An Atheist and a Lutheran Write a Book about Purgatory and God

Yesterday before I got on a plane to come to Virginia to see my parents, I had a lovely morning with one of my writing friends.  A few years ago, she started writing a work of fiction about waking up and finding herself in a place that she assumes is purgatory.

But the purgatory is nothing like what she expected.  My friend grew up in a traditional Catholic household, in Germany, and that was awhile ago.  She became an atheist and a Marxist.  I grew up in a Lutheran household, the granddaughter of a Lutheran minister, but I was encouraged to read theology and to think about a variety of issues.  My parents didn't react with horror when I came up with ideas that might have been seen as heresy by my grandparents' generation--instead, we had interesting conversations.

In short, we're an interesting pair.  She sent our quilt group the pages she had written--our quilt group consisted of me, a Jewish person, a Hindu, and a Wiccan.   I responded back in the voice of God.  Here's an example:

"Humans yammer on and on about purgatory and hell and heaven, and when they get to me, they can’t quite leave their earthly beliefs behind. The ones who had the strongest beliefs are the ones who take the longest to relax into the true nature of the universe.

I wish I could console her. I wish that I could tell her that soon she will join her friends. Maybe it will be soon—these humans continue to surprise me.

In the meantime, she’ll continue to make her own heaven, hell, and purgatory out of these childhood beliefs which are the hardest to shake. And I’ll be here, each step of the way."

At the time, I had no vision that we would keep up our collaboration--in fact, I worried that she might be offended.  On the contrary, she was delighted, and we continued in our call and response style of writing.

Now we're working on putting it all together.  One of my goals for this time away is to read the whole thing from the beginning to the end.  It will be a treat.