From A Book I'm Working On

"I wish my God would come down and make Fred Phelps slip and fall ass-first on a cock and find out he likes to be the bottom in anal sex. There seems to be some poetic justice to that that I keep thinking God would enjoy. I also think that when Phelps dies he'll go to heaven and the person waiting to greet him will be Matthew Shepard. I think that in heaven, you have this blinding moment of realization and forgiveness when you look over the whole of creation and time and existence with God and you realize that a lot of the prejuidices and a fears you held onto on Earth were really just bupkus and you immediately forgive every one right away, almost as a reflex. I hope that I have that kind of moment. I try to practice empathy for most people and I give a lot of people leeway in how they act and what they do because I do believe that a lot of peple don't have the mental awareness to see that they're acting like an idiot. Pat Robertson's mental awareness hovers in the negatives. He says the most boneheaded things on earth, but I still forgive him even as I cringe. So when Shepard got to heaven in that instant after he died and he was welcomed by God, he saw the vast expanse of everything and was enlightened, illuminated and forgave in spite of his pain and his family's pain and in that next moment (because it's my heaven, I get to say how the clocks run, so I think it's only a moment has passed) Phelps arrived, God said to Matthew Shepard "I'd like you to be the one to walk him in." And he did. And they walked in towards the throne of God, and Shepard took him a special way down the streets of heaven, through the Castro district in the clouds while Phelps quietly muttered to himself "Oh my God, I'm in hell, what is going on here?" until he is presented before God and he suddenly understands that really, God loves all his creatures, no matter how they used their free will and desires, and that even though Phelps spent his time and life energy preaching hate and anger and fear and praising evil when he claimed to be working for God, God forgives him, and he's welcome anyway. And Phelps will fall on his knees and cry and beg the assembly congregation of heaven forgiveness for his misspent life and thank God for his mercy and sing God's praises. Until he finds out that he's got to wait another two weeks until his house is done and he's got to be Matthew Shepard's roommate. Not that I think Matthew Shepard is being punished by that. He's already enlightened. Like in Zen Buddhism, enlightenment comes often with laughter. At least, that's what I hope heaven is like. A combination of forgiveness, love, understanding, and humor. If heaven doesn't have laughter, and comedians, I'm not sure I want to go. A place without laughter is not heaven at all. Maybe that's why I like to believe that in the end we all pray to the same God, because the idea of the Three Stooges and Sarah Silverman, and Jon Stewart, Lenny Bruce, et al being in some separate Jewish heaven I can't get to doesn't sound very appealing to me."