Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [95]
There was a script, a tract, things I should say: That hell was a nonnegotiable, that she needed Jesus to save her from her sins, but in this moment it wouldn’t translate. For the first time in my adult life, I forgot what I was supposed to say and said what I meant.
“The imaginative failure of fearing hell as fire and, conversely, of expecting heaven to consist of clouds and harps is that both depend on the assumption that we will have the same bodies in the afterlife that we have now. Christianity asserts we will have bodies, but they will be as different as a walnut tree is from the nut it grows from. If you’d only ever seen the seed, you would have no idea about the intricacy or strength or longevity of the creature that it evolves into.”
Ashley picked at the lid of her coffee cup. “I want to believe there’s more than this. The day we buried Chelsea I wondered, you know? I couldn’t help it. It doesn’t seem real that a person could be with you one moment and gone the next, like they never even existed. But it’s too abstract. How can you know it’s not just another ignorant superstition? You’re a Christian, but you’d discount all these other religions that have their own versions of the afterlife.”
“Maybe belief in an afterlife is something many religions share because they’re all man-made. Or maybe it’s the opposite. Maybe there’s a truth buried subconsciously in each man, woman, and child and that truth is projected out into the many religions people practice.”
She swirled her coffee in its mug. “So you believe in heaven?”
Of course I said yes. But in moments when I really considered my faith I was sometimes alarmed by all of it—by what odd and miraculous things Christians believe. I pushed my plate aside, crossed my elbows on the table. “This will seem off-topic, but I’ve always been fascinated by science—anatomy, quantum physics, space and time theory. I don’t understand these things, but the mystery is a part of what attracts me to them.
“That the world I live in now is complex beyond my understanding only encourages me to believe that there are wild possibilities in creation beyond even the things of this dimension of time and space. If this universe has alternate dimensions outside of our understanding, isn’t it possible that we might exist in a life beyond this one, in another kind of dimension that is fuller and more alive than the one we know?”
She smiled at me. “My dad would like you. He’s a total science geek.”
It was her way of steering the conversation back to safer ground.
When I pulled up to her dorm half an hour later, she lingered in the car, hesitant to say good-bye.Three girls were walking on the sidewalk in our direction, sundresses brushing high on their thighs, hand-bag straps bright against their tanned shoulders.
“They’re from my floor. Leslie and her band of loyal admirers,” Ashley said. “I’m sorry, but I hate them. Leslie goes to the tanning bed three times a week. She gets in completely naked except for a towel she puts over her chest.” She rolled her eyes, a sardonic smile tugging at the corner of her lips. “So she won’t get breast cancer.”
We laughed together.
The girls’ chatter grew louder as they walked by the car.
“They talk about me,” she said. “I told my roommate about Chelsea and asked her not to tell anyone else. I didn’t want people treating me different. But sometimes when I walk in the room, they all stop talking and look at me like they’re guilty. They accused me of being antisocial.”
“No one can know what you’ve been through unless they’ve gone through it themselves,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what they think.”
“Yeah, I know, but it’s not easy.” She traced the rubber weather strip of the window with her thumb. “So I’ve been meaning to thank you.”
“It was nothing. The story deserves the attention it received; you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.”
“No, not for the story. You know that night you called, a while back? It was my sister’s birthday.” Her hand fell to her lap. “It meant a lot to me that you called that day. I wasn