A Blessing for the Overzealous
How to End a Theological Ambush with Poise, Poetry, and Purgatorial Flair
(Journal Entry: November 7, 2025, midafternoon light slanting through the kitchen window)
It began, as many domestic dramas do, with a rebuke disguised as concern.
My daughter came home from an afternoon gathering, unusually quiet, carrying that delicate silence that only children of mixed theological neighborhoods know.
“Dad,” she said carefully, “the other kids said you probably will be going to hell.”
“Oh?” I asked, keeping my tone neutral. “How did they come to that conclusion?”
She shook her head. “They said you don’t go to the right kind of church.”
Ah, yes. The missionary impulse of the freshly sanctified. I remember it well. The certainty, the brightness, the trembling thrill of being chosen to rescue others from their own doomed ignorance. There’s something almost heroic in it, if you overlook how exhausting it is for everyone else.
I had grown up through eight years of private Catholic parochial school - “the very best and finest form of education,” as we were always told. I even served as an altar boy and, as I later learned, was regarded by some of the nuns as a bit of a goody two-shoes (a term I suspect was not meant kindly). This reputation may have stemmed from my occasional habit of pointing out small flaws in their logic or asking inconvenient theological questions - such as what became of the poor souls who had committed the mortal sin of eating meat the previous Friday, just before the Pope changed the rule. Would they now be released from Hell?
I had raised my kids to not be subjected to religious doctrinal assimilation at too young of an age before they could discern for themselves what to believe in. A child’s imagination is both fragile and fertile. To me it seems criminal to plant such potent institutional seeds into a child’s mind too early and allow them to grow untended.
So that evening, after supper, I decided to equip my daughter with a gentler weapon - one forged not of argument, but of magnificent confusion.
Lesson One: The Art of the Counter-Blessing
“Sweetheart,” I said, “when someone insists on saving your soul, don’t debate. Just bless them. But not a polite, everyday blessing - a grand one, the kind the nuns at school used to wield like wands of holy authority.”
Her eyes lit up. “Like a spell?”
“Almost,” I said. “But with Latin undertones and moral smoke and mirrors.”
Then, with my best parochial solemnity, I began:
“May you be saved from the everlasting torment of the eternally burning fire and brimstone of hell, over which we are all, each and every one of us, dangling by the thinnest gossamer thread - but by the mercy and grace of God. Amen”
She frowned slightly. “What’s a gossamer thread?”
“Ah,” I said, glad she asked, “it’s the finest kind of spider silk - delicate, almost invisible, but strong enough to hold a dew drop, a unsuspecting bug, or, apparently, the fate of the human soul.”
She smiled, imagining it. “So… most kids won’t know what that means.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And they’ll be too afraid to ask. Which is what makes it the perfect blessing.”
Lesson Two: Practice and Deployment
We rehearsed it.
I played the role of the earnest young evangelist.
“Have you accepted Jesus as your personal—”
“May you be saved,” she intoned, eyes raised heavenward, “from the everlasting torment of the eternally burning fire and brimstone of hell, over which we are all, each and every one of us, dangling by the thinnest gossamer thread - but by the mercy and grace of God. Amen”
I gasped theatrically. “Mercy, child, I’m converted already. Now try it again but hold up your right hand over the head of the person you are blessing, that will add a hint of authority.”
Lesson Three: Historical Context
This, I explained, was no mere sarcasm. It was deep heritage. The Roman Catholic Church is the original Christian church that traces its beginnings to Jesus himself when he bestowed the keys to the Kingdom of God on Peter.
Jesus said: “And I tell you, you are Peter [Greek: Petros], and on this rock [Greek: petra] I will build my church” Matthew 16:18
The nuns who trained my childhood imagination could summon the entire metaphysical bureaucratic infrastructure of the afterlife with a flick of chalk and a wave of their oak yardstick. Purgatory was a halfway house for good intentions. Limbo was childcare for the unbaptized. And Hell was always close enough to make you sit up strait in your seat and ensuring that you always ate fish on Fridays.
It was both terrifying and operatic.
And oddly – beautiful in its own frightful kind of way.
Because beneath the brimstone was imagination. The sense that the cosmos itself was a living drama in which one’s behavior might alter the ending for all eternity - which they say - is a very long time. That reality, however fearsome, was storied.
