Dangling in the sky

"I'm going to be a Christian," I declared nonchalantly one lazy midweek afternoon when Ma was lounging between meals some forty years ago.

She was stunned.

Yes. Too much musings over years long gone. I am currently between treatment and with the fragility of Life dangling over me like the Sword of Damocles, I found myself looking back to where it all began. It is a time for healing and a time for reflection.

But let's get back to Ma. Like I said, she was stunned. It took a pensive moment before she packed all her thoughts into one statement.  She said, "When Christians die, they dangle midway in the sky."

I had no idea what inspired me to make that statement in the first place. Maybe it was the raging hormones (I was a teenager at the time) or maybe someone higher up the pecking order issued the impulse.  It was probably inspired by a sense of curiosity. How will Ma react? Will she hit the roof?  In any case, I made that decision, dubious as it was, some forty years ago, not knowing, not understanding the implication of my stand or the consequences thereof.

There were only three things I knew about Christianity at the time.

• Jesus Christ was the founder. (My history book said so.)
• A person who embraces Christianity is indifferent to the concept of filial piety. (Filial piety is a Confucian ideal quoted to exhaustion. Ma often told me about the funerals she attended where Christian children refused to honour their deceased parent by performing the Taoist funeral rites.)
• After death, a Christian dangled midway in the sky. (That was so cool, I thought, as I conjured images of a winged me dangling in the sky and petrifying the shit out of the birds. To understand how this image came to mind, read The Strange Book.)

I was tired of Ma's religious discipline and its encompassing bondage of fear. Her life was directed by what the gods told her through the spiritual mediums she consulted. Ma's gods governed without logic or reason. They had no historical record except for those passed down through word of mouth, some of several wobbling feebly at the edge of idiosyncrasy.

In Ma's world, there were a lot of gods. Greater gods and lesser gods, each to be periodically appeased. Life is but a passage to Hell for that is the ultimate destination. At a traditional Chinese funeral, currency notes (legal tender) issued by the Bank of Hell is offered to the dead. From this, one would conjecture that Hell is where the dearly departed is headed. 

Ma used to tell me about the eighteen tortures of Hell.  It was a Buddhist Naraka concept loosely intertwined with traditional Chinese mythology. It was undeniably gruesome. The person who conjured this idea had to be some masochist. The deceased died over and over again through various forms of torture. (Except that you can't possibly die all over again once you're technically dead.) The idea used to scare the shit out of me when I was a kid. I once saw a movie scene where a dead man's tongue was cut off because he lied. He survived that torture and went on to the next one where he was strapped to a flaming pillar. I can't remember the rest of the tortures but the one which topped it all was the one where the dead man's stomach was sawn in two while he howled in excruciating pain. (Technically, a dead man whose nervous system is no longer in action should not be feeling any pain. Just saying ...)

You need to look at this objectively. If I followed Ma's beliefs, I probably wouldn't survive all eighteen levels. (I can't remember how many times I lied about my age.)  It's like having to choose between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. If I chose the former, I'll be headed for the eighteen tortures. If I go with the latter ... well, dangling midway in the sky can be pretty cool.

It was the logical choice.

Now I wonder ...  Where did Ma get the dangling idea?

UPDATE
Chemotherapy completed. Now waiting for the hospital to fix my first radiotherapy appointment. My hair is about an inch long. Still waiting for it to turn black or curly, preferably both. Finger tips and flat of foot still tingling. Finger and toe nails looked frightful. The persistent numbness in my left arm is an annoyance. Other than that, I feel fine. Sometimes, I forgot that I'm sick. Occasionally, I remembered that I came this close to Death. If I hadn't been decisive about the operation, I would have been quite dead by now, and - probably ... dangling midway in the sky.

Alternatively, I might probably become a glob of energy traversing space to join the hypothetical Dark Energy which helped accelerate the expansion of the Universe.

Or not!