I actually spent a little time on Facebook today. I had a fairly good combination of thoughts and conversations about different topics to include one where we started defining hell.
Hell, like heaven, from my point of view is fairly undefinable. It is almost impossible to define something that isn't really tangible. I consistently return to the idea of hell and not a place but a state of existence. We use the word hell in a lot of contexts.
While I agree with my friend as far as choosing help for ourselves as a behavioral issue at some point, I think that there are further circumstances that are usually just understood as the "illness" or "personality traits" of other people.
I love several alcoholics in my life, and this is my example. I understand alcoholism as a medical illness. I am weary of a lot of the ways and programs that people use to treat alcoholism just like any other illness. I am not directly anti our current medical community in the United States; while at the same time, I think books and data can't tell someone's whole story and a one size fits all medical practice doesn't work. For example, some people will say that they cannot live without Alcoholics Anonymous. I believe that they believe that, but I think you can't live without air. What would some of them do without AA? They would find another way.
I am a person who also believes that those programs work really well and can be used for brainwashing like everything else. Alcoholism is not about alcohol. It is far more about decisions and how people make them when they are sober that helps them to have fully functional lives. The 12 Steps are a critical thinking and decision-making program which includes a Higher Power. Essentially, something outside of the Self. Alcoholics who don't find help are in hell on earth. So are their families and their adult children. The systematic influence on people of that disease is devastating.
It is possible to go from one hell to another. For example, if an alcoholic allows himself or herself to be controlled by alcohol is it much different to trade the drink for the program. Some people become as addicted to the program as they are the drink and don't change any of the behaviors. This is hell as well. Trading one hell for another is still hell.
What is the opposite of hell? Is it necessarily heaven? Perhaps, it is life. Some people are happy to have survived the drink. Other want to learn to live. The question is what is a life worth living. I don't think that a simple "the examined one" will really suffice at this point. A life is worth living, from my point of view, is the life we are called to live. One person may be called to be a mom and another person a dog lover. It's what God calls each one of us to be that defines living for us and heaven on earth for us.
I think heaven and hell have a lot to do with what controls your life. It has a lot to do with perception and, for me, identity as a child of God first. If I am not living from my child of God identity, then I am not living a life that is worth it to me. It is from that position first that I care about heaven and hell and then from the other parts of a holistic or "wellness" identity. If I am a child of God before I am a student in my list of priorities, then for me, I am living heaven on earth first and can succeed in school. If I am a student before I am a child of God, I am in hell. I won't know how to succeed to the best of my abilities.
So, thanks to my friend for the Facebook prompt about defining heaven and hell. It was a fruitful experience.
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