Thomas of Endlessly Rocking Wastes Some Time

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In Which Nothing of Importance Happens ... Thank God

Some excerpts:

"I could say something here about destiny and freedom, but I won't, because frankly, it wouldn't be any fun. Suffice it to say, God is whimsical. Does that frighten away folks who like to think of God as stolidly upholding decency, law and order, family values and a sound investment portfolio? I hope not, or maybe I do - who knows? God is whimsical - I'll say it again and again. Look around. Kick a stone. Drink some bourbon. Read a poem. Why o why do these fine things exist? Why anything at all? Why something rather than nothing? God likes it, that's why. He loves it all, in fact, with a fine, attentive, patient, careful, light-hearted love the likes of which should really break our hearts.

"What's more, that love is particularized, if I may use such a heavy word, in the Word made flech, Jesus - he's the Son, the Second Person of the Consubstantial Trinity [let that roll off your tongue, learn to love it], the Word and Wisdom of God the Father in the Unity of the Holy Spirit who proceeds, spirates if you please, from the Father and rests on the Son and in whom the Son himself is begotten from the overflowing love of the Father, world without end. He is all that, and, and, he was born of the Virgin Mary at a certain place and a certain time - Bethlehem, to be exact, during an early first century census called by a frightfully serious emperor to measure the manpower and figure tax revenue in the Levant, a place at once a backwater and a strategically important crossroads of trade and military adventure. It was for the sake of that event, and the cruciform life that grew from it, that all things were made, whether platypi or great white sharks or juniper bushes or the ingredients that magically, mystically combine to make fine bourbon."

These Words Hurt Our Ears

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Before the week ends, I want to say a few words about the Collect for John the Baptist.

"ALMIGHTY God, by whose providence thy servant John Baptist was wonderfully born, and sent to prepare the way of thy Son our Saviour by preaching repentance; Make us so to follow his doctrine and holy life, that we may truly repent according to his preaching; and after his example constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice, and patiently suffer for the truth's sake; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

WHERE ARE THESE PETITIONS BEING ANSWERED?! Go back and read the collect again.

"follow his doctrine and holy life that we may truly repent"

"constantly speak the truth"
"boldly rebuke vice"
"patiently suffer for the truth's sake"

I'd like to ask my readers in general, and Anglicans in particular, if they have ever heard a sermon in church that would be considered a clear, unequivocating rebuke of sin, warning to flee the coming wrath, declaration of God's judgment and call to repentance. If not, why not? What is going on? Is it that we are not sinning?

We have two lengthy penitential seasons in the Church Year (Advent and Lent). Those seem like appropriate time to cover these bases, no? Where is it happening?

Notice that the collect is not limited to clergy; all of us are supposed to truly repent, constantly speak the truth, boldly rebuke vice and patiently suffer for the truth's sake. Can I go beyond the first question concerning who of us actually does these things and ask another question, who aspires to do these things?

"Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner."

Seattle Sinners Skillfully Skewer

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The Stranger sends 31 writers to 31 houses of worship.

A consistent refrain is the silliness of "Praise and Worship" music.

I forewarn you that the reviews in the article can be irreverent and the language sometimes profane.

*

"If I'm not getting many dancing tips, I'm getting some great pillow-talk ideas from the song lyrics, which are projected on a screen above the stage."

*

"While I appreciate Plymouth's looseness and wide-ranging cultural acceptance, I am haunted by the image of a small, bald, white man banging on a drum kit, singing an aggressively soulful song he wrote for graduating seniors: 'The burdens will get heavy, relief a mirage/Trust the Lord got his hands on you in spiritual massage.'"

*

"That last hymn is my favorite," my neighbor said.

I thought the song would be more powerful pantomimed. Geriatrics have lousy singing voices.

"Act it out and bill it as Jesurcise," I said.

She laughed politely and then said Jesus wouldn't be amused.

"He doesn't have a sense of humor?" I asked.

"Of course He does."

She opened the church leaflet we had been handed. Inside was an article comparing God's incredulous power—virgin births, donkeys conversing with false prophets, etc., to Ripley's Believe It or Not—the television show.

"Hummingbirds can't walk and crocodiles can't chew even with all those teeth," she explained. "These are the little jokes God plays on us."

