After a life spent dreading his inevitable death, Soren Kierkegaard — age 42 — finally succumbs. As he exhales his final breath, Soren feels released from his tormented life. At last! He can be with God, before God, as he believes is proper for every human being!
As his spirit elates, Soren gets a first glance back on his earthly existence. With a transparency that only the deceased can attain, Soren is forced to face the strange brew of hope and angst which formed his life. Publicly, he spent his days writing journals and polemic texts, often under pseudonyms. Privately, he was a devout Christian; one who professed that ‘leaping in faith’ is the duty of every soul. In faith, he perceived that his destiny was the defence of God against the hypocrisy of Lutheran institutions. He fervently criticized their complacency — and profusely wrote to expose the many other ways in which the self deceives itself and falls short of God’s plans.
Approaching the Gates of Heaven, proud of his life’s work, Soren feels a lightness of heart that he never felt while alive. After all the despair he experienced in life, Soren believes that surely he is gliding toward an eternal embrace. Didn’t he spend his days upholding God’s nature? Didn’t he invoke his fellows to delve deeper into their condition? As a man, Soren believed that he was performing his duty in pointing out the sins and despair inherent to the experience of living.
While God doesn’t welcome everyone personally (for that would a quite tedious full-time occupation), he nonetheless makes an appearance for Soren. Thus He appears as Soren imagined God to be: an old fellow, larger than life, with long white hair and beard, his voice resounding in Soren’s heart.
– Soren, my child…
God exhales, in sorrow, as if lost for words. Meanwhile, Soren hears ‘Welcome’ and ‘Congratulation’ in God’s tone. He does not see the disappointing glimpse in God’s gaze. For Soren, the mere fact that he’s standing before God is the culmination of his whole life, the proof of its success. His soul soars; for he believes himself already accepted in paradise, already enjoying the blissful union with the infinite and the eternal. Noting as such, God continues:
– Soren, I will not reject you from My Kingdom in Heaven. But I am disappointed nonetheless.
Slowly catching on, Soren’s spirit recoils and shivers.
– You have understood Me more sensitively than any man of your age. For years, you have sacrificed yourself, toiling under the belief that I needed you to shine in the lands. That is arrogance, my son. Yet, what you have said needed to be said. For centuries, your words and admonitions will be remembered. Other minds will read your works, for you have fathered a new appreciation of existence. What you did will matter to the conscience of your fellow humans.
– I … i, stuttered Soren, almost whispering.
– Did only what you thought best, I know! But you still failed me, Soren. You didn’t Live! You didn’t Love! You criticized, you denounced, but you didn’t experience the other side of existence — the creation of Wonder, of Beauty, of Goodness. Stuck in your fears, you misjudged the purpose of your life. The destiny I gave you — as well as to your fellow human beings — is merely to Live to the fullest!
Ashamed of the chastisement, Soren doesn’t dare to look up. Actually, he wishes himself to disappear, to fall through the clouds and slip all the way to Hell — where eternal pain seems a lighter punishment than the direct stare of the Almighty.
– Soren, God continues, look at Me.
Being disobeyed, He bellows:
– I command you, Soren. All your life, you imagined the moment when you would stand before Me. Actually, you imagined that the correct attitude to life was to act as if God’s gaze illuminated your sin, and your flaws, and your shortcomings. Now that I am giving voice to your main failing, you shrink. You shall respect Me by not wishing yourself away.
At this particular moment, Soren’s whole body wants to prostrate itself. His knees are weak and about to give out; his shoulders are rounded as if to encircle his heart. Yet God commanded him to look up and boldly face His blows. In order to find the resolve, Soren closes his eyes, lifts his head, and only then dares to behold God in all His glory.
– Soren, I love you.
Taken aback, Soren relaxes. He breathes, as if for the first time.
– Yes, Soren, I love you. And in My love for you, I can only wish that you would have let yourself love and be loved on Earth. But you lived in fear of love — thinking that love would diminish you instead of filling you with My bounties. You warned of despair but you nonetheless couldn’t escape it. You described faith but you couldn’t experience it. Your anger kept you from seeing Beauty already existing in the world. Your indignation kept you from collaborating with your fellow man, to bring my Kingdom to Earth. Not as an institution but inside every human’s heart. You preached on my behalf, Soren, and for that, I am grateful. But how I wish that you could have experienced my Love while doing so…
God lets this sentiment echo all the way to the firmament, where the sun and stars shine just a bit brighter now that they are emboldened with the primordial energy that keeps every speck of matter attracted to each other.
– Most surprising to Me is that you glimpsed the fundamental fabric of existence — you expressed how the self relates and grows through its relationships. And yet, you turned away Regina, your bride-to-be. Loving her was your main opportunity to connect with another soul — not your only one — but knowing intimacy is important for the development of human beings. But in saving yourself for Me, you closed yourself to the destiny I ordained for you: which includes loving, creating Beauty and Goodness, empathizing and collaborating with others. For I wish, for human souls, nothing less than to live in Paradise: not in the afterlife where pleasure and pain are meaningless, but in existence — where they can enjoy the joy, be elated by the laughter, and healed by kindness! I cannot provide such experiences in the ether of the ever-after.
Soren is speechless but now stands straight. He feels God’s embrace, tinged not with disappointment but only the regret of missed opportunities. For Soren suddenly realizes that God too is deprived of his infinite Love when the human souls close themselves to that feeling.
– God, You’ve enlightened me. I now understand that I should have been a conduit to Your Love. Thinking as such would have given me a different Life; one filled with an emotional depth to which I was, indeed, afraid. For that, I am sorry.
– You are forgiven, my Son. You, more than many, at least tried to bring about your self to the world — even if you used too many pseudonyms! I simply hope that your intellectual descendants will realize that Life is the main stage of existence.
On these words, the clouds opened. Both Soren and God peered toward Earth. They could see the souls of man and woman going about their business: selling their selves, losing their selves, atoning for their selves. In Soren’s mind, the words came which he should have written — but it was too late. Nonetheless, he felt reassured by the words that he did leave on Earth — especially since God had alluded to others deciphering gems within his life’s work. The price that Soren paid to leave such works behind was nothing short of his own opportunity to Live and Love. He now realizes that Greatness is the ability to do so while saying what needs to be said and doing what needs to be done, to bring forth God’s Goodness into the plane of existence.
– Soren, have faith that your torments were not experienced in vain. Now, let’s wash away your fears with a Bloody Mary or two!