When Benjamin feels flooded with emotions that he can neither name nor get his head above, he makes bold statements. 

"It's serious business!"

 

The directive is delivered with a furrowed brow, and double fists on his waist. I try not to smile. The problem at hand may be an interruption to the internet, or a sibling too busy to return a text promptly. Because they actually have a job. 

 

A friend was telling me about a book written by someone who had an out of body experience. There was an explosion in a Kuwait oilfield, and her legs were blown off. In the moments where she dangled on the precipice of eternity, the angels came to minister to her. They surrounded her with love, and bantered with each other about whether to replace her limbs, or let them go. The woman herself was extraordinarily calm.  Another victim in the blast died instantly. 

 

"You take your life too seriously!" the angels laughed. 

 

I will confess that before my friend told this story I was myself tied up in knots over issues somewhere in between the severity of amputation and a tardy text. He correctly guessed that the battleground was between my ears, completely fabricated in that I carried on an argument with people not in this county, about other persons whose names didn't matter. They were stick figures in a fictitious conflict. 

 

He has told me before, and said again that hell is not real. Evil is the absence of God, and anything that does not include Divinity is as vacant as a shadow. Darkness is frightening, and can be the occasion for losing your way. Yet it has no power over light, and flees like a swarm of roaches when the sun tips over the horizon. Cold is another illusion. You cannot point to cold, but rather measure the absence of warmth. Still it is of small consolation to someone in Fairbanks whose parka was stolen.