"But God wouldn't find me funny?"

"Maybe not," she said, "but you're still welcome here. You're very pretty. We need more youthful decorations."

"What if a cougar takes off half my face?" I ask.

"I'd pray for you," she replied. "And I'd pray that you'd be reunited with it in Heaven."

I'll drink to that.

*

"In an era when Christianity is marketed as a sort of rock concert meets Gatorade commercial—with TV-screen preachers beamed into makeshift houses of worship in high-school gyms—St. Mark's splendor is awesome. I understand the populist impulse of the evangelicals, but God deserves some gentle beauty."

*

HT: The Scrivener

Humility And How I Achieved It (2006)

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Read 1 Peter 5:5-11

I am indebted to my mentor, Bracy Greer, for the tongue-in-cheek title of this post.

The call to humility is not an affront to human dignity. It is a recognition that we are created by God and dependent upon him for our existence. God resists proud people, not because he is threatened by them, but because humoring pride is destructive to the proud person. God enables the life of a humble person because that person recognizes the reality of things and is seeking to live accordingly.

The call to humility is not a power play on God’s part. He does not need to impress us with the fact that he could kick our butts were he so inclined. God desires to exalt us when the time is right. We must first learn humility. When proud people are exalted they are a danger to themselves and others.

Take, for example, the devil. He fell from his exalted position. He now seeks to destroy those who are created in the image of God and who humbly walk with him. Any despot or dictator who has presumed to unjustly end the lives of his fellow man is simply following in the footsteps of our adversary the devil. How many million times a day do we act like little despots over whatever domain we rule?

Those who choose humility will suffer. It is to those faithful people that God has promised eternal glory by Jesus Christ, who humbled himself unto death. God will “perfect, establish, strengthen and settle” those who choose humility so that they might endure their temporal and temporary sufferings.

Propers for Trinity 3

St. John the Baptist

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Propers for the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist

On the day we remember, celebrate and meditate upon the life and death of the patron saint of axegrinder I would like to direct you to a few posts that I have written about John Baptist.

One of the first posts I wrote for axegrinder was "I Love John the Baptist." It is still one of my favorites.

JB is a prominent figure during Advent. I wrote two posts about him that I really liked when I wrote them (Advent 2005). The first is called "John the Blues Singer." The second is "God's MC."

I hope that you are able to derive at least a portion of the enjoyment reading these posts as I had in thinking about the life of St. JB writing them.

Are God’s Priorities Out of Whack? (2006)

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Read Luke 15:1-10

For my astute readers this post is going to be rather elementary. I am posting this so that I can get these thoughts down for myself. I am pleased if they solve a conundrum for anyone else.

I have a problem with the first two parables in Luke 15: the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin. They seem to place more value upon the one that is lost as opposed to the many that are still in the possession of the owner. It is as if God neglects the many that he has in favor of the one that has been lost. That bothers me.

Is God advocating that those who have remained faithful to him be neglected so that the one, disobedient, faithless punk who has wandered off and gotten himself lost can be sought after? How dare he.

Such neglect does not offer much of an incentive for obedience. “Do what God tells you to and you will be ignored. Forsake God and he will give you all of his attention.” What a deal.

Even when God gets back from successfully searching for the wandering sheep, the focus is still on the wandering sheep. “Hey everybody, let’s get excited for this one loser who spit in God’s face, had a merry time, and then decided to come back when things got tough.” Whoopee.

It is important to go back to the beginning and realize to whom Jesus was telling this parable. The Pharisees and scribes were aggravated because Jesus was keeping company with people who had previously been living lives of sin. That is the context of these parables. The Great Physician was attempting to dole out some medicine for the Pharisees.

The call to repent from sin was not only directed at notorious sinners in Israel. It was sounded to all of Israel by John the Baptist and Jesus Christ. This call included the religious leaders of Israel, though they saw themselves as Israel’s teachers and above the teachings of an itinerant peasant. The entire nation was in need of a deep and thorough repentance in preparation for the coming of the Messiah.

