hell – Dreaming Reality

There is nothing to do for introduction but to share with you the exact instructions for our SoCS prompt from Linda Hill. Each week we get a pompt from Linda to write a post on Saturday. This one was challening and I quote:

”Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is as follows: read closely. When you’re ready to sit down and write your post, look to the publication (book, newspaper, permission slip from your kid’s teacher, whatever you find) closest to you, and base your post on the sixth, seventh, and eighth word from the beginning of the page. Enjoy!”

Wow! So glad I wasn’t cooking or reading the newspaper or…

As it happens I already had a post in mind for today so I happened to have a book sitting nearby. The words that qualify are “shines to bless”. The book? A Wanderer in the Spirit Land, a fairly old publication, dating back to 1901, with a transcriber’s preface dating 1896.

This ia a favorite book of mine and the entire sentence from above reads, “Oh star of hope that shines to bless the Wanderer through life’s wilderness! Angels of Love-are ye come to lead the weary Wanderer home?”

I find it ironic that anything metaphysically inclined has now come to be called ‘New Age’ when, in fact, there has been awareness of the metaphysical since ancient times, perhaps even more respect for its role in existence being understood and accepted in those days. The difference, I suppose, in modern times is the social acceptance of such ideas. And a lot less witch burnings. 😏

The primary reason I love this book is the basic concept that a man who has lived less than a chaste and benevolent life, turning his back on his one true love to wheel and deal in monetary gain to the ends of deeply sinning against God and humanity, finds himself in hell-but not a religious hell. That would be too simple. This hell is one that takes time to sink in for it is not a lot different from his life. This hell I can envision, as each entering there is made to exist among others such as themselves. If a thief, among theives, if a murderer, always running from murderers, etc. To exist in a place where there is no chance of salvation or redemption, playing out scenarios wherein one is the victim of their own sins over and over would indeed be hell to me.

Our dark hero, Franchezzo, has gone to such a place, resigning himself to his fate until a lifeline as in a faraway dream is extended. His true love prays for his soul, he can see her, and his heart is broken for what he is putting her through. He never stopped loving her though his heart had become embedded in stone in later life.

( I somehow feel the idea for Ebenezer Scrooge came from this book)

So Franchezzo seeks out a way to ascend the deepest bowels of hell, rung by painful rung, only so that he may relieve her pain over his soul’s demise. The ensuing tale is reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno and the moden day movie What Dreams May Come, with Robin Williams. It is possibly one of the most heartbreaking yet profoundly beautiful films I have ever seen in terms of personal love and sacrifice, of hope and salvation.

In the film Chris descends to hell to save Annie who has committed the grave sin of suicide, but he too is eventually drawn into her nightmare and decides to stay with her there rather than live throughout eternity without her. This final act of love awakens her soul to the truth of unconditional love and they are thus saved from Annie’s hell.

I believe in a higher power that only knows love for its children and that whatever it takes to bring them home is what It would want. I also believe we have beings on Earth that deliver messages from the spirit world if only we can still our hearts and minds enough to see and hear them.

“Be still and listen, sayeth the Lord…”