Heaven and Hell

Heaven and hell are aspects of lived relationships, and both necessary, if we desire a life of depth, meaning, and complexity. Not all do. Nor should they. Abundance comes at a cost. An abundant life is one willing to say yes more than no to whatever manifests in our day, and to embrace more than avoid the implications of these manifestations. Heartbreak (through love and loss). Despondency (through disillusionment). Exuberance (through vulnerability). Buoyancy (through belonging). And nothing less than equal measures of joy and pure pain (simply through being and by welcoming the whirlwind of existence). The superficial, by contrast, is a safer path to be sure. Skimming the surface of life is easily done and accomplished by many. Such a life consists in neglecting, as much as possible, our relationships with the dark, difficult, and disorienting aspects of existence, those that would either cause us pain or which do not fit neatly into the limited categories we have created to couch our experience of the world in a way that makes us feel, above all else, safe, secure, and sure of ourselves. But such a life is a lie—or half-truth at best—as the relationships that remain are drained of their integrity, and strained for honesty, as light and shadow are symbiotic, perennial partners who prefer to dance together.

"Only when we are conversant with both heaven and hell is our life full and rich," Albert Hofmann once said. This is because the robust, richly textured nature of experience itself is filled with the brightest angels, the darkest demons, and the most colorful range of relations one can imagine. To engage this life as it is, on its own terms, is therefore to forsake too many of those artificial blinders that would shield us from the suffering of others, and our own, to forget as far as we can our semblance of certainties, and to forgo some of our safety in exchange for a relationship with the real; the heavenly, the hellish, and the mundane spaces in between. The alternative is to live a pleasant lie. “The supreme vice is shallowness,” Oscar Wilde once wrote, “whatever is realized is right.” The unexpected grace of a new encounter. The searing scar of a devilish deed. Heaven and hell are not so much places or possibilities as necessities of deep relating, to people, our environments, as well as the nearly infinite indwelling conversations we have among our selves.