A divine irony

Visualize, if you will, a metal staircase by a cinder-block wall, ending at a door. A sign hangs above it: “Abandon hope, all ye who enter here.” The sign is lurid yellow with drippy black lettering. You duck below the sign (if you are over about 5'6”) and darkness and heat blast you.

You enter a hallway. Black hangings drape the walls. The only light comes from a single fixture, partially obscured by yellow and orange flames, and through a doorway at the end. You look down. A broad black path is laid for your feet, with flames emanating from underneath it, here and there.

Your attention is drawn to a number of signs on the wall. All of them are neatly labeled, “1st circle,” “2nd circle,” and so on to “9th (deepest) circle,” with an arrow indicating the direction to find said circle. The “2nd circle” sign marks a door, which is also labeled “male” in lettering much like the hopeless sign. The “5th circle” shares space with the “female” door. There are random flames along the doors and walls, flames with black at their hearts. In short, you have entered hell, and I spent my evening creating this exciting location for Vacation Bible School tomorrow. Someone else hung most of the black plastic and let me do the flames and signs, because I was telling her all about Dante and really seemed to be into it!

If, furthermore, you manage to pass the ninth circle, a doorway cut out of the black, and a curtain of streamers, the first thing you may notice is about a ten degree lessening of temperature, together with brighter and bluer light and a bright sign (also of the unfortunate yellow, though it looks much nicer in good light) saying, “Christ has conquered hell.” Stars hang from the ceiling, and over each light fixture hangs a gauzy cloud with small silvery balloons. Scrolls, hand-lettered with awesome burnt edges, hang upon the walls proclaiming Jesus' lordship.

A waterfall comes down, ahead and to your right. Two shades of blue stream down into a rounded pool, and silvery bubble balloons foam around.

Below your feet, you will find a white (labeled) “straight and narrow” path. Follow it, and you will come to a place where the drawn stones make way for a wooden segment. This puzzled the author, who had, after all, just come from a region not known for its brilliant reasoning skills, until she noted that the wood corresponded with the river from the waterfall. Someone built a bridge on the straight and narrow to cross the river of life! Wasn't that brilliant of the Dante-listener and my sister? :-)

Since we did not turn D5 into the Divine Comedy for Jennifer and Jonathan's birthday, I thought it was ironic and awesome we did for VBS. And I didn't even have anything to do with deciding on it--I just helped put it together. :-)