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From: "Nuke Danger" <nukedanger@gmail.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} (RV) De Briefing (nosex)
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Date: Mon, 06 Oct 2008 20:10:02 -0400
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              De Briefing
         by Nuke Danger, 3rd Aye

Dying was no fun.

Being dead, however, may not be much of a picnic,
but I had hopes that it beat being enslaved to
the need to eat, breathe, drink and...  ummmm...
eliminate.

So there I was, freshly dead, stepping away from
the body, like a butterfly escaping its crysalis,
left lying on the hospital bed.  Looking outside
the room, I could see the nursing staff frozen in
the act of running towards the room I had just
been occupying, when I heard a voice behind me.

"Hello, Henry."

Well, I've been a Christian for a long time and
had seen unbelieving sinners come and go, but I
knew Who spoke to me, for my soul *knew* Him.  I
was, without any doubt at all, meeting my Maker.

I wasn't too shy to answer, "Hello, Lord."

He smiled.  I have to admit that this smile was
not a particularly reassuring one and I felt a
shiver run through my... ummmm... "un-body".  I
did not think I would be able feel my blood run
cold once I was dead.

"I was not expecting you to meet me, Lord," I
said, hoping this was a sign that my devotion
to Him in my life had made me special.

He smiled, again, in a particularly menacing
way.  "I meet all of my creations as they die,
regardless of religion or faith, for it was I
Who made you... so learn some humility, Henry."

There was a pause before He continued, saying
"You are no more special than anyone else, be
they Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Wiccan, Secular
Humanist or even Atheist.  So, because of
your beliefs, you see Me, your Maker, as the
Christ you believed in."

Well, on top of being dead, this came as quite
a buzz kill.  My mouth-- as much as I didn't
have a *real* body, it still felt like I did--
hung open as I tried to understand what His
words meant to me.  I did my best to recover,
saying "But I followed God's Laws!  I spread
Christ's Word!  I did my best to bring people
to know You!  Doesn't that count for
_something_?"

He nodded before sighing, sounding disappointed.
I hoped it had not been me disappointing Him.
"Yes, you did try to follow the Law as you
understood it, but, while trying to do that,
you did it in such a way as to drive a wedge
between your fellow humans and *Me*.  Often
enough your actions belied your apparent
beliefs, much less words.  In your eagerness,
you ignored the irony implicit in preaching
"God's love" and reflecting it, yourself.
You drove people _away_ from Me.  Like, for
instance, your wife.  She developed a distrust
for a Maker who would place _you_-- or people
*like* you-- 'above' her."

I snorted.  "She was a sinner and did not
believe in You as much as *I* did!"

My Maker looked me up and down and shook his
head.  "You obviously missed the point when
I admonished people *not* to be judgemental.
Your wife-- who you could not respect enough
to listen to-- was more My minister in the
world you lived in than you were, even as
you were so sure that you were ahead of her
in understanding and spreading My love."

I laughed in my Creator's face.  "She knew so
little of you!  She didn't see how she fell
short of your glory..."

"Henry," He interrupted, "she was surprised at
how welcome she was when she arrived after
taking so many sleeping pills to escape from
you.  She had done well for people and showed
how important compassion was...  along with
trying to enjoy the gift of life I gave all
of you, instead of pissing it away."

"What?  But she died of a heart attack?"

He shook his head.  "No.  You lucked out.  The
post-mortem saw the her cardiac complications
and the pills had been fully digested by the
time they cut her open, so they didn't even
_try_ to perform a tox screen.  Even so,
despite her choosing to take her own life, she
was welcomed by me."

"But she was obsessed with sex!"  I ejaculated.

"And..." He led.

"It's disgusting!  How can anyone turn their
back on God for just a little bit of pleasure?"

He laughed, almost falling to the floor in
mirth.  "Turning their backs?  Do you realize
how many religions turn their adherents against
sex in order to divide them just that they can
be and conquered and controlled?  How turning
against sex is how you prove 'purity'?  How
many of them teach how sex is somehow not
worthy of respect?  And *you* helped to spread
that meme by claiming to be, somehow, above it
all..."

"Well, look at how it is discussed in the
Bible!"

My Maker laughed, finally.  "Do you know how
much of the epistles are opinion written as
if it is fact?  Many of them by a man haunted
by his homosexual urges?  How Christ somehow
avoided touching the whole subject?  And how
His words work just fine even when secularized?"

His head shook, adding "Don't lecture me on
Law, Henry, or deny that *I* created you all
to be sexual beings."

I stood there, waiting for the other shoe to
drop.

"You _are_ Christian, right?"

I nodded, comfortable to be back on what I
felt was solid ground.  "Yes, I am."

"What is the one Law that Christ most tried
to get across?"

Well, at least there was no Math in this
quiz, though I think I might have done
better if there had been.  It was easy to
reply "Love thy neighbor as thyself!"

"Ever wonder about what that means?"

"What is there to debate?  The meaning is
clear to me!"

He shook his head some more.  "Your actions
spoke loudly that it was _not_ clear to you
at all.  Think, Henry, of all of the things
you wanted from others.  Compassion.
Tolerance.  Compromise.  Understanding.  And,
something you could have used, a dose of
uncertainty.  All this and much more.  And
what did you do with it?  You set limits!
You narrowed your definition of 'neighbor'
so narrowly even your *wife* didn't qualify!"

I snarled and spit.  "I was loving!  Even
to her!"

"Not how she defined it...  Only how *you*
defined being 'loving'.  You didn't even
*try* to discover what she wanted, she
had to accept what _you_ were willing to
give to her.  Oh, yes, you were able to
be supportive, so you did do _some_ good,
but, at the same time, you managed to
teach her how to limit how she was 'loving'
back to you.  Yes, you were able to be
affectionate, caring, understanding, but
always with limits, because you felt that
_I_ was always looking over your shoulder
and would be offended."