The point of the parables in Luke 15 is not that God values the life of a lost person more than those who are faithful to him. The point of the parables is that we are all lost. We all need to repent. We all are sought and valued by God. All of heaven rejoices when we realize this fact and come back to God.

One final note: I believe that when Jesus spoke of “99 just persons who need no repentance” he was being sarcastic. God’s priorities are not out of whack. Jesus spoke in parables in order to shake us out of our slumber, challenge our minds to think and draw us to himself. He also spoke in parables in order to obscure the truth from people, but that’s for another post.

Propers for Trinity 3

Mormon Matchmakers

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Mormons like to ask you to pray to God and ask him to reveal whether or not their religion is correct. I suppose the idea is to get you to open up to the possibility of their religion. It’s a pretty cheap psychological ploy clothed in good will.

A woman is walking around her neighborhood contemplating what to get her husband for their tenth anniversary, which is two weeks away. She is approached by two, clean-cut, blonde haired young men. They stop and greet her.

“Hello,” the woman says.

“Ma’am, we were wondering if we could have a few moments of your time to talk to you about your husband.”

“Oh, you know James? Are you two patients of his?”

“Ah, no, ma’am. Your husband’s name is Peter. He is an accountant.”

The woman is understandably puzzled.

“In fact, your husband is right over here.”

A man whom the woman has never seen steps from behind a tree. He is smiling.

“That’s not my husband.”

“If you will just take a moment to talk to him, you will realize that he is your husband, ma’am.”

“Listen, you all seem like nice guys, but that is not my husband. We’ve been married for almost ten years. I know James when I see him.”

“Hello, sweetheart,” Peter says.

“Ma’am, if you will just ask Peter if he is your husband, then I am sure that you will realize that he is.”

“I don’t need to talk to that man to know he is not my husband. He doesn’t look like my husband. He doesn’t sound like my husband. His name is different. They have different jobs. That is not my husband.”

“Ma’am, all we’re asking is that you give him a chance.”

“You all are insane. Good-bye.”

“See you later, dear. What time is dinner?” Peter asks, still smiling.

Dispatch from the Wild

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Your high places are not made of stone and earth. They are steel and glass. Atop them are not altars, but satellites. You are not sacrificing produce and livestock, but your faculties for prolonged, critical thought about here and hereafter. You do not call your gods “gods.” Nevertheless, that to which you attribute highest worth cannot see, hear, nor act on your behalf.

You may not mutter prayers but you cheer for global icons. You may not call upon saints for help but you pour over the lives of vacuous celebrities, their scandals and deaths, their divorces and debauchery, hoping for what? That they will rub you the right way for a moment, shadowing the mundane? The ancient prophets exhorted their hearers to choose life. Maybe the colloquial would be more relatable: Get a life.

What is the root cause of your idolatry? What is it that has put you on the road to calamity? You do not believe in a doomsday that has anything to do with a deity. What is it that you are looking forward to (with dread, with hope, with smugness)?

You have traded eschaton for global warming. You have replaced the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior with a big, fat question mark. You have no answers, yet profess to sit atop the pinnacle of wisdom. Your sheepskin is worth less than the paper with which you wipe your behind, since it has put you further from the beginning of wisdom, the fear of God.

Macro-evolution and materialism are not beautiful. Therefore, they cannot be true or good. Look elsewhere for something to make sense of it all. That is, if you are still looking for such a thing (Person). I hope that you are. I hope that you have not sinned yourself deaf, dumb and blind. I have to believe that there is still hope for you.

Whatever evidence there may be to the contrary, you have a heavenly Father who wants to welcome you home. Jesus Christ continues as your mediator. The Holy Spirit is always on the job, drawing you to reality. The Church, with all the things about Her that may strike you as offensive, is still you best and only hope. Come in. If no one has ever said it to you before, let me be the first. There’s room for you in God’s family. Come in. I want you to be a part. Who am I? Someone else who got an invitation despite being unworthy and uninterested.

Trinity 2 2006

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I wrote a short story for Trinity 2 last year titled "Ambushed."

Try it. You'll like it.

The Ochlophobist on Anthropology

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"Friends, the biblical texts were not meant to move, inspire, or assimilate you. They were meant to save the universe, you included. That said, the saving of the universe, in its macro and micro (you and me) forms, occurs through the recapitulation of Christ, which is, as it were, the retelling of every story, that of Israel, that of the universe, that of you and me."

