hell

New Years with the Devil

January 2, 2012 by Billy Coffey 24 Comments

photo-341 He came to me on New Years Eve as I stood outside gazing up at the stars—not so much a person (and not so much a light, as the Book says he can appear), but as a shadow in my own thoughts. He stood with me there beneath the moon and Venus and Orion, saying nothing at first, letting me speak because he can do no damage unless invited first.

“What are you doing here?” I asked him.

And he answered that he was roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.

“You still do that?”

Oh yes, he answered, oh yes indeed, I have done so for ages and will for ages more. Nothing gives me greater pleasure.

“Not many people believe in you anymore,” I told him. “You know that, right?”

He was well aware of that. In fact, he surprised me by saying that was what he wanted. It made things easier, he said, when it came to his work.

“Guess this is a pretty rough time of the year for you, huh?” I smiled as I said that, not because it was funny but because it was true. “You must hate Christmas more than the ACLU.”

True, he said. Christmas and Easter were not his favorite things. And he confessed that it was not so much the joy and peace that bothered him as it was the hope. He said he hated hope most of all. But tonight was New Years, and there was no better time for him.

“Why’s that?”

Really? he asked, and in my mind I saw him shake his head in wonder. You really don’t know? Why, think about it. How many people this moment are huddled together in bars and at parties with drinks in their hands? How many right now are making their resolutions (he told me he loved resolutions almost as much as our nonbelief) and promising themselves they will do better this time around? As if things could change so easily just with the turning of the calendar!

He chuckled then, and there was a chill in his laugh that even the December wind could not match.

How many people out there want nothing more than to put this year behind them? he asked me. How many want to drink those memories away? And how many think this next year will be everything this year wasn’t? I’ll change, they say. I’ll do better. But in the end it never works, and do you know why?

“Why?”

Because change hurts. Because change won’t come until it hurts more to stay the same than it does to become something different. And that’s where I win. People will endure a plain life even if they want something more, because a plain life is a painless one.

He said something else to me then. It was soft and swallowed by the wind, but I think he said that he will always win so long as we believe we are ordinary. I’m almost positive that’s what he said.

He left me then under the stars. Midnight came and went, bringing with it another year—365 days that promise the same hope and fear and longing that every year before it has held.

I hope he doesn’t come back, even though I know he will. He comes to us all sooner or later, whether we believe in him or not.

This I know: the hope I long for and the change I want in myself won’t come as easy as the turning of a calendar page. It will be hard for me. For you, too. It will often hurt and sometimes seem impossible. But I think that’s how it should be.

None of us should want a plain life.

Because none of us are ordinary.

Resolving to choose: Either/Or

October 17, 2011 by Billy Coffey 10 Comments

My uncle picked this tomahawk up last summer and gave it to my daughter, a budding Indiana Jones. And when I said he picked it up, I mean it literally. He found it in a cornfield between the South River and the Hershey plant, about six miles from my home.

People a lot smarter than me say there were never any permanent native settlements in this area. The Shenandoah Valley was instead a kind of ancient superhighway that various tribes traveled through on their way from one place to another. Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Catawba, and Delaware Indians visited this area at various times, as well as my ancestors, the Cherokee.

The problem was that in a fairly limited amount of space, one tribe was bound to run into another. The results weren’t pretty. For thousands of years, much of our valley was one big battlefield.

Evidence of these tribal wars can be found every spring when the farmers start plowing their fields. There are arrowheads by the millions, flint scalping blades by the thousands, and sometimes, the head of a tomahawk.

I’ve spent many a lost moment with this tomahawk in my hands, asking the unanswerable.

Who made this? When? How did it end up in a cornfield?

Why, I suppose, is a question that that doesn’t need asking. To the Native American male, a tomahawk was his most prized possession. Much like the samurai and his sword, the tomahawk held an almost mythical position. It was the weapon of a warrior. A instrument of death.

But maybe asking why it was made does matter. Maybe that’s the question that matters most.

I never go hiking without a tomahawk. From building a shelter to securing food and water, it can perform tasks that a knife simply cannot. One of the wisest pieces of advice about going into the woods came from my father: “You can take a knife into the mountains and live like a prince. But you can take a tomahawk into the mountains and live like a king.”

My point?

