Susan Watkins -- Outside Reading 1

I've been coming across a particular theme in several different areas of my life recently, and haven't really had a chance to sit down and process it. I guess this is a good place to do so.

In a book I'm reading, Brian Mclarren's A New Kind of Christian, one of the characters suggests that perhaps Heaven and Hell aren't really two different places, but rather the same place seen through two categorically different lenses. He says that people who have spent their whole lives preparing for Heaven and know the King of Heaven would probably be ready for its light, warmth, and joyous noise, so it would seem to them a paradise. However, those who had been avoiding the King their whole lives and steeping themselves in isolation and anger would find the light blinding, the heat scorching, and the noise a cacophony.

Otto discusses something similar when he describes mysterium tremendum, pointing out that what we perceive as the Lord's wrath in text sources like the Old Testament could possibly be merely His unveiled joy. Both would be equally devestating to us as feeble mortals. We assume that just because something destroys us it is evil or angry, which C.S. Lewis says would be like saying a mighty waterfall is angry with every gnat it sweeps up in its current ('Til We Have Faces)

I'm not sure how I feel about Mclarren's idea, but it seems to be tying itself in with more and more things I study. I was excited to see how it relates to Otto's work, and will have to consider it more because it could potentially redefine some of my beliefs about the spiritual world.