At Death's Door: And Other Tales

By Joe Gerard Pugh

Printed together with several short inspirational works, At Death’s Door is a fictitious account of a meeting between a dying man and an old fellow who just might be God! In this story, philosophy meets theology, and human love meets divine love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Sep 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781489723765

Joe Gerard Pugh

Joe Pugh has undergraduate degrees in Social Work and Accounting, as well as a minor in Philosophy. He has volunteered in various ministries, both religious and secular, over the past 30 years. He is divorced with three adult kids and lives with his partner, Denis, in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania.

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At

Death’s

DOOR

and other tales

JOE GERARD PUGH

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Copyright © 2019 Joe Gerard Pugh.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide. Used by permission. NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION® and NIV® are registered trademarks of Biblica, Inc. Use of either trademark for the offering of goods or services requires the prior written consent of Biblica US, Inc.

LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.

LifeRich Publishing

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2378-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2377-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2376-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019909256

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 09/05/2019

Contents

Preface

Abner’s Tale

At Death’s Door

1. Encounters

2. Scientific Questions

3. Digging Deeper

4. About the Afterlife

5. Facing the Past

6. Judgment, Mercy & Blessing

7. Present Value, Future Value

The Wolf will Live with the Lamb

The Shepherds’ Reprise

A Three-Year Lesson

Saint Kevin’s Abbey

The Stranger in the Corner

The Artist’s Work

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Preface

W riting has been a passion of mine since I was a child. I could have been no older than ten when I received my all-time favorite Christmas gift – a blue plastic child’s typewriter. Now here I am in my fifties finally making a serious attempt to share my gift with others. Readers will find the writings in this volume short on action and description yet very long on dialogue. This reflects my view that the sharing of feelings, opinion and experience is one of the most precious uses of language. Such a sharing I offer to you, dear reader, in the hopes that your heart and spirit will be blest in some fashion. In the fine print you will read the assertion that these are works of fiction and that any resemblance to real persons is merely coincidence. There is, however, one obvious exception. In these pages, as with many works of written art, you will find the author’s heart.

Abner’s Tale is simply a short piece of fiction that came into my mind one Christmas. I wrote and posted it many years ago at Fanfiction.net in the Bible category; to my knowledge it is still there.

At Death’s Door is a work of fiction. I have never had a near death experience, nor have I studied the phenomenon substantially. I concede here that anyone looking for medical or technical parallels to the actual NDE phenomenon will likely be disappointed. I merely used the scenario to work into the dialogue my years of experience and reflection obtained while living in deeply Christian environments and knowing many wonderful people of various beliefs. I was motivated to write this primarily because of the glaring rift I see in our society. Conservative and mostly Christian on the one hand, and, well, everyone else on the other. It grieves me to see those in the Christian camp so often rigidly hemmed in by a literal understanding of Scripture to the exclusion of the universal love to which Scripture itself calls us. The dialogue in this tale is meant to mediate between two spiritual and ideological extremes. Surely our heavenly Father wants to heal our society without destroying Scripture and tradition on one hand, or callously imposing heartless rules on the other.

It may be noted that I rely on Scripture verses in my discussions rather than church documents. Despite my catholic upbringing, I am far more familiar with the former. I know of catholic theologians who have taken positions similar to mine. Their writings will be far more useful to those who depend more upon church Tradition than Scripture for spiritual truth. Also, I claim no divine inspiration here; I honestly find the ease with which many Christians credit their ideas with divine inspiration to be presumptuous and even manipulative. I have simply given my best to understand Scripture broadly for the honor of the Creator of all. There is one exception however, my comments about the immense beauty of ordinary human life did originate with a spiritual inspiration I had during prayer as a youth. Whether that moment was of divine origin I will probably not know until my own death experience.

There is one other assertion I make in this story which many will find radical: that on matters theological and moral it is as important to think with one’s heart as it is to think with one’s head. Scripture reveals God as all-knowing and wise, but it does not define Him as knowledge nor wisdom. God is defined by Sacred Scripture as love.¹ Placing this revelation next to the fact that the two greatest commandments are those of love, I must avow that the only true Christian theology is that which flows as much from the heart, as from a sound intellectual interpretation of inspired documents.

On a technical note, this work contains at some length a discussion of same-sex intimate relationships. For convenience I use the term gay couples at several points. It is not my intention to slight lesbian couples who do not term themselves gay.

The Shepherd’s Reprise is a short skit I composed for Easter which would perhaps be most suitable on a Christian elementary school stage.

The Wolf will Live with the Lamb is a longer play that I wrote as the culmination of my own reflections on having been bullied heavily in high school. My goal was to present the points of view of both the bully and victim fairly and with an eye toward greater understanding and ultimate healing. The afterlife setting is fanciful, as is the playful yet respectful use of the Lord’s Voice. As with A Near Death Experience, the goal was to create a credible scenario for deep and authentic dialogue between two persons who would never talk this deeply to each other in life.

A Three-Year Lesson, while not explicitly Christian, aims to teach a lesson about humility and teamwork.

Saint Kevin’s Abbey is a poem I wrote way back in 1985 when I visited those ruins in Glendalough, Ireland. It is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been.

The Stranger in the Corner and The Artist’s Work were school projects written by my two daughters. Proud father that I am, I could not resist including them here!

Abner’s Tale

I n the days of the Roman Empire there was a young man named Abner who fled from a tyrannical local government and hid himself in a small village of a foreign country. He took shelter with a family of three, themselves also refugees, and worked with them doing repairs and manual labor for the other villagers. He lived quietly with them for a week. They shared what little they had but did not speak of their pasts.

Then, on the seventh day, as they reclined to supper, his hosts encouraged Abner to tell his tale. After a moment’s hesitation, he began …

I was a soldier in the service of my king. I lived comfortably and I was respected by my peers and the people. I had a captain I admired and a young girl whom I loved. I had everything that a young man could wish for. Then, one day we received terrible news. The king had heard of a baby, born in a village of his kingdom who, rumor had it, had a claim to the throne. The king was livid. He had a son of his own and would not allow any rivalry in his kingdom. Since no one had certain word of the identity of this child, there was no way to distinguish him from any other baby boy in the town. We were given orders …

At this point, Abner shook his head and clenched his teeth. His host placed a hand on his shoulder, and he continued.

We were given orders to ride to the town and kill … every baby boy … every one. I rode with my company on the way in anguish. I am not very devout man perhaps, but I believe in the laws of the God of my people.

"I couldn’t do it. So, when my captain said that guards would need to be posted