SAUCIER — Life savings

We were driving back from a family vacation in East Tennessee.

We had stopped for gas when a middle-aged man in jeans, boots, and a tucked-in tee came up to my open window.

“Hi,” he said. “Have you been saved?”

I should have been grateful that he got right to the point, but I was already weighing my answer.

I didn’t know the best way to avoid a long theological discussion.

Did he want me to say “Yes” and rejoice in my salvation? Or would he prefer me to say “No” and give him the opportunity to earn another notch in his Bible belt.

I crossed my fingers and went with “Yes,” knowing full well that I have had neither the conversion experience nor the altar-call commitment that were part and parcel of what he meant by being saved.

He smiled and handed me a Bible tract on “The Burning Hell.” Before I could say anything, he was off to rescue another endangered soul.

I looked at that tract later. It had the usual quotes regarding “everlasting fire,” “wrath of God,” and the promise of Psalm 9 that “the wicked shall be turned into hell.”

But honestly, when it comes to hell, I’m not so sure. If God does indeed punish, then justice would demand some proportionality.

Infinite, eternal punishment for finite sins just doesn’t seem right.

It is also hard to believe that a God who “so loved the world” and created us in a divine image could ever give up on us, much less punish us endlessly.

But then, heaven and hell, or whatever awaits us once we have slipped beyond the veil, are all well above my pay grade.

Being “saved,” though, is another matter. It is not something that waits until our dying breath.

If the Kingdom of God is at hand, present among us, then the salvation it offers is here, as well.

We can be “saved” in the present.

When friends pray for me during a difficult time, I am being saved.

When hope refuses to abandon me even in the darkest night, I am being saved.

When I react with empathy and compassion, rather than anger and judgement, I am being saved.

When we come together to celebrate birth and death, I am being saved.

When in the deepest silence, I know that I am not alone, I am being saved.

Heaven and hell can wait, but being saved should not.