Thursday, January 3, 2013

Shame Heaven

I don’t believe in hell, but I do believe in heaven. I also believe that everyone goes to heaven, even Saddam Hussein. Being Catholic, that’s not exactly the way heaven and hell were explained to me, but I never really felt like I got an adequate explanation of how Jonah set up shop in the belly of that whale, either, so my theory is that the Catholic Church wants me to use my imagination.


I’ve already written a blog about how we all get the heaven that we ask for, so that all of you racists can live in your gated community in heaven, and all of the rest of us can have fun. But one thing I think everyone gets before you get to go to your final, heavenly destination: shame heaven.

What is shame heaven? Well, here’s how I figure it. Do you know that feeling that you get when you realize that you’ve just done something horrible? For example, when you mean to text your friend Sarah to say, “Jesus Christ, Lauren is acting like such a fucking bitch!” but you accidentally SEND IT TO LAUREN? And how, for a brief moment, it’s like all of the blood in your body starts running in the opposite direction and a full-body, inside-out blush begins as you realize the enormity of the assholery that you just perpetuated? That’s what shame heaven feels like.

Everyone gets to make a stop in shame heaven before real heaven. In shame heaven, the length of time you feel that horrible feeling of shame is dependent on what you’ve done here on earth. Nothing is missed. You know those lies of convenience that you told, thinking that no one would catch you? Remember that time you only paid for a small, even though you got a large? Remember that time you screamed at your spouse, even though you knew that the problem really was just that you were in a bad mood? All of those things go on your tab in shame heaven. The big things go on your tab, as well, even the big things that you thought you were getting away with. Pretending that your church wants you to hate gays. Pretending that your political party wants you to believe that poor people are just lazy, so you don’t need to do anything for them. Pretending that science isn’t real. All of the things that you know are true, or untrue, and that you ignore because it’s more comfortable or convenient….yeah. Shame heaven. It doesn’t matter if you believe in Jesus, Buddha, Mohammad, or just the non-deity-related virtues of right and wrong. Everyone gets shame heaven. I don’t make the rules, that’s just the way it is.

Now, for me, I find shame heaven totally comforting. Think about it: if all I am being asked to do here on earth is the right thing, all the time, then I know what I gotta do. I already know things for which I’m going to spend time in shame heaven. I deserve it. But I also know that I totally control my destiny. If I want to do bad here and pay for it later, I can. If I want to do good here and not run up my shame heaven tab, I can do that, too. And I also know that I don’t need to worry about other people and the trifling shit they do, because they will get theirs. NOBODY is immune to shame heaven. Even people who seem to feel no shame.

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