That’s what I wanted to pass on. Not fear, but imaginative scope.
Lesson Four: Advanced Variations
Once she mastered the basic blessing, we practiced regional addendums:
Southern Revival Tent Variation:
“May the Lord reinforce your thread with triple-braided gospel silk, and may your guardian angel stay awake at their post, even during the sermon.”
Medieval Monastic Variation:
“May the heavenly record-keepers misfile your sins in the archive of minor mischief and forward your virtues straight to the Department of Eternal Comfort.”
Monty Python Codicil:
“And should the infernal auditors ever take attendance, may you raise your hand and say, ‘Oh terribly sorry, wrong address,’ before strolling off whistling something irreverently cheerful.”
She laughed so hard she fell sideways on the couch. “They’ll never know what hit them!”
“Exactly,” I said. “It’s a mercy disguised as theater.”
Field Report
Weeks later, she came home from school with the air of someone who had survived a small but glorious crusade.
“Well?” I asked.
“Oh, I used it,” she said, nonchalantly. “They just stood there blinking. Then one kid said, ‘That’s not in the Bible,’ and I said, ‘Maybe not in the short version.’”
And just like that, peace returned to the realm.
A Father’s Closing Benediction
So this, dear reader, is how I chose to arm my child for the world’s pious confrontations - not with sharper arguments, but with sweeter absurdity.
Because sometimes, the kindest defense of the soul is laughter.
May we all be saved, in whatever sense that word can hold,
from the torment of our own certainty.
May the gossamer thread of our being tremble lightly in the breeze of wonder.
And may the next time someone tries to rescue your eternal soul,
you offer them a blessing so radiant, so ornate,
that even the angels pause mid-flight to take notes.
Amen. And Amen.
Or, as my daughter prefers: Ta-da.
Editor’s Footnote
On the Strategic Use of Archaic Vocabulary in Theological Defense Mechanisms
Recent field observations suggest that the well-timed deployment of archaic terminology (“gossamer thread,” “fire and brimstone”, “everlasting,” “torment,” etc.) functions as an effective deterrent against unsolicited evangelism, particularly among the under-catechized. When delivered with solemn diction and sustained eye contact, such phrases trigger a form of reverential paralysis in the interlocutor, often accompanied by a faint sense of déjà vu and the sudden urge to check their memory verses.
This linguistic strategy, hereafter referred to as Orthodox Lexical Counteroffense, capitalizes on three key effects:
Semantic Elevation:
By invoking seldom used theological language, the speaker elevates the conversation beyond the range of immediate comprehension, thereby reclaiming metaphysical high ground without resorting to argument.Cognitive Fogging:
The introduction of unfamiliar terms (e.g., “gossamer”) produces a momentary cognitive lag during which the zealot’s scriptural reflexes falter. This brief window allows the practitioner to exit the conversation gracefully while appearing profoundly devout.Aesthetic Supremacy:
Ornate syntax and baroque phrasing appeal to the latent awe circuitry of the human psyche, producing in the hearer a mixture of admiration and mild fear. In test cases, subjects reported sensations of “uncertain holiness” and “the smell of incense for no reason.”
Preliminary data indicate that a single well-crafted blessing of this type can neutralize up to three fundamentalists under the age of fifteen, four if delivered in Latin.
Our Editorial and Research Team at Chatwick & Co. therefore endorses the continued research and responsible use of Archaic Vocabulary as Non-Lethal Theological Defense, especially in mixed-denominational environments such as playgrounds, family reunions at Thanksgiving, and Christmas pageants.
Further studies are underway. Results to be published, Deo volente, pending peer review and divine approval.
This post - based more or less on actual events - is dedicated to my daughter Noor-un-nisa whose 31st birthday is today.
Great thoughts! Happy Celebrations for her birthday.
My brother-in-law (who recently passed and will be sorely missed) had a little different way to address soul savers. When they came to his door he would always listen to them and when they would ask him if he found Jesus, he would respond, "I never lost him."
Or if he was invited to attend their church he would thank them for their invitation and say, "I'll have to check with my coven, first."
Christine
Oh how this made me laugh. What a good gift you gave her.