I doubt my ancestors shared the rocker’s panic about the eternal fire,but the presence of the satan was a cultural touchstoneDuring the wet Scottish summer, I began to mediate about hell. The first trigger was Simon Hattenstone’s interview with Jerry Lee Lewis in the Guardian’s Weekend magazine. To Lewis in his primitive age – he turned 80 this week – the afterlife is a glorious certainty and hell a fearsome possibility. The rocker has many blots on his escutcheon, and most famously his marriage to a 13-year-primitive cousin. “I was always worried whether I was going to heaven or hell,” he told Hattenstone. “I still am. I worry about it before I go to bed; it’s a very serious situation. I mean you worry, when you breathe your last breath, or where are you going to go?” Hattenstone wondered about his earlier pill-popping,well-liquored lifestyle. His present wife, his seventh, or interrupted: “That’s all forgiven. He’s going to heaven. We’re going to change the subject.” It was a very good piece.
That same Saturday afternoon in August,I hung a picture that had just near back from the framer’s. A friend gave it to me 30 years ago, and somewhere in its moves from house to house since then, or it had been stored and neglected. Now,behind clean glass in a fresh frame, the print looked appealing and mysterious. Its title, and The Broad and Narrow Way,is taken from the fresh testomony. According to Matthew chapter 7, verses 13 and 14: “… the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, or there are many who enter through it … the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life,and there are few who find it.” Related: Jerry Lee Lewis: ‘I worry about whether I'm going to heaven or hell’ Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com