This last winter, over the weeks before and after Christmas, the Sierra Nevada mountains, standing tall between California and Nevada, experienced a record-breaking snowfall. It has been declared the “snowiest December on record” in California, dropping 18 feet (about 5.5 meters) of snow.
So, of course, I felt this was the best time for me, someone who has practically no experience driving through snow, to go over the mountain.
To be clear, I didn’t want to. I don’t have a death-wish. I live in California, but we were visiting family in Nevada, just over the state line, and I had told my church I would come back to play piano at the slew of Masses over the Christmas weekend. If I didn’t, it would have fallen on our backup who, being a good sport, would do it. But she didn’t appreciate five Masses being dumped on her last-minute.
So I took a chance. One storm system had left and another would be rolling in in a couple days. So Friday, Christmas Eve, was my opportunity to get over the mountain. I bought a new set of snow chains that I got a professional to put on (because I have never driven with snow chains in my life). And I set out on the 4+ hour drive, clenching the wheel with both hands, driving a steady 25-30mph the whole length of the white road.
At moments, my vision was entirely blocked by flurries of wind-gusted snow flakes. I got through a pass further up that was closed less than an hour after I got through. At one point, all the cars had to stop so snowplows could clear the roads ahead.
But punctuated throughout the trip were these brief moments that pulled me away from my (probably irrational) fear. Even though I’ve lived in California my whole life, traveling up these mountains was never a common experience. I hardly ever saw snow. When I did experience a real winter, it was in downtown Chicago where they get rid of it as soon as it comes.
But this… this was a wonderland. My wife says the photographer Ansel Adam’s favorite place for pictures was Northern California. And looking out my window, I believed her. Every turn in the road was a black-and-white photograph waiting to be shot. The trees were laden with heavy powder. The cliffs were draped in mantles of white. I don’t know if I have ever seen nature so beautiful up close in my life.
Dangerous and Beautiful
That juxtaposition of the dangerous and the beautiful, the fearful and majestic, are what I think of when I think of Heaven, Hell, and the immense importance of our lives. Snow is lovely, but wrapped up in that loveliness is everything that also makes it difficult, hard, slippery, a pain. We cannot have one without the other. Mountains are high because valleys are deep. Moments with loved-ones are sweeter because we know they won’t last. Every yin has its yang.
When we look at only the frustrating facets of snow, we are tempted to think it is all bad. Certainly, if I lived in snow throughout the year, the luster would probably fade while shoveling my car out and dealing with sky-high heating bills. But if we think only of the beauty of snow, that’s a problem, too. We won’t reckon with the difficulty of actually dealing with it. Imagine if I were some Pollyanna who blissfully thought snow-chains weren’t needed because the “beauty of the woods” would carry me through or some such nonsense.
This series on Hell is a multi-part series, so don’t think that this post represents all my reasons for why a loving God would allow Hell. But this idea is really at the heart of why Hell exists – or at least has the potential to exist. The most fearful, beautiful, majestic, dangerous thing in the whole universe – aside from God himself – is you. It’s all of us. The Bible says that we are made in the image of an omniscient, omnipotent God, destined (if we choose) to rule the universe with him, seated with Christ higher than the angels in Heaven or forever away from him.
What the Bible teaches is that, whether you want that or not, that is what you are. Not a mere animal. Not a clump of star-dust. Not an evolutionary fluke. The decisions you make are momentous and will shape your future forever because you matter.
And you matter because God matters. To turn your back on what he made you to be cannot be done lightly. Where can any of us go if we choose to walk away from God and his love? The only place we could ever possibly find ourselves is a Hell of our own making.
I understand why the idea of Hell is so distasteful. But what those who don’t believe in Hell want, ultimately, is a flat landscape with no mountains, no valleys, no deserts, no streams, no adventure, no importance, no meaning. They want all the beauty and none of the majesty. They prefer a dark void over the possibility of a blazing sun.
The Christian conception of reality is that Heaven is real, and Hell is its underside. Heaven is one side of the coin, and Hell is the other. And whether we end up in one or the other is our terrible and fantastic choice.
(Here is the next part in the series: Part 3)
©2022 Jon Holowaty
Jonny Catholic 
“Beautiful and dangerous”—a perfect description of that photo.
You remind me of a quote from The Lord of the Rings about Lothlórien which I think are appropriate:
“It strikes me that folk takes their peril with them into Lórien, and finds it there because they’ve brought it. But perhaps you could call her perilous, because she’s so strong in herself. You, you could dash yourself to pieces on her, like a ship on a rock; or drownd yourself, like a hobbit in a river. But neither rock nor river would be to blame.”—Sam Gamgee, The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien
I think one could also understand God in such a way and how He can send people to hell—or rather how they send themselves there.
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