I offer you that brief excerpt in order to whet your appetite for the Ochlophobist's entire post, Anthropologies. Don't give the post short-shrift. Get in there. Work through it. I promise that the payoff is worth it.

Mormon Firefighters

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Mormons like to ask you to pray to God and ask him to reveal whether or not their religion is correct. I suppose the idea is to get you to open up to the possibility of their religion. It’s a pretty cheap psychological ploy clothed in good will.

A firefighter is in front of a burning house manning the hose. Gallons of water are pumping into the fire and it is starting to die down. Two guys with a five-gallon gas can walk up and suggest that he try using gas to put out the fire.

“Fellas, you don’t use gas to put out a fire. You use water. Gas will make it worse.”

“Just try it.”

“I am a professional fire fighter.”

“C’mon. See what happens.”

“Water puts fires out. Look. The fire is going out.”

“We are only asking that you give it a chance.”

“You idiots get out of here before I bury my foot in your behind.”

“Do you mind if we throw some gas on the fire?”

“Go ahead.”

The two men approach the burning house and throw some of the gasoline towards the fire. The fireman opens up the hose full blast and turns it on them and the area where they throw the gasoline.

The two men, drenched from head to toe and smiling broadly, walk over to the fireman.

“See. We told you it would work.”

The Scrivener on Boredom

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Make sure to catch Douglas Ian Dalrymple's brief thoughts on thrill-seeking. He is consistently thoughtful and creative in the syntheses he offers. Below are a few lines:

"When we lack for outward threats we tend to manufacture them: spiritual or intellectual crises, superfluous interpersonal conflicts, flirtations with sin. And when these manufactured dangers fail to satisfy we borrow threats and conflicts from others through gossip, consumption of sensationalized media and mass entertainments.

"Boredom, lust for distraction and attraction to danger are, more often than not, sins born of myopia. Corrective lenses are available. But these are very old temptations, so deeply rooted in the soil of our social and personal lives that it’s difficult to imagine where we might be without them. -Perhaps a certain garden in the east."

Read it all.

The Image of Love (2006)

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Our Triune God of grace, we humbly beseech you to tabernacle with us as we seek to know you and how it is that we have been created and recreated in your image. We are contingent, dependent beings in every way. And so we look to you as the Revealer, the Life-Giver and the Savior. Father, enable our communications so that you might be known and we might be conformed more fully to the image of your Son Jesus Christ by the most Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Christian Dogma of Love

God is love (1John 4:8). Here is the definitive statement of dogma for all reality. The Christian faith can be summed up in that one, simple clause: God is love. But, such an assertion begs the question, what is love? The world is starving for the love of the Trinity. Whether the hungry soul is a Chinese Communist, an Indian Buddhist, an Afghani Muslim, or an American pop star singing to millions of people about love, people created in God’s image must experience the reality of His love.

Unfortunately, our permissive culture has defined love as unconditional tolerance without any moral discrimination. Such a harmful, false dogma may be overcome by living in and out of the truth that God is love, and we are created and recreated in His image. The world can be a harsh and depressing place without a conception of a God of love.

Kallistos Ware is very helpful in explaining what the Bible means by “defining” God as love. “God, so the doctrine of the Trinity is telling us, is not just self-love, but shared love. God is not a single person, loving Himself alone. God is a triunity of persons loving each other, and in that shared love the persons are totally ‘oned’ without thereby losing their personal individuality.”

Ware emphasizes the nature of love as being toward others. “Love in its plenitude needs to embrace others, and so it can exist only where there is a plurality of persons.” Our being is found only in relation to others: the Trinity, humanity and creation. If love is relational, then we live as “transcripts of the Trinity.” Ware says that “among all the realities in our human existence, it is the experience of loving and being loved that brings us closest to the life of God.” The reason that such an experience brings us closest to God is that we are created and recreated in His image of love. But what does this love look like?

Christ: The Image of Love

Paul teaches us that Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God. He also says that we are to be conformed to that image. If God is love, then His image is love. If we want to know what love is then we should look at the life of Jesus Christ as He walks and talks, loves and dies among and for mankind. Herein is love. Greater love has no man.