Though the tomahawk can certainly be used as a weapon, it is first and foremost a tool. It’s a thing. And like all things, it can be used for good or for bad. It can improve life or destroy it. It all depends on the user.

Maybe it’s no surprise that the ancient people who once roamed these parts chose to use their tools to destroy life. After all, they were ignorant savages. Right?

But consider what you’re using to read this post. The Internet is quite possibly greatest invention of the last century. It allows people from almost any country to connect with people they would otherwise never meet. To be exposed to other cultures and ideas. To connect. It is a treasure of information and knowledge. Don’t know something? Google it. You’ll have your answer in seconds.

But this wondrous invention that can improve the lives of millions of people has destroyed just as many. There are an estimated twenty million websites devoted exclusively to pornography. You can google how to make a bomb just as easily as how to make a birthday cake. And for every highcallingblogs.com there is a jihadist calling for death and destruction.

Maybe we’re all ignorant savages.

Not much has changed since that unknown person dropped his tomahawk and my uncle picked it up. We’re still taking what was made for good and using it for bad. And I suppose we always will. We may be smarter and more capable than our ancestors, and our children may grow to be smarter and more capable than us, but we all carry around the same fallen nature.

That’s why I get a little leery when I start hearing about how things will get better when this person’s in charge or that country gets fixed or that peace agreement gets signed. I know better.

And I know this, too: each day we are faced with this one choice: what will I do? What will I do with what God has given me? Will I use my mind to think about how I can help others, or will I use it to think about how I can help myself? Will I open my heart and risk loving even more, or will I close it because I’m too frightened of hurt? And will I use my faith as a salve to pour on open wounds, or as a weapon to fester those wounds more?

This ancient tomahawk sitting beside me was likely used to both preserve the life of its owner and take the life of his enemy. Us? We’re not a matter of both, I think. I think we’re either/or. Either serving God or serving ourselves. Either helping others or not.

Either bringing the world a little closer to heaven or a little closer to hell.

This post is part of the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival: Resolution, hosted by my friend Peter Pollock. To read more stories on this topic, please visit him at PeterPollock.com

The journey

June 8, 2011 by Billy Coffey 13 Comments

My family and I took a long trip over the weekend, long being a drive of nearly an hour and a half. Those who have kids understand that five minutes in the car with them can at times be too much. There is crying and complaining, spills and messes, and a seemingly endless chorus of “Are we there yet?” and “How much farther?”

That was our ride.

And this even with all the newfangled trinkets designed to make an hour and a half ride more comfortable. Things like DS games and DVD players. These things do well and good so long as they remain charged and the headaches do not start, which, in our case, lasted a grand total of forty minutes.

With aspirin handed out and the radio turned down, all that was left were those old fashioned games that helped me through some long rides of my own once upon a time. There was the ever-popular I Spy game, won by my son. My daughter won the out of state license plate game. They each tied at seven playing the game where you get the truckers to blow their horns.

But even after all that, there was still a half hour’s worth of driving to go. With the DS games dead, the DVD players on life support, and the radio station that seemed incapable of playing nothing but Van Halen’s “Panama,” there was nothing for us to do but wait.

“Won’t be long,” I promised. “We’ll get there soon enough.”

I knew that wasn’t exactly right. And I’ll say that while I said it, I was thinking of the drive back. Of going back there and getting out of that cramped car. Unbuckling my belt and stretching my legs and looking at the sun and hearing it welcome me home.

I’ve heard that life is all about the journey. The destination is not just irrelevant, it spoils all the fun. Sounds like a romantic notion. And just as most romantic notions, that one’s just plain ridiculous. What’s the use in going if you have nowhere to go? Why start when there is no end?

As I drove, road leading toward a horizon that only yielded more road, I decided there was also something else that could be described as a journey rather than a destination.

Hell.

My sour attitude didn’t last long. And of course I don’t want to imply that spending ninety minutes in the car with my family was hellish. It was not. It only seemed that way for a bit.

But after that bit I began to realize how apropos our drive was to life itself. Because to a certain extent we are all on a road. There are dips and curves, mountains and valleys. There are times when extreme concentration is necessary and times when everything seems flat and boring. Regardless, the point is to keep going. There is no heading back, not for any of us. The road is forward. It always shall be.

We have company along the way. Family and loved ones that sometimes get on our nerves but most times we know we could never live without. They are with us and we them, even though each has his or her own vantage point, his or her own place.

