Bonjour, y'all. Can you believe we're a month a way from the first day of Fall? Now, that's just the government definition. It'll be a month after that til we have a real Fall day, and Fall itself is about two weeks of October and two weeks of November. But at that point, all the Christmas stuff is out, and has been for two months.
Slow down, is what I'm saying. Slow. Down.
I learned something recently from a theology standpoint. Now, you may say, "Yes, Allison - everyone knows that." Well, I did not.
I thought, that for those who believed in Heaven, that when a loved one died, they went to Heaven and became an Angel. Apparently, I'm wrong. Angels aren't the souls of your deceased loved ones. They are citizens of heaven created in Heaven and not road-tested on Earth. To which I say (and I don't think I'm alone), whaaaaaat?
Apparently, Angels are not sweet and lovely, but ugly and fearsome - or at least, that is one set of lore.
Well dog my cats! I didn't know that.
If you don't become an angel, what's the point?
It was explained that some sects believe that when you die and go to Hell, you go straight there (Monopoly rules), but in contrast, those bound for Heaven are lying in wait for the second coming, at which point they will be sent skyward. So, there are millions upon millions in what I can only describe as Heaven's bus stop.
It's probably just as well that I don't believe in an afterlife. I find waiting very stressful - and to do all that waiting without getting a harp and some wings out of the deal - that just seems cruel.
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| Alleged "real" angel shown here. |
So that was one little smidge of knowledge I picked up this week.
Speaking of the afterlife, I read the new Fannie Flagg book that came out this week. It's called Something to Look Forward To - and it's sweet. It's just a collections of vignettes and short stories that are very hopeful and easy. Ok - there's arson and murder - both perfectly justifiable. There are also stories of guardian angels, reincarnation, and alien life from other universes.
There are a lot of, to the devoted reader, characters that are the original draft, or from an omitted plot of a previous novel. Or an amalgam of those two.
In one of her books, I Still Dream of You, Dear - there is a character who you learn fell in love with her married professor in college. You then learn that the professor was female. This character later becomes the mayor of her town. In a different book, Welcome To The World, Baby Girl there is a character who uses a wheelchair, and is incredibly educated and insightful. In this book, there's a girl in a wheelchair, who matches the physical description of the other two women. She is in college and falls in love with her professor, a married man. It is unrequited, but his influence on her is profound, and you learn at the end of the story she was just elected governor, and still thinks of her professor fondly.
So, you see what I mean? This is not a new trick of Fannie's - there are several characters who end up getting slightly rewritten and reused from book to book. I'm not mad at that - LM Montgomery liked to have twins in her many works. Stuart Woods has been leaning on Stone Barrington and sexy women for decades. It's fine with me. We all have recurring, possibly non-original themes in our lives.
The point being, I really liked the book. It's short, so I'll re-read it again within the next few days to reabsorb it. But there are a lot of things in it that make me happy, or hopeful, or nostalgic.
And none of that is a bad thing.
ae
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