I know that someday, the time will come when I meet my maker. I also know that I won’t have an appointment.
I realized this recently when I went to the doctor. I had an appointment with him, mind you, and it was for 10 a.m. I arrived a couple minutes early, just in case he was running ahead of schedule. He wasn’t. In fact, he had gone totally rogue on the schedule, getting caught up in some nonsense at the hospital — something about a saving a person’s life.
As I cooled my heels in the waiting room, it occurred to me that I finally might understand the concept of purgatory.
For those of you who weren’t raised Catholic, I’ll digress a bit so that you can understand a young child’s view of Heaven and Hell. See, the Catholic Church can’t give you an either/or, here. Not even in the afterlife. You may be one of the lucky few to ascend to Heaven. Or you can be one of the many unworthy who get an eternal tan in Hell.
You can also end up in purgatory. Think of it as a waiting room for the dead. You’re not in Heaven, you’re not in Hell. You’re just waiting to be judged. It seems that at the moment of death, Catholics don’t have sufficient time to be forgiven for all their sins. I guess they just have too many to sort through. So God thoughtfully set up purgatory so we can have a little extra time for a good old fashioned soul cleansing, complete with guilt, remorse and regret. Only then can go upstairs to see the Big Guy.
It is just like the waiting room I’m sitting in. Well, almost. I think waiting to see God would be much more pleasurable than waiting to see the doctor.
But, of course, the wait is a lot longer, too. I imagine there’s quite a backlog of appointments in purgatory. God undoubtedly fell behind a bit creating the Heavens and the Earth and has never seemed to find the time to catch up.
I can’t blame him, of course. His charges back here on earth seem to keep mucking things up. There are famines, earthquakes, epidemics and world wars. And then there was the 2006 Super Bowl where his time was totally consumed by Seahawks fans promising to give up their souls for a win.
So I can forgive him (now there’s s funny line, eh?) for running a little bit late. I’m not sure I can forgive the doctor, however, who is now 45 minutes late for my appointment. And yes, I know that not forgiving him just gives me more seat time in purgatory some day.
I can’t help it. I like to think my time is important. I have clients, too. And they’re cooling their heels while I am cooling mine. But the doctor seems to think saving a life is more important than looking down my throat to see that it’s healing properly after almost choking to death on steak. Which, as you know if I had, I’d be waiting in God’s little waiting room instead of the doctor’s.
I can’t even imagine the scene there. The Now Serving screen is at 150,000,000 and your slip of paper has the number 20,003,222,001 on it. I’m pretty sure the reading material is limited here. A couple of Bibles perhaps, and two matching tablets with some kind of rules on them.
If we’re lucky, there’s a TV. But it probably only shows things like the Ten Commandments starring Charlton Heston. And poor Chuck is stuck there right now watching it for the umpteenth time. Unfortunately, while his number was up in 2008, his number won’t be called in the waiting room of the afterlife for some time.
If we all wanted to, we could put him at the front of the line, Fast Pass him if you will. We can pray him to it, you know. The Pope can also do it, but he seems to have a backlog as well. So it would have to be up to us to get him that Fast Pass through prayer. I am reminded that we can also light some candles.
Which leaves me to wonder. I’ve heard recently that the Rapture is just around the corner. One day soon, God is supposed to descend and end it all. Everyone will be judged and that will be that.
What happens to all the people in purgatory? Do all the people on earth go ahead of them, even though they’ve been waiting for eons to get into to see the Big Guy? Is it like that Emergency Room where everyone seems to go ahead of you even though you were there first?
And how can he just come down here, judge everyone at once when he can’t seem to erase the backlog in purgatory.
I think he’s a lot like the doctor. Maybe doctors don’t play God. Maybe God plays doctor. Overbook the schedule and make them all wait for my magnificence to get around to them. They’ll wait, they’ll wait.
Somehow, I think he’s right. I’m not sure you can cancel an appointment with God. You may never known when it is, but I’m pretty sure the cancellation penalty is high. Moses tried to do it and what, he had to live for another 400 years.
And here I thought the airlines really socked it to you.
Biding my time on the Treasure Coast, hoping it’s not SRO in the afterlife,
— Robb