How bad is Hell?

You think you know

How bad it will be

When you base your expectation on

How bad things are

But it must be worse than you know

For it to be a place you’ll never want to go

How bad is Hell?

It’s like Heaven…

Heaven must be better than you can imagine

It must be A better place than you know

It must be THE best place

For you to want to go

How good is Heaven?

Is this the place you’re afraid to be…

Is this the place you long to be…

How bad is Hell?

How good is Heaven?

To some it is as bad as Saigon in Vietnam

As Port Au Prince in Haiti

As New Orleans in Louisiana

As Mound Bayou in Mississippi

Or the camps in Germany

The Trail of Tears in America

Soweto in South Africa

Or The Middle Passage across the Atlantic

Or the Cape Coast Castle called Elmiña

Sometimes, when I bow my head to pray,

I could hear a faint doubting voice say,

“What’s the use?”

And then I wonder,

“Is this how bad?

How bad Hell is?”

But then there are other days,

When everything goes well

And everything is “perfect”

And I’d say,

“Is this how good?”

“How good Heaven is?”

Other times

Things can look bad – real bad

or things can feel good – real good

and it makes me wonder,

How bad is Hell?

How good is Heaven?

But that’s this life

Hell is not this life

Heaven is not this life

They are both beyond this life

We cannot comprehend Hell

Through our pain filter

Or our emotional tolerance threshold

We can at best dilute Heaven

Through our subjective perception

Of what “good” is

When there is only One who is – GOOD

How can one ever know

Until it is too late to change the status

Or the location?

And then it would be inconceivable to share

beyond the gulf between this reality and that,

and impossible to say…

Do you prefer to wait

And find out

Or would you rather be sure

Never to know

How Bad is Hell?

And see

How Good is Heaven?

By Tobias Pace © 2012