Friday, March 29, 2013

Annoying Beatitudes

For some reason the captioning on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was not working,  so I went to my room and watched Godspell, figured that was an appropriate Good Friday movie.

One of the songs "All for the Best" touches a topic I have been thinking about since a wake I went to last week.

At the wake one of the readings was the Beatitudes, which includes "Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted."

"All for the Best" has the line "Don't forget that when you get to Heaven you'll be blessed..."

When I hear these, I don''t think of them as promises. They annoy me. I don't see them as lies, but frankly, who cares?

Of course, things will be OK when I die. I don't expect to need comforting after I die.

When Reynolds Price was first dealing with his back cancer, he had a "vision." In it Jesus tells him, your sins are forgiven. Reynolds replies (essentially), well, duh, how about my back? So Jesus says, that too.

That's how I feel when I hear "Blessed are they who mourn: for they shall be comforted."

Well, duh.

Of course when I get to Heaven, I'll be blessed. Isn't that kind of the point of Heaven? I want more.

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