Apostle Shuffle concluded beginning

Hell is a garbage dump outside of the city gates, or at least the description of it is as noted in the Gospels. Our concepts of the hooven devil comes from art and culture, Milton’s Paradise Lost and Dante’s Divine Comedy. Within the Divine Comedy is the idea of Purgatory- or limbo. The idea of a storehouse for the dead awaiting judgment or paradise. It is a concept that has been used to control, to build coffers and triggered wars for state lands.

But what is the concept? Pseudo-Peter outlines it in his last chapter, but it does not sound so much as a place as a point in a journey:

This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder,² that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, ³ knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. ⁴ They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” ⁵ For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, ⁶ and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. ⁷ But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.

⁸ But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. ⁹ The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you,^[a] not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance. ¹⁰ But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies^[b]will be burned up and dissolved, and the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.^[c]

¹¹ Since all these things are thus to be dissolved, what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, ¹² waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be set on fire and dissolved, and the heavenly bodies will melt as they burn! ¹³ But according to his promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.

-Epistle of 2 Peter 3:1-13 (English Standard Version)

The moments in time, they may be long, they may be instantaneous, when the sludge of the soul, the muck of life. The gray and shadow that keep you from the light– are burned away. For in John Mark’s rendering of Peter’s view of the Gospel, in Gospel of Mark it was Jesus that told us the Kingdom was near and it was up to us to bring it here. Now many have viewed it as an apocalyptic war scenario with persecutions, etc.

BUT, what if…it’s not. What if it is literally about personal and communal transformation within hope, joy, peace, faith and love?

And, even though it has been misused, the concept of purgatory or purge, is the facilitating of healing and wholeness to where those things that keep you from the gifts are finally removed. Yes, it may be ongoing, because as the old song says, that’s life. Yet, in the pilgrimage, each time something new is revealed.

To the core:

¹⁴ Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace. ¹⁵ And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶ as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures. ¹⁷ You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability.¹⁸ But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen.

-Epistle of 2 Peter 3:14-18 (ESV)

The Gospel was a political and spiritual declaration of people and their interactions with the Holy Mystery.

What would your Gospel say?

The letters of the Petrine Christianities centered on living the authentic you are created to be. It is about authentic loving community.

What would your epistle say to the communities you are apart of?

For the pilgrimage to the heart of the sacred is a winding path with but one destination. LOVE. It is a destination that matters. Along the way the gunk (sin, ego, shadow, sludge) that keeps you separated from self, neighbour, and divinity, will be purged away- that is your soul work. The goal is simple:

BECOME WHO YOU ARE MEANT TO BE IN THIS MOMENT.

Let your new chapter open…