When the Celestial Gates Opened

[gurdonark]

The pin-striped man,
whose heart had turned pearly long ago
approached the entry dais,
where the testing angel waits.

First they checked his pockets,
as the seraphic choir let loose a burst
of songs about fighting holy wars,
and found the coins that said "In God We Trust".

Then he checked out his coat pocket,
found the vouchers
he intended to give to his children
to attend the church school
in the building
with the larger than life alabaster
angels, in whose shadow homeless
people sheltered during winter rains.

During the oral examination portion of the
validation, he attested that he
had exposed all schoolchildren to God
by making them recite
that the nation was trapped underneath Him.

The "clincher" was when he was able to prove
that although he by-passed the ill man on
the road, he sure enjoyed reading the story
about the Samaritan who stopped to help.

With a rush of trumpets, the Gates exploded open, and
he walked in, a song in his heart, and
a jubilant spring in his step.
He was instantly incinerated,
because Hell works that way.

Comments

[coollibrarian.livejournal.com]

wow! that's right on target

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks very much. I don't mean to really put anyone in Hell, but this past week or two
made me want to try a little "commentary".

I appreciate the nice comment!

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

a long time ago i went to hear Billy Graham speak and he could

i liked best when he defined Hell as the replaying of one's life in slow motion, again and again

eternal shortcomings

bless those who act as god would instead of just use the name

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I alway liked that idea of hell as life played in slow motion, too. The idea that one sees the tape and is "self-convicted" appealed to me.

Although God talk is not comfortable for all,
and has certainly acquired way too much baggage, there is something to be said for the tag from St. Paul that one must work out one's own salvation with fear and trembling. I always liked that bit by Dietrich Bonhoeffer that in the "new church", we would just do the right thing as if God were not there, in God's own name. Whatever one's own theology,
whether theist, deist, atheist, or in between,
there's something about one's soul (or "self") that one must lose oneself to find oneself. It seems as though sometimes "salvation" becomes something you get with the SUV and the really cool adobe home, if you just live
prosperously......

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

such is faith, no? that there is more to salvation and the purpose of one's life than material fancies and temporary comfort

and, yes, i like the practice of virtue. i think virtue had a bad rap in my generation.

Lynn Andrews wrote a little piece about virtuet that moved me years ago to a different relationship with that word in showing me it is one of the passive qualities of power. "When you pull back the bow, preparing to set the arrow and define your target, you use your strength, the will, and the focus that you have collected within that part of yourself called virtue. Virtue comes from the unknown, quiet things you do for other people. Virtue marks your path on the other side."

my favorite quote about virtue is from Maya Angelou - "Courage may be the most important of all virtues, because without it one cannot practice any other virtue with consistency."

and i like the definition of integrity from the tarot as the alignment of one's mind, heart and spirit in action. the practice of which is, as you say, that any action on my part is one i would choose no matter who was around or watching

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I believe in personal virtue, too. Make few promises so that you can keep the ones you make. If you have to break a promise, do it with integrity and hesitation, but do it openly, cleanly and without recrimination. Never mislead. Never devalue or degrade yourself. Never lose sight of who you are, and who you wish to be. Try to live as simply as you can outside, as richly as you can inside. Never imagine that your illusions are the truth. Never imagine that the truth must kill all your illusions.

I get so tired of "anything goes" morality. I get so tired of "nothing goes" morality. In between there is the true morality....but all I know is that virtue is closer to it than abandon.

I like that thing about the tarot. Very well put.

Re:

[voodoukween.livejournal.com]

it is marvelous to connect with you

good people are needed more than ever

you give me hope

[burninggirl.livejournal.com]

I loved the biting cynicism of this poem when I first read it. Then there's the turnaround in the last two lines when the guy actually gets what he deserves which actually changes my interpretation of the poem, but I like both readings of it so it's all good. I especially liked the images of the coins and the vouchers (do American coins really say that?), and the oral examination stanza.

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thanks for commenting. The little "morality" of the last two lines may have been a mistake, but I just got the sudden urge to damn the poor fellow, which is not much like me at all, but he's now quick fried to a crackling crunch.

Not only do American coins say In God We Trust, but the man responsible for the lobbying effort which got the phrase on is a postman from my parents' home town.

It would be fun to write two different last lines to
keep the spin more satiric, so I'll have to try that out.

Thanks for commenting!

[burninggirl.livejournal.com]

It would be interesting to see an alternative ending to the poem and then to compare the two versions. On further thought, however, I don't know whether letting the guy into heaven would really work or if that would be going too far in the other direction, tone-wise. It's an interesting point o consider. I've come back to this poem about three times since I first read it and I'm still thinking about it - always the sign of a good poem, I think!

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much. That means a lot to me.

Did you know that this poem has topical US roots?
Just this week a court in California held our "pledge of allegiance" to our US flag to violate our constitution because in 1954 they added the words "under God" to the pledge. When President Eisenhower (virtually the only Republican president of any worth since 1910) signed the bill, he boasted that this would make schoolchildren recognize the power of God.

In another case, the US Supreme Court held that it is okay to use public money to give schookids vouchers to apply to private school tuition, even when the evidence in the case at hand was that only schools with enough funding to grant tuition for the ridiculously low voucher amounts were church schools subsidized by their faith.

The coins here, of course, bear the legend "In God We Trust". The dollar bill also has the mystic
eye in the pyramid sign, but fortunately the xtian fundamentalists have not figured out its religioius import, and they haven't replaced it with a picture of Ronald Reagan or anything.

Thanks very much for taking the time to comment on my poem. I'll have to remember to send you a penny sometime, so you'll have your own "In God We Trust".

aside--the rewrite

[gurdonark.livejournal.com]

I think that the alternate ending, by the way, would make this the last two lines:

He learned that Heaven is a grand stock exchange--
God is merely the currency.

Re: aside--the rewrite

[burninggirl.livejournal.com]

I like that. In the context of the previous stanzas it's certainly very thought-provoking.