There are others too, sharing a bit of the road with us while we travel. Some pull alongside for a long while and become familiar. Others are there and then gone, never to be seen again. It’s a big road, life, and we all go at our own pace. Some are in a hurry and others take their time. But regardless, we all will reach The End someday.

The End. Oh yes. Because while the road may be wide and long, there is no room for existential thoughts of a journey without a destination. We may be given the freedom to ride as we wish, to be cautious or not, to ride with the windows down or rolled up tight, but that freedom ends there. We were not given the choice to be upon this road, and we are not given the choice to stay upon it.

And if that causes us grief, I say it shouldn’t. I say I look forward to that day when my ride is done. When I can unbuckle my seatbelt and step outside. I will stretch my legs and stare at the Son, and He will say welcome home.

Doubting heaven

March 21, 2011 by Billy Coffey 15 Comments

There was a time when I wasn’t sure about heaven.

God seemed too distant—too big—to go to all the trouble of tending to my eternal needs. I thought His time was better spent keeping the planets in motion and tending to the angels. Angels were much more worthy of His attention than little me. Little, scrawny, dirty me.

That wasn’t always the case. As a child, I believed heaven was there much like I believed West Virginia was there. Our sister state resided just over the mountains, there but not seen. Heaven was much the same, just over the horizon of my life.

I don’t remember when I started my doubting. My teenage years seem the likely culprit, that time when the head swells with knowledge and the heart is found tender and broken by loves unfulfilled and dreams unmet. That’s generally the age when God goes from nearby to far off, and we wonder why He moved. That was me. Heaven was relegated to that corner of my mind occupied by stories of Atlantis and Santa Claus, both of which may have been real enough once upon a time but were now covered with thick layers of exaggeration. The world opened up just as wide for me at eighteen as it does anyone else. It took up all my vision. I could not see heaven anymore.

That lasted until my mid-twenties. Another milestone in life, one just as important but not as celebrated as the teenage years. I was married by then, working, trying to get something—anything—published and not quite getting it. I remember my wife and I were renting a small house on a farm, and I remember getting up early one morning and sitting on the porch, staring out at the alpenglow coming over the mountains and the cows grazing in the pasture. That’s when I realized that heaven was real. Seems strange, doesn’t it? That I would fully return to faith by staring at cattle. But that’s how it happened. It was as if some small part of me finally understood that I was made for better lands. That we all were.

With heaven now firmly entrenched in my mind, my thoughts then went to the prospect of hell. An old man named Luther Campbell died a few years later. A good man. Raised up here in town, was called to war in Korea. Came home, married, had kids and then grandkids. Spent thirty years at a job down at the factory that he absolutely hated, but did it anyway. For his family, he said. Everything about Luther revolved around his family.

Luther wasn’t a Christian. Sundays were overtime days at the factory, and that’s where Luther worshipped. For his family, you see. I remember sitting there at his graveside wondering where he was and figuring he now had all the overtime in the world. He was a good man, I kept telling myself. Wonder what God did with him?

Luther wasn’t someone like Hitler or Stalin. Those guys deserved hell. Not Mr. Luther Campbell, a good man who just wanted to provide for his family. If God was love—and I believed He was—couldn’t He see that? Couldn’t He see that we all struggled though this life, taking our turns with our feet held to the fire? That we all hurt, we all cried, we all felt the weight of sadness?

Don’t we all deserve heaven in the end?

Yes, I thought. We do. So I went from wondering if there was a heaven to being convinced there wasn’t a hell.

All that was years ago.

Things are different now.

I’ve learned much since then, life being the ultimate classroom. I still believe in heaven, now more than ever. Still believe we were made for better lands. I still believe that God is love, too. But I do believe in hell. I suppose that answers my question about where Luther Campbell’s soul now resides. It’s tough for me to deal with that sometimes. I miss him and want him safe and well. But I figure God whispers to us throughout our lives and in many different ways, and it’s up to us to listen. I think that in the end, He doesn’t send any of us to hell. We do that ourselves.

My doubts now tend to revolve around humanity rather than God, which I suppose is more justified but just as painful. I’m daily amazed at the good we can do, and I’m equally amazed at the harm we can inflict. I suppose that’s why I no longer wonder about heaven and hell. I know both are there. Because I can see the seeds of each in us all.

Connect