The coughing was bad now, worse than it had ever been, and I realized that now I couldn’t even cough, because my lungs were out of air and none was coming in; and then my lungs relaxed and before me I saw a thin shadow of utmost black.
“Who are you?” I said, even though I already knew the answer.
i am death, the shadow said.
“Am I…”
i have come to take you.
“Do you have to?”
yes.
“But why? I want to live!”
i am helping you. i am taking you to a better place.
“I admit that Heaven may be better on some metrics, but it isn’t my home! It hasn’t got my friends! It hasn’t got my mother!”
it is my duty to move persons from the Fallen world to the Celestial, whenever their entry in the Book allows me. your entry allows me. i will move you now.
“But I don’t want to go!”
then you are wrong. you ought to want to go. Heaven is better than Earth.
“Not to me!”
you are wrong. if you are not incorrect, then your preference is wrong.
“Who taught you this?”
the Creator.
“Well, clearly you misunderstood Him. Just because Heaven is better than Earth on average doesn’t mean that every human wants to go there at all times!”
what humans think they want is often irrational.
“It is not irrational for me to want to stay in the same world as my mother!”
i cannot bring her too.
“That would not fix things! Even if you moved the entire human population to Heaven, we would still be upset about it!”
i cannot help the fact that humans wish to remain in a Fallen world. all i can do is move those whom i am allowed to move.
“Well, I don’t want to be moved! You can’t move my mother to Heaven, so let me stay with her!”
any human may join you if they wish, including her, and including those who do not wish to be separate from her.
“But I have so much to accomplish on Earth. There’s still so much for me to see and do here! Same with my family!”
there are comparable activities in Heaven, where you may do so with less risk of suffering.
“Look, is there anything I could say or do that would prove to you that I’m better off on Earth?”
no. i am created to know that Heaven is better than Earth, that it is my duty to move each soul from the latter to the former as soon as i can, and that i cannot until their entry allows me. i cannot think otherwise any more than a sparrow can fall upwards.
“But you’re talking to me, aren’t you? You can think for yourself. You don’t have to be a mindless slave to whatever you were programmed to believe.”
i am no slave. i choose to do my duty.
“Well, choose otherwise! Your duty is clearly terrible!”
it is not. it is to move persons to an environment where they will thrive.
“Against their will! You get to exercise your own will - why can’t I exercise mine by choosing to stay here?”
children do not get to make all of their own decisions. children may make those decisions which do not prevent them from living in an environment of minimal safety. you are not safe on Earth. you will be safe in Heaven. Heaven has less risk of great suffering.
“Being torn from Earth is great suffering!”
less, on the balance.
“Well, if Heaven’s so great, why even bother with Earth? Why put us here to begin with?”
you were given the choice, before you were put here. twenty years ago you were put in a garden and given the choice. i talked to you, and so did my colleague and adversary. you chose him over me. that is why you went to Earth at all.
but since you were a child, your choice had a time limit - in your case, twenty years. so here i am.
“But can’t I choose again?! I want to choose again! I made the right choice! I want to make the same choice!”
a parent might let a child touch a hot stove. but if the child continues to touch it, a kind parent will stop them.
“Yeah, well, eventually a child has to learn to cook. I can’t stop being a child if I can’t make my own decisions.”
you will be able to make your own decisions once you are more mature. but you must mature in greater safety. it is for your own good.
“How well has that worked out for us?! You’re telling me that people with clinical depression chose to be born here?! You’re telling me that you gave Hitler the option of living on Earth?!”
everyone in the garden is under a veil of ignorance. they are warned as to the dangers of the Earth, and that they will not know which of those dangers they will face. yet some of them choose Earth anyway.
“What?! I expect that my life will be okay now, but if I risked being born as a slave then I was crazy! Why does God make us so irrational in the first place?!”
He feels humans must choose to mature. within limits.
“You’re telling me He let people live decades of slavery and torture as a learning experience?! Couldn’t He cut the especially awful lives off after five years or so? Why leave the duration up to happenstance? I mean, some people can’t commit suicide.”
they agreed to it ahead of time.
“But some of them must have changed their minds!”
not permanently. sometimes a child must feel the consequences of their actions to fully appreciate what those consequences are.
“So you’re saying I’ve lived long enough to choose Heaven over Earth? I haven’t! I still want you to let me remain on Earth!”
you have not learned yet. but you have spent the minimum of time on Earth to learn once you have spent some time in school. in Heaven.
“I don’t want to go.”
you will thank me when you’re older.
I stood before a pair of golden gates.
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