This is a response to leter penned by Howard Grant of Greenfield and published in the Readers Write column of the Greenfield Recorder on Feb. 20. Grant posed an exercise of unlocking the doors of our homes to test how secure we feel when we are open to the wind.
He spoke about the United States of America as “our home and it behooves us to protect it.”
What disturbed me most was Grant’s closing paragraph when he said this. “A final thought quoted from Mac’s Fresh Market in Louisiana, “Heaven has a wall, a gate, and a strict immigration policy. Hell has open borders. Let that sink in.”
There are as many visions of heaven and hell as there are people. My vision and experience of both do not resonate with these ideas. Heaven does not have a wall, or if there ever was one, it is shattered by the presence of the Love who continues to walk the earth. Heaven may have a gate, if so, it is a gate that swings open. The heaven that I know is outlandish in its immigration policy: “All are welcome here. Come all ye who are weary and who are carrying heavy burdens. Lay them down. There is a place at the welcome table for everyone.”
And hell? Perhaps the borders are open there too. But what that says to me is that we all have a choice of how to live in the world. The choice to live fearlessly, without making a fetish of security, is the choice that Jesus puts to me, even to this day. Do not be afraid. I am here with you. I am letting that sink in.
Rev. Marguerite Sheehan
Shelburne Falls