"I loved her!"

"Did you listen to her complaints?  Her
feelings?  Her wants and desires?  Was
she allowed to be the check-and-balance
I made her to be, by helping you to see
yourself from outside?  Or did all of
the criticism flow the other way?"

"I didn't need to!  Everything I needed
to know was spelled out..."

"By fairy tales, Henry, not by reality.
You thought that 'happily ever after'
was a promise.  So you followed roles
instead of learning how to improvise.
Holy Scripture as a script instead of
a set of guidelines that require some
effort to interpret and adapt to meet
the 'real' world."

"That doesn't mean I didn't love her!"

"Yes, but, given your own blindness, you
could not deliver the message in the ways
she could hear best... and certainly not
sexually, the one thing *I* had the most
fun creating as a way for you to bond.
So, in her frustration with your efforts
to be spiritual, she wrote stories..."

"Filthy damned porn!  Jack-off stories for
perverts and freaks!"

He shook his head, sadly.  I suddenly got
the distinct impression that he was more
than a little bit disappointed in me,
before he continued where I had interrupted
him, "She wrote stories, getting out her
anger, pain and frustration out there,
instead of directly at you, and, in the
process, taught more about My compassion
than *you* did, simply because she wrote
for the people who actually needed the
reminder *because* of people like you!  She
was able to discharge a lot of her negative
feelings towards you without having to deal
with you directly..."

"But she wrote _porn_!  Sexual fantasies!
Perversion!  That's not an example of
'goodness'!"

"Did you read much of it?  Without being angry
and upset over how far from your 'image of
purity' you were trying to sell others on?
And how far from your own self-image her
projection of your personality was?"

I had to admit, "No, I did not."

"See?  You decided that anything she said was
*automatically* heresy, that everything she
wrote that referenced you was a lie, all in
an effort garner attention from people who
you felt undeserving of respect.  You chose
to *not* listen to her even after she found
another outlet... and you _still_ felt
yourself as the injured party."

His smile turned, suddenly, more predatory.
"So you decided you could not meet her
half-way, right?  Her writing meant so little
to you?"

"Her words-- where she referred to me-- were
hurtful and untrue!  She _lied_ about me!  It
was all worthless crap!"

He sighed.  "The truth lay somewhere in the
middle between who you thought you were and
who she thought you were... and, of course,
the same was true for her.  There's a lot of
fiction where perceptions may be exaggerated,
too.  Fiction tries to mimic reality yet
sometimes can 'feel' more real, you know,
even though it isn't.  You *might* have
learned from her words if you had bothered to
read enough of her stories with an open
enough mind to see *her* as having had
valid emotions and viewpoints.  But, then,
you were so very sure you were following _My_
will, weren't you?"

"Of course I was!  I spoke of your love and
compassion!  I wrote poems and prayers praising
you, passing these around!  I spoke of Your
glory on the InterNet!"

This time I caught Him smirking.  "Yes, you
passed on these words to people who already
thought they were following Me.  It was strange
how many of My teachings are spoken of and
debated... but so seldom acted on.  People have
become afraid of Me because of people like *you*."

It was hard to ask Him "Didn't I do any good?"

He nodded, "Yes, you did, but this isn't just
an exercise in accounting for your sins, you
know.  Good deeds don't necessarily earn much.
Face it, Henry, you are dead.  Some of those
you leave behind, I will admit, _will_ miss
you.  A surprising number despite the damage
you've done... and despite your gluttony of
the forbidden fruit."

I frowned, this seemed a non-sequitur.  "What?
Fruit?"

"Once you first tasted the fruit of the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil, you reveled in
the taste of *certainty*.  It is this taste you
craved-- and were as addicted as so many others
of this world-- that has brought you to me here
and now."

I gulped.  Where was I?

The monitor over the bed beeped once more, the
heart in my dying body, beating once again, and
the room shifted.  A dark shadow had arrived,
not a negative of my Maker, but something far
harder to describe.

"What?"  I asked, confused.

"In your striving to spead My Word and the
Christian Gospel, the way you chose to serve Me
has often been the antitheis of the teachings
you had claimed to embrace.  Where you claimed
to be unjudgemental, you judged others.  When
you claimed to be un-self-righteous, you didn't
notice how you looked down on others.  When
others shorted you in attention, money, love
or even just basic politeness, you spent time
telling all who would listen to you of those
sins.  It may have something to do with the
fact that you are an _accountant_, of course."

He pointed to the dark shadow, adding "You
felt you were under attack by him because you
were 'doing my bidding'... rather than thinking
that _I_ was trying to get you off your high
horse and have you stop being so damnably
certain you were *right*."

I stared.  "So, what next?"

He told me "I've arranged to compel another to
write this as a piece of fiction though it may
take some time to get all of the nuances right.
You may not like the kinds of people who will
first read this, of course, but every one who
_does_ read it will know someone who is *just
like you* even no one will know the 'real' you.
Being dead, it's not like you will be able to
write down this experience...  but, if this
helps to change even *one* person who is like
you, it will have been worth it to Me... and to
you, too."

"But I have people praying for me!"

"Henry...  how many of them are swimming in the
same sin of certainty as you were and ignoring
the same basic set of ironies you have?"

My Maker turned to the shadow.  "He's all
yours... for now."

The monitor beeped again, my body's heart
having beat one more time.

My Creator was gone.

Instead, I faced the shadow... which, I saw,
was welcoming me.

                  * end *

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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