Maggie's Farm carried a Real Clear Religion essay about "Groundhog Day" as a humorous but serious depiction of Purgatory. The idea of Purgatory as a place you get stuck until you figure out some character-improving principle shows up a lot. Usually it is being stuck in a waiting room until you figure out you have to be kind to the old black janitor or something else tied to simple social kindness rather than anything deeply theological. I've never run across one that was offensive, just rather milk-and-water niceness.
I don't think much about Purgatory, but since reading CS Lewis's defense that it is possible (though not a required belief) I have been more comfortable with the doctrine than most Protestants. "Groundhog Day," now that I look at it, is a surprisingly good basis for the pivotal part of the discussion. If we look at Purgatory as a place where we get sent unwillingly until we smarten up, then it seems an unnecessary step by God, who has elsewhere promised us that we will be changed in the twinkling of an eye.
Yet what if it is not that we have to stay until we get it right, but we get to stay until we get it right? The identical scenario, but with a different attitude. God allows us the freedom, even after death, to participate and cooperate with the change. We have an unlimited number of lives in this video game, and can keep going until we collect all the necessary treasures to move on. The treasures, of course, would not be the accidentals of a game, where it is well more than half luck to learn that the runestone is behind the waterfall guarded by the trolls. We learn instead that our brilliant idea for improving on God's morality, no matter how vehemently we insist and how many variations we try, is not actually the best answer. We have to unlearn many of our treasured ideas.
No, we get to unlearn many of our treasured ideas. We not only see, but we see why. When I am nostalgic, I usually try and change something, starting with my worst sins, and I find this good to contemplate. So a purgatory like that sounds difficult and frustrating, like a video game purposely designed to keep you focused to the point of obsession until you crack the code, sounds more deeply comforting than uncomfortable. Bring it on.
2 comments:
A different take. Not that I believe this model; it just seemed interesting.
Two thoughts on Purgatory:
I admire the trick C. S. Lewis used in "The Great Divorce," where, if you choose to stay, you may look back on your time in the Gray Town as Purgatory, but if you choose to go back, the Gray Town is Hell. Of course, he was careful to label all the world-building in that tale as speculation, but it's still interesting.
This is an example of avoiding what a friend of mine called "the assembly line picture" of the afterlife. You die, you're judged, you go up or down, end. Since we were talking about writing fantasy stories at the time, his objection to this was that it was dull and restrictive. It occurred to me that it could also be implausible. Why should life after death be simpler than life before? Life has not, on the whole, gotten simpler as we go along, but the reverse.
Maybe there is a noticeable journey between the grave and the pearly gates. Maybe the length and twistiness and difficulty of it depend on your deeds (as in the Lyke-Wake Dirge). And maybe Christians receive tools and guides and directions that others don't, a bit like Dante getting help from Beatrice, mostly in the form of Virgil. Is the trip Purgatory? Ans: How much did you enjoy it?
Just speculating.
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