Mac Searches for Answers

Mac is behind bars, and, with the extra time on his hands, he’s beginning to consider life’s big questions.

Beaten down and wearing an orange jumpsuit, Mac calls the bishop from a prison phone seeking spiritual counsel.

“What is it?” the bishop says when he picks up the phone.

“Do you think there’s a hell?” Mac whispers into the phone.

“A hell? What are you doing calling with a question like that?”

“You’re the only one I can trust,” Mac says. “Do you really think there’s a hell? Some place where people get punished for all eternity.”

The bishop, realizing Mac is sincere, gives him an honest answer. “I’ve never been much for this God of punishment. I know the bible says it’s a fact, but I’ve never seen any evidence of it myself,” the bishop says.

“Most sin to me seems like it brings its own suitcase of pain with it when it walks in the door. That being said, I think when we die, Mac, we go immediately and completely into the presence of the pure love of God,” the bishop says, “and for some of us, depending on what we’ve done to discern in that moment how much damage we did, how good it all could have been otherwise, that’s going to feel like hell.”

“Is there any way out?” Mac asks.

“There’s always a way out, you know that,” the bishop says. “You just have to confess.”