I have a lot of time on my hands, and I spend it wisely going about my chores as a domestic goddess, sharing my thoughts and images on my various blogs, and reading and researching. I am very thankful for my life and yet I have an unrest that I wasn't able to put my finger on.. til now. A memory flooded back from the time that I was studying for my BSN at Kean University that has come to surface. I was taking a world literature course and one of our assignment's was to read "Dante's Inferno." It was a chore, as I was not at all familiar with the politics of that time period and had no interest in the religious dogmas of the era either. But our professor posed a question to the class that sparked interest in this otherwise dusty old work, " What is your vision of Hell?" There was talk of zombies and devils and the usual images conjured up by what we have been taught from our collective religions... but I was an old-timer in a class of young people and I thought long and hard before I answered. I asked a question in place of an answer. " What if after you died, you realized that when you lived upon the earth, you had all the power to change the course of the world for a greater good through your words, and thoughts and actions... and instead you wasted that power in the pursuit of fleeting vanities?"
Someone in the class yelled out, " well then you'd just ask to come again and have a do over!"
Everyone laughed (including me) and was I happy to see a plug for reincarnation. My professor looked me square in the eyes and audibly whispered, "Good thinking." Since then, I haven't really given much thought to the idea of hell as a place to go, as I've been there in my thoughts a hundred times since... usually from tormented imaginings that probably stem from boredom.
But really... what if you could change the world just by changing your prospective from one of self absorption to one of compassion and consideration for others. How would you do that? Again, I don't really have an answer, but it begs the question, "What are you waiting for?"
