Lagerkvist

John Mihoff and I read Par Lagerkvist back in the late fifties. Recently Jack retold one of the stories that Lagerkvist had written. 

Lagerkvist won the Nobel Prize in 1951. He was a novelist, a moralist and a great stylist. When he was young and most pessimistic, he wrote, "Anguish is everything." 

What follows is my faulty memory of Jack's faulty summary of the story. 

Bill (not the name used in the story) was a religious man who did his best to live a good life. When he died, he went to heaven, where he found the terrain mostly flat and featureless except for a road. He walked down the road until he came upon a small group of people sitting in folding chairs, chatting and drinking cool water. 

One of the chairs was empty, so Bill took a seat and joined in the conversation, but after a while he grew restless. "Heaven is not what I expected," he said. "For one thing, where's God?"  Oh, just down the road, he was told.

Bill walked another mile or two until he came to an old bearded fellow sawing logs, making firewood. "Are you God?" Bill asked.

"Yes."

"Well, Heaven is not what I expected. It's dull."

"I did the best I knew at the time," God said and retuned to sawing wood.

______

Jack observed that many of us come to view our parents as people who did the best they knew at the time. We hope our children will feel that way about it.