Recently, in response to some small thing, Sparky tossed this off at me:
“I guess you’re going to liberal heaven.”
My immediate and visceral reaction was, “OH, GOD, NO! How awful! I don’t want to go there!” This has haunted me ever since.
I’m pretty liberal. I should probably think Liberal Heaven is a good place to end up, but I can’t imagine that I’d last more than a weekend before they threw me out for bitching.
At first I wondered what my problem with my own values was that I had so much screeching dissonance, but after a few weeks I’ve decided my problem isn’t with my politics, it’s with virtue itself. And the concept of Liberal Heaven (or Conservative Heaven, or Good Mother Heaven, or Dedicated Philanthropist Heaven, or Clean House Heaven, or any purgatories by another name) lights up a central mystery for me.
Virtue v Ecstasy.
One of the purposes of faith systems seems to be the promotion and support of virtue. That’s good. When virtue is the gauge I’m checking, I’m usually not engaging the full spectrum of my jerkfacey gifts. When we try to make the world a better place for others, we usually do that to some degree. I get it. I try to be virtuous.
But I yearn for ecstasy. And I don’t know that it’s a thing you earn by charity, ethical shopping, or compassionate traffic behavior. The experience of the the sublime seems completely unrelated to the disciplined exercising of an ethical code. It leaves judgment on the observation deck while the spirit is hurled aloft, weightless and out of control.
I thought a lot about what my heaven would be. Since I’m a simple animal it was lots of laughing, juicy meat, and good sex (bad news for the husband, as he’ll be required to accompany me. Sorry, man.) Lots of people are there, and everyone is beyond excited to see everyone else, and madly in love with the whole experience. The wine boxes are as big as storage pods, and there is music all the time- dirty blues, dysfunctional rock, patriarchal American Songbook stuff. I sing loud and no one minds. But virtue? No one invited her to the party in my soul.
This is an idea I am working on, so if this seems disjointed or incomplete (even by the standards of this blog), that's because it it. But I can't hit it with a stick if I don't hang it from a branch first, so up goes the mystery pinata! Feel free to whack at it.