b'HAPTER4CHeaven on Earth Itoward my grandmother Mimmy with tears in my turned eight-year-oldeyes,holdingthesimplisticreligioustract and deeply afraid. Someone near an east Texas church host-ing a revival had given it to me. The tract asked a question that you will probably recognize if you grew up in the South: If you died today, would you go to heaven or hell? Sensing my instan-taneous horror as I stared at the tracts picture of literal eternal punishment for the characters lining up for the flames, Mimmy put it in the trash. Then she hugged and reassured me that God loves me each day and always will, just like her.Although I have been spared the thumbs-up or -down after-life picture and related graphic depiction of consequences for years, due in large part to better ecclesiastical choices, I saw it on a sign recently while driving through central Texas and gagged. The inquirer might have had good intentions, but this scare tactic question simply misses the mark. The attorney in me immediately wants the key terms and their context clar-ified. The Christian in me asks: What about how God intends for us to live today and the results in this life?Regarding terminology, it seems that a fundamental assump-tion in the archaic question is that heaven and hell are places out (or worse yet down) there to be fully experienced after death.Theyareallegedlyremovedfromourcurrentplace'