You might have read my previous blog, “The Kingdom of Heaven.” It’s about the idea that we can experience “Heaven on Earth” in the day-to-day world depending on where and how we focus our attention and energy. Based on the comments in my inbox, it seems that idea really resonated with a lot of readers. I guess it was inevitable that I’d soon feel moved to write the corollary: that the day-in day-out experience of Hell on earth is also a function of where and how we place our attention and energy. Or, as John Milton wrote, “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.”

Oh, but in the doing, those are two quite different propositions! It’s a lot easier to imagine how day-to-day Heaven might be a function of one’s focus, but Hell insists on being seen as hard-core reality. I recently read Wendell Berry’s novel Jayber Crow, and this passage took my breath away:

This is, as I said and believe, a book about Heaven, but I must say too that it has been a close call. For I have wondered sometimes if it would not finally turn out to be a book about Hell—where we fail to love one another, where we hate and destroy one another for reasons abundantly provided or for righteousness’ sake or for pleasure, where we destroy the things we need the most, where we see no hope and have no faith, where we are needy and alone, where things that ought to stay together fall apart, where there is such a groaning travail of selfishness in all its forms, where we love one another and die, where we must lose everything to know what we have had.

Wow. That’s almost a checklist of our woes, a dismal catalogue of what’s “wrong” in the world. So many of us have almost daily conversations about how dangerous and depressing the world is becoming, and our horror rises with each mass murder, each militaristic incursion, each act of hypocrisy, hubris, or hatred. Some of us react with imagined or actual eye-for-an-eye retribution; some recoil in fear; some comfort themselves with smug schadenfreude; some get busy doing something - anything; and some just shrug their shoulders, frustrated at having no idea how to address any of it.

I too have no idea how to address any of it directly, but I do extend the Hippocratic admonition to myself and all types of helpers: First, do no harm. For me, that means don’t do anything that would add to the misery of another person, or to the misery of the world. That means reining in any of my impulses that might add more unloving into a world already splintered and hurting. It means not adding my own inner Hell to the Hell of the world. By no means am I successful with that all the time, but thank goodness I get opportunities to remake that choice over and over again.

That choice to not add unloving to the situation is awfully hard to make if all I see is unloving. It seems a lot easier to be loving when I’m in the presence of loving. That’s where Milton comes in: if indeed the mind "itself can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n,” then there’s my first step: choose whether to interpret the situation as Heaven or as Hell. It may not sound like a choice, and Milton may be way off, but here’s my experience: I definitely find myself clearer, stronger, more courageous, and more effective when I choose to view whatever is happening as bearing gifts of Heaven, not as Hell. Even if (perhaps especially if) I don't see how it could be Heaven at the time, I can at least start looking for it.

“But wait,” you may say, thinking of any particular event in the news or of trauma in the life of a loved one. “That’s just irresponsible childish pretending. You should be recoiling in horror, you should responding to rage and anguish with your own rage and anguish.” You may even consider that my failure to react in kind makes me part of the problem. I understand that point of view, and I have wrestled with it over and over. And I acknowledge it’s a much easier and more popular position to hold.

But mine is not a denial or airbrushing of what is going on. Rather it is the choice to look for the “heav’nly” opportunities hidden in what I see as awfulness, and that requires looking the awfulness straight in the face and acknowledging exactly what it is.

When I take the bigger-picture, longer-range view of whatever is happening (and sometimes it takes me awhile to get there), I see there is always the opportunity to find Heaven in whatever happens, no matter how evil or awful it seems. There may be very tangible opportunities, and there always are the less tangible opportunities for learning, growth, grace, forgiveness, compassion, and generosity. It seems to me that it's reaching into loving that brings those opportunities into view, and it's allowing loving that guides their use to bring forward more loving. I’m inspired by my friend John Morton’s suggestion that we BE “the loving that is missing” in those situations that seem so unloving. Only then can I recognize - let alone pursue - those possibilities and resolutions that lead to more loving.

It often feels like a long-shot, perhaps even a fool’s errand. But when I do bring love to the unloving, it always pays off. The payoff inside me is often immediate, even if the payoffs in the world take longer. Regardless, my mission, when I choose to accept it, is to keep choosing Heav’n, no matter the Hell … and I think that’s a hell of a good idea. How about you?

A Hell of an Idea