A place called purgatory
indulgences, intentions and the in-between.
The subject for tonight’s lecture was supposed to be an explanation of my rating scale - the scale between purity and hedonism. I say ‘supposed to be’, because I’ve rewritten it about 15 times. In talks of purity, it should be perfect; but it refuses to play right. It just doesn’t sing. It’s not bad…it’s just, not what I wanted. This has no place on the rating scale, but if you were to swing a pendulum for it, it would settle somewhere painfully in the middle.
In a place called purgatory.
Most of my words tend to get stuck there, in word-document-purgatory-prison. Like the exact ones you’re reading now. These have been begging to get out for weeks. We usually refer to ‘purgatory’ as the waiting room where souls get stuck - not quite heaven, but not quite hell. The gray area. But it’s supposed to be about the actual purging of sins. The cleansing procedure that ensures souls are pure enough to enter heaven. The editing process that makes sure my writing is good enough to read. There is a Latin root I’m ignoring here, but I don’t want to bore you like last time (purgare – to purge).
… sorry, I can’t help it.
Nobody likes purgatory. Condemnation is awful, but at least there's some finality in hell – abandon all hope, you know? Humans love an ending, we crave closure. It’s the undone, the unanswered, the open-ended cliffhangers that drive us insane. In the 1500’s people hated the idea of purgatory so much that they were willing to shell out to shorten their stay. Opportunity knocked so Tetzel answered. “A coin in the coffer rings - a soul from purgatory springs”. What a poet! The 16th century was very ‘ask for forgiveness, not permission’ as far as sinning was concerned.
Not that things have changed much.
It was a classic case of supply and demand.
Sinners were going to sin; takers were going to take.
But at the end of the day, no one really wants to have to deal with the consequences that come after. You know, whatever puts the ‘purge’ in purgatory.
They just want purity. Buy the ticket. Wash off the hedonism. Enter heaven.
I love a little snake oil, but call me Martin Luther, because I’m sick of the indulgences.
You do have to admit though…it would have been a pretty sweet deal.
I know what you’re thinking, there’s a lot of ‘purity’ talk around here for someone who’s never been more than a tourist within a house of worship. Forgive me father, for I have…sincerely no idea what I’m talking about. I’d be incoherent in confession, misplaced throughout mosque, a vulture at the Vatican. The allegorical alliterations may be a bit much, but if I’m devout to anything, it’s my little (de)vices.
This one just happens to be literary.
In reality, I’ve spent a lifetime at worship, but mostly at the altar of my own self-destruction. Now I’ll spend decades dismantling shrines constructed by my preteen piety. If that was a little too introspective, let me rephrase it for you -
I get awfully high and mighty for a girl who only meets God when he is preceded by “oh my”.
It’s probably a sin to talk about hating purgatory, yet leave you in one. So, let’s give it another shot and start over from the beginning.
The subject for tonight’s lecture is the rating scale – it ranges from ‘purity’ to its bedfellow, ‘hedonism’. Neither existing without its sister.
They are equal yet opposite. A push and a pull. Everything falls somewhere.
Judgement Day may have come, but don’t worry. It’s just me.
The 2023 rapture is nothing more than you - here, reading this and realizing that I’ve been categorizing every move you make, every action I take, all the possible verbs and singular nouns into two separate but equal categories like some sort of self-proclaimed retributive justice. This is my god complex, born from blood magic and served with two fingers over begging lips. That’s what hedonism sounds like, by the way; directly juxtaposing the precession of “oh my” which can be overheard as screams of purity.
If you don’t get it, you’ll know it when you see it. I know it when I feel it.
The easiest way to tell it is by taste. If it’s fresh like strawberries that’s peak purity. Clean and simple and whole. If you finish with your fingers shiny with grease, you’re finding equilibrium - reach out and touch hedonism. One can’t exist without the other, and honestly, why would we want them to? Everyone craves purity but if you lean too far, you’ll tip the scale and find yourself swinging like the pendulum held by some sort of acolyte. Then it’s obvious where you’ll find yourself once things settle.Right back where you started.
Painfully in the middle.
In a place called Purgatory.
Enhance your reading experience with today’s Blog pairing menu:
Catchy tune: Wedding by Mac Miller
Feature film: Cruel Intentions