"The Kingdom of God is within you." Jesus
The church didn't appear to be an English as a second language type church. I'll give the church the benefit of the doubt. Their intention was, "Which do you choose?" The sign was small and I'm sure that's all the letters they could fit in. But the entire message as written was "Which you choose. Heaven or Hell?"
Growing up as a deep south Southern Baptist, I was taught that Heaven is a wonderful place. Heaven is a place of eternal beauty and bliss. Heaven is a place where our reconstituted "heavenly bodies" will live forever in joy with our friends, family and our loved ones. We will join all those who went before us and welcome all those who will come after us in the eternal Supper of the Lamb. Heaven is glorious in every way possible. Hell, on the other hand, is a place of everlasting torment. The unfortunate occupant will burn in the ovens of Hell forever and ever. There is no end to this torture and no possible means of escape. Once you enter the gates of Hell, you will burn forever and forever and forever...
"Which you choose?" One would think that everyone would choose Heaven. One would think that this would be a very easy choice to make. Why would anyone choose a place of eternal torment over a place of everlasting bliss?
I want to frame the question in another context. Which do you choose on any given day-- satisfaction, fulfillment, joy and personal peace or agony, misery and defeat? You may think that that choice would be as easy as the choice of Heaven or Hell, but apparently it's not. Some people actually seem to prefer misery over joy. With joy and misery as equal choices, they choose misery over and over again.
I do not want to suggest that people can't find themselves in horrible circumstances. I know that they do. I also realize that people suffer with all kinds of mental illnesses that dramatically affect their mood. I know that too. But with all that understood, we choose the way we feel. In Man's Search for Meaning, Dr. Viktor Frankl writes of his experience and survival of Auschwitz and other concentration camps. He says that even in the worst circumstances imaginable, some people still found purpose, hope and meaning. He said that those people stood the best chance of survival. Not all survived, but many did. In How Emotions are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain, Lisa Feldman Barrett postulates that at any given moment on any given day, regardless of our circumstances, we choose the way we feel. On its own micro scale, the human brain is as powerful as a hydroelectric dam. The currents in our 100 billion nerve cells on its microcosmic scale are just as powerful as the currents that drive those turbines that generate enough electricity to power entire cities.. There is one thing in our heads that opens the floodgates to allow this avalanche of electrochemical impulses to surge through our nervous system. That thing is our thoughts. Our mood is determined by the neurotransmitters available in the synapses of nerve cells. The specific neurotransmitters that become available are determined primarily by our thoughts. Descartes' proposition "I think, therefore I am" was ages before its time.
Thankfully our daily experience, no matter how bad things may seem to be, does not approach that of a Nazi concentration camp. In that circumstance, Dr. Frankl said the secret for those who survived was "to identify a purpose to feel positively about and then immersively imagine that outcome". After his eventual release and return to a medical practice, he continued to postulate that form of therapy for his patients. In other words, the thought processes that helped them to endure the hell they lived in and brought about the prisoners' very survival, can make all the difference in our day.
Have a flat tire. Which you choose? Get an audit notice from the IRS. Which you choose? Your pen leaks on your favorite shirt. Which you choose? The love of your life breaks up with you. Which you choose? (Insert life event here). Which you choose? One rather crude but appropriate example from The Life of Brian is in spite Brian's rather unfortunate predicament, he sang, "Always look on the bright side of life."
Yesterday afternoon the church on Highway 41 asked me, "Which you choose. Heaven or Hell?" For me, that choice is easy. I choose Heaven. Even if I'm not sure that the Heaven of the sweet by and by actually exists, I choose Heaven. If I then "immersively imagine that outcome," then I'm already there. "The Kingdom of God is within you." But let's not pine away this life for the next one. In college I sang a sacred art song about contemplating Heaven that began with "One sweetly solemn thought comes to me o'er and o'er." That solemn thought needn't be about Heaven; it can be about anything good. For Viktor Frankl in Auschwitz, it was about his wife. For me it's about boarding Delta and seeing my family in three weeks. For you it can be about whatever fills you with hope and with goodness. Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonine and endorphins (d.o.s.e) really don't care about the specifics, they only need your prompting to do what they do so well. On the other hand, cortisol and adrenaline are glad to accommodate your gloom and doom. If you're thinking about that cold beer on the beach next week while you're on the side of the road waiting for a tow truck or if you're on the beach dreading mowing your grass when you get home, in which circumstance are you better off? In which circumstance do you feel better? Endorphins and cortisol are equal opportunity brain chemicals. Which you choose?
The psalmist said, "How fearfully and wonderfully we are made." The "fearful" or "wonderful" part is mostly up to us. Which you choose?
"Hey, is this Heaven?" "No, it's Iowa."
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