. My tongue was thick and I wanted to run. They were loving, each one of them. I stood in silence in what felt like a dark corner and watched each family member walk up to their dad, their son, their husband and spoke their goodbyes.
And then we sang.
The tears brought a thick salty moisture to the room. The songs we strong and loud. Familiar songs, but different. Bold. Unwavering. There was no shame. A confident shameless sadness. When it was over I watched Kathy, his wife, kiss his head as she had done a hundred times that night. I left the room. In 10 minutes Larry was unhooked from the machines and from this world.
Larry was Mormon.
I cried the entire way home. The religion that I grew up in sent Larry to hell that night. Despite his deep love for God, despite his deep love of scripture, and despite his deep love for those around him. He understood Christ to be a man that became a God, instead of vice-versa. He studied from writings of Joseph Smith, who found golden plates given by the angel Moroni. He believed that he would someday be a God and have dominion over his own world alongside his wife. He believed in levels of heavens, Satan as Christ’s brother. It wasn’t the same Christ, the same heaven, the same Satan, the same God, the same bla. bla. bla. bla.
God is bigger than this. There are those that would argue that God gave Larry the chance to believe in the truth and that Larry turned from it to believe in this other ‘lie’. But I knew Larry. He believed in his truth and dedicated his life to it. He felt the presence of God. He prayed. He loved.
God doesn’t let people go to hell because they misspelled the name of Christ. God doesn’t let people go to hell because they were mis-informed. God doesn’t let people go to hell to ‘burn for eternity’ because their notion of God looked more like Mohammed, Buddha, or Kwan Yin. Open your eyes. God doesn’t love you for what you think you know, but what you follow in your heart.
I agree, God is more concerned with what is actually in our hearts than with what religious category it appears we fall into. God knows who His sheep are. It isn’t always as readily apparent to those of us in this world.
We have been exposed to the Orthodox (i.e. Eastern Christian) perspective on grace, salvation, and the final judgment through some of Heath’s friends. It was enlightening and freeing to discover that a large branch of Christianity has historically not been quick to put labels on people as “in” or “out,” nor have they been quick to “send people” to a fiery hell. The drive in Western Christianity to categorize, systemize, and pronounce punishment has been handed down to Protestantism from Catholicism and Graeco-Roman culture, from what I understand.
From what I understand, the Orthodox stance on who’s saved is “we can say where grace is, but we can’t say where grace isn’t.” Therefore, the saints are those they all collectively agree are most definitely saved and in the presence of God. As for everyone else, the possibility is open. As for the final judgment and hell, they see that as a time when the light of God’s presence fills everywhere and everything. To the saved, that light and presence will be glorious and ecstatic, but to the unsaved, it will be torturous – just as His presence and/or dominion was to them in this life. I had previously heard hell described as a continuation of someone’s spiritual state from this life – i.e. “separation from God” – that continues in the afterlife, only made more tortuous by its absoluteness and by the awareness of the magnitude of the glory of God that we will have in the afterlife. But the Orthodox description took that idea a step farther.
I don’t think we can know or explain in this life exactly the nature of hell (just as we can’t with heaven). But I think these descriptions make more sense with the loving God I know than the idea of God doling out punishment on unbelievers because they have offended Him. I think it is quite possible that Jesus’ words about the final judgment and hell could have been referring to a final outcome like what I just described.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t agree with every idea or perspective from the Eastern Orthodox Church. But I do think they have some valuable perspective to offer us on this matter of who’s saved and who’s not and what that means for eternity. If you are interested in the Orthodox perspective on these things, we can send you some links to articles.
By the way, (and I should have said this first) – That is a beautiful story, and thank you for sharing it. I appreciated hearing your perspective on it.
“…the Glorious One bent down his golden head and touched my forehead with his tongue and said, Son thou art welcome. But I said, Alas, Lord, I am no son of thine but the servant of Tash. He answered, Child, all the service thou hast done to Tash, I account as service done to me. Then by reasons of my great desire for wisdom and understanding, I overcame my fear and questioned the Glorious One and said, Lord, is it then true, as the Ape said, that thou and Tash are one? The Lion growled so that the earth shook (but his wrath was not against me) and said, It is false. Not because he and I are one, but because we are opposites, I take to me the services which thou hast done to him. For I and he are of such different kinds that no service which is vile can be done to me, and none which is not vile can be done to him. Therefore if any man swear by Tash and keep his oath for the oath’s sake, it is by me that he had truly sworn, though he know it not, and it is I who reward him. And if any man do a cruelty in my name, then, though he says the name Aslan, it is Tash whom he serves and by Tash his deed is accepted. Dost thou understand, Child? I said, Lord, thou knowest how much I understand. But I said also (for the truth constrained me), Yet I have been seeking Tash all my days. Beloved, said the Glorious One, unless thy desire had been for me thou wouldst not have sought so long and so truly. For all find what they truly seek.”
-The Last Battle
Wow. Tough questions. And great answers. Prior to 2007, I was in the camp that doomed Larry to hell. Now I am not as certain about that. In fact, I am not at all certain about that. I have come to believe differently.
It doesn’t seem right to me that just because an Aztec or a Native American or an Aborginine, just because he was unlucky enough to be born into the wrong location, race, and time period, is doomed to hell by a loving god just because he did not happen to know the name of Christ. I really like matches’ description of this same idea as mis-spelling that name. If god really loves, would he do that. It is hard to believe that he would.
Maybe when Native Americans reached out to their great spirit, they were reaching out to the god I know. Does what they call him really mean anything? It sure seems that the Christianity we have created is really designed for the wealthy white man.
There is one thing that I do believe for certain, and that is this: I believe that god is looking for every single excuse he can find to save absolutely everyone he can. And maybe that really does include everybody in the end.
I am ready for matches and mrs matches to come back to house church.
great comments. great thoughts. wow. thanks for sharing. thanks for the c.s. lewis quote heath. beautiful. (wish i had the capacity to read more books, or a book) I apparently need to educate myself more on the easter orthodox church. I love the “we can say where grace is, but we can’t say where grace isn’t.” I’m not sure that I agree with the first half, but I can agree with the whole thing from a ‘I have to believe that I’m right on everything’ philosophy, of which everyone adheres to (including myself).
Freestyle. I once met, was blessed by, and spent a few minutes with Bear Heart, the spiritual leader of the Muskogee Nation-Creek Tribe. It could have been my adoration of him that altered my view, but I remember thinking two things. 1. He was enlightened, a beautiful man that had captured a piece of the essence of God. 2. He was a man.
You write really well.
That’s a great experience to share with them and us.
This is a really touching post–thank you for sharing.
Great story. I remember struggling with the topic of “Jesus being the only way” a few years ago. I was taking some sort of Bible study with an elder pastor. When I asked him what he thought about Gandhi or the Dali Lama (sp.?) going to hell he responded with “I can’t imagine God would do that…but it’s not for us to judge others. That’s God’s job…but I can’t imagine that”. I thought that was a very good answer and one I wasn’t expecting.