In viewing the Son’s relation with the Father by the Spirit we see love, for we see God, three persons in a relationship of holy love. We see mutual indwelling (“perichoresis” is the $5 theological term for it). We see deference and cooperation. We see three persons living toward one another and all creation. How is man in the image of God? A man is in the image of God as a free, unique, unrepeatable person in holy relation with others in love (Go ahead, reread that sentence).

It is one thing to say that the love that is God is perichoretic, but what does that mean? Does it help to say with Ware that perichoresis is “the unceasing movement of shared love that flows from all eternity among the three members of the holy Trinity?” Ware helps us to incarnate this idea by saying that “God as love is self-giving, sharing, solidarity, reciprocity and response.”

Okay, now we are getting close to home. Does love pout when it is scorned? No. Does love envy another’s good circumstances? No. Does love hold a grudge? No. Does love eat the flesh of another through sarcasm? No (oh, we are cutting to the quick now.). Does love gossip? No. Let us here from Paul the apostle his great poem on the love that is God:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Cor. 13:4-7)

His is a rubber-meets-the-road kind of religion coming from the pen of a man capable of the highest thoughts and deepest reflections upon the image of God.

Corporate Worship and the Image of Love

Nowhere should the image of God, the image of the Father’s Beloved Son, the image of love Himself, be seen more clearly that in the corporate worship of the Church. Jesus informed the apostles that love for one another would be the mark by which the world would know that they were His followers. In other words, the Church in God’s image would be a communion of love.

In dealing with the Corinthians, Paul makes this point explicitly clear. Their gatherings had degenerated to the point of being unchristian in every way. Competition, envy, strife, immorality and other works of the flesh dominated them. Paul lifts up the ministry of prophecy as part of the solution. The apostle defines prophecy as a ministry of edification, exhortation and comfort (KJV), or upbuilding, encouragement and consolation (ESV). This ministry will tell the world that God is love, because it will show the world that God is love through the life of His people.

Concern for another, living toward others, and mutual indwelling are all expressed through such a life. Thus, Paul assures the Corinthians of the salutary effects of such self-giving love.

But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you (1 Cor. 14:24-25).

The problems and solution, as well as the effects of living in the image of He who is love, are the same today as they were in the days when the converted pagans of Corinth tried and failed and tried again to image the love of the triune God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I would like to say a word of application here concerning two failures among God’s people to image the Image of love. These failures are sarcasm and competition. If love honors the other, desires the highest good of the other and gives of itself to the other, then it would seem a grievous sin to tear all that good down through sarcastic speech. Insincerity, duplicity, harshness and cruelty do not represent the fruit of the Spirit, but the works of the flesh. As those who partake of the Imago Dei, we cannot transgress love in this way. Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, the Bible instructs.

Also, if love is cooperative and rejoices at the success and prosperity of another, then how can we justify an obsession with competition? Our culture values “in-your-face-ness.” Should we be numbered among those who wag our fingers, talk trash, bow up and look down on those whom we have defeated? God forbid. Our life in the image of God is by love to edify, strengthen, encourage, bring life, and make peace. It is not to tear down, insult, belittle, and humiliate.

Man is in the Imago Dei as a free, unique, unrepeatable person in holy relation with others in love. The corporate gathering of God’s people is the primary showcase to the world of what it means to be in the image of God. What is God like? Come among His people to find out. God is gathering people into His holy communion of love.

The Father reaches out through the Son by the Spirit. The Church is gathered by the Spirit in the Son and offered to the Father. Man and God are united in love. The eschatological purposes of God in Christ are made manifest. Here is heaven on earth. Here is love: persons in vulnerable, trusting, holy relations with one another. Here personhood is enabled because the sacraments draw us into the communion of the Trinity where we are transformed into the fullness of the image of God. Truly, the greatest of these is love.

“What now is my object and aim?
What now is my hope and desire?
To follow the heavenly lamb,
And after His image aspire:
My hope is all centered in thee;
I trust to recover Thy love,
On earth thy salvation to see,
And then to enjoy it above.”

- Charles Wesley

Propers for Trinity 1

Papa, What Are Nightmares Made Of?

