Inspiration:
“Justice cannot be for one side alone, but must be for both.”–Eleanor Roosevelt
Inferno of the Living
When most people imagine an inferno, they think of Dante ’s The Divine Comedy. However, I was raised on another story about hell, a parable told by Jesus, in which a rich man goes to hell and a poor man to heaven. The rich man is surprised to see the poor man in heaven by the side of Abraham. In his suffering, the rich man pleads to Abraham to send the poor man to give him water to quench his thirst. Abraham says that the chasm is too wide to be crossed.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and other preachers have interpreted this story to mean that the rich man went to hell not because he was rich, but rather because he allowed the poor man to become invisible to him. He passed this poor man every day and failed to help. The rich man was blind to the need of others. Even in hell, he still believed he was better than the poor man and could expect that the poor man should serve him. The callous rich man wanted the people in heaven to care and help him, but he had failed to do this in his own life on earth for others.
BY ARCHENE TURNER, COMMUNITY MINISTER, WASHINGTON D.C., FORMER YOUTH MINISTER, CEDAR LANE UU CHURCH, BETHESDA, MARYLAND TO READ MORE