Belief in life after death has been widespread over the centuries and throughout the world. The details about rewards and punishments, however, vary significantly among the believers.
There are some who argue our one and only life is limited to the here and now with no provisions for an appeal or another go around. Others expect we will stop at a Pearly Gates toll booth where we can argue our case. Beyond that booth there is a fork in the road leading to two very different destinations for eternity-bound travelers.
There is another group who anticipates a possible U-Turn area on that road providing a round-trip and a chance for better and cooler accommodations.
Mark Twain’s last published story in 1907, “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven” was an imaginative celestial travelogue with humorous jabs at the prevailing ideas about heaven. For instance, the captain reported earthlings are a minority group approaching the Gates compared to the trillions of afterlife travelers from billions of other solar systems in our universe.
Twain’s yarn was delightful, but I wish he could have sent back a revised edition with factual details after he passed away three years later. There have been many so-called afterlife accounts. Some are intriguingly convincing; others are questionable and a good many were probably invented by comedy and blog writers.
There’s the one about the fellow who’d led a reasonably decent life and expected to be provided with at least 4th class accommodations, but Saint Peter, the gatekeeper, wasn’t convinced.
“The Book shows you obeyed the Commandments most of the time with only a few close calls, but you were a habitual liar and told hundreds of tall stories. I have serious doubts about admitting you.”
“But, Saint Peter,” the man pleaded, “I thought you’d understand. I was a fisherman just like you.”
“A fisherman? Why didn’t you say so? Go on in. The tackle shop is on the third cloud to the left. Tell Jonah I sent you.”
A U-turn believer was being returned for a second chance to live an unselfish useful life, but he needed help. “Please, Your Saintliness, I was too self-centered, foggy-minded and unmotivated to be effective down there. Please provide me with common sense, a willingness to work and a kinder heart and I promise I’ll do better.”
So he was sent back as a mother.
A Dead-Ender who’d led a very selfish, depraved life was greatly surprised to wake up after his elaborate funeral to find there actually was a life after death. “I had no idea it wasn’t a dead end,” he told Saint Peter. “So there really is going to be an accounting? Well, I’ll be damned!”
“I’m afraid, my son, you’ve got that right!”
Imagine That 