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Go see all the nightmares.

"The Handless Organist" was a little-known prequel to "Phantom of the Opera."

[HT: Here and Here]

Note: I am not for making fun of the handicapped, nor am I for exploiting them.

Anne Geddes REALLY Creeps Me Out

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"In the future, children will not come from the womb. They will be developed in pods that look suspiciously like panty hose. We will eat them. They will heal all our diseases. We will live forever."

"SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!"


Bonus Fact: "Soylent Green" came out the same year as Roe v. Wade. How prescient.

What Is Trinitarian Worship? (2006)

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Trinity Sunday

The formula for prayer from at least the 4th century on has been “to the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit.” But first, the leading to pray must come to us from the Father, through the Son, by the Spirit. This circular movement of grace applies to every area of Christianity. Whether it is prayer, salvation, worship, or some other area, we must receive from the Father, through the Son, in the Spirit and respond in the Spirit through the Son, to the Father.

Another reason that worship must be Trinitarian is our belief that God eternally exists in three persons. This may seem obvious, but the Church had to work its way through the issue of whom they were worshipping when they gathered together. They reasoned that anyone who works authoritatively and effectually in man’s salvation has to be God. Therefore, both Christ and the Holy Spirit must be God with the Father. If this is true, then all three should and must be worshipped as God. And so we worship the Father as God. We worship the Son as God. We worship the Spirit as God.

A further insight into the essentially Trinitarian nature of Christian worship comes from John McLeod Campbell. Worship is “a form of the life of Jesus Christ ascending to the Father in the life of those who are so intimately related to Him through the Spirit” (T. Torrance Theology in Rec. 139). James Torrance says it this way, “Worship is the gift of participating through the Spirit in the incarnate Son’s communion with the Father” (Worship 30). If worship is the offering of the life of the Son to the Father by the Spirit, then we approach worship as contingent and dependent, yet included and sanctified participants. Worship is no longer an activity we perform, but a participation in the life of communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I find such a conception of worship has an elevating nature.

Hebrews 9:14 says that Christ offered Himself to the Father by the Spirit. Both the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist are included in this offering by Christ. It is important to ask and answer the question, “Who is the leader of Christian worship?” I conclude from Hebrews 9:14, in light of the sacraments, that Christ is the leader of our worship. Our worship is eternally constituted by our inclusion in the offering of Himself by the Spirit to the Father.

Propers for Trinity Sunday

Fr. Jonathan Tobias on the Dead

A lengthy excerpt from Memento Mori from the Second Terrace blog.

"In denying death, and its attendant grief, and the metaphysical springs of meaning that rise up from its meditation (memento mori), the avante garde steadily, pillowed and cosseted, drink their Ghirardelli on Fisherman’s Wharf, thinking of Big Sur. Oblivious, of course, to the expenditures of fetal tissue and old bodies slated for this year’s line of soylent green.

"We who remember the dead are not so besmirched by dread. We kiss the beloved in open casket before the priest blesses the body (not the “remains”), to the strains of Eternal Memory, Vicnaja Pamjat. We do not burn or discard that which reminds us of our mutability. We are more courageous, as Christians, than the existentialists who feared their own death: we grieve more the death of others than our own, and recognize the advance and immature grief at our own repose as the latent paganism it really is.

"In denying death, one is left with statistics and the latest PowerPoint models of molecular extrapolations. There is no soul, so there is no death, only cessation, disappearance, inconvenient, but entirely expected and should have been prepared for were it not for your emotional humanistic handicaps of faith and love. It is as if you were substituted midgame, and the crowd sees only another number on a like jersey, or you didn't show up to work, and another desk jockey slipped in your chair, and changed your preferences, your screen saver. You should have been able to take all this, but you're so handicapped with that "forever" wish.

"We who are so emotionally handicapped face death, embrace faith and the soul. For through the sleep of death comes the face to face, the single ubiquitous Beatific Vision of the One Who Is, Love, the God of the living, and not the dead, for there is, finally, no one who is.

"Dead, that is. Now, whether they are in bliss, or in despair depends entirely on whether death was listened to, and the humilities of belief were engaged."

Go read it all.