"The Mildly Famous Man of Moderation"

There was an old man once, who lived a life that was dedicated to moderation in all things. And I do mean all things. Everyone thought so. His wife had praised his choices as good enough while they were married, though she had died so many years before. Her love for him had been something wild and immoderate, as passionate at some times as it was dry at others, while his for hers had been the steady flame of a candle. Never bright and hot and burning to the touch, but at least never guttered out and gone. She had loved him for his faithful dedication, and thanked him for it, even while she was never quite satisfied with their life together. In fact, she even had one affair, a wild and passionate fling that he could not comprehend even when she told him about it on her death bed, and before he knew how to reply, she had been gone.

His neighbors were full of the kind of praise a man of such moderate living best loved hearing. If asked, those souls would say he was a modest fellow, not too caught up in having the largest house or the nicest garden, but spending just enough time taking care of his house and garden that they were respectable, and didn't offend the eye. But if they didn't offend, neither did they inspire, and sometimes the neighbors shook their heads at the good soil they felt wasted by the man of moderation. The man never heard these complaints, for indeed they never voiced them within his hearing, too embarrassed to suggest that the moderate way may not be the best way.

As for his friends, well, they were full of stories, the sort best told only among old friends who had found the events in question just as funny. And why? Because they were the sorts of stories you could only appreciate if you'd been there and knew the principle characters as well as you knew yourself. For these were stories of how the old man had apparently never been a young man, but had come just this close to committing some foolhardy deed, or a vast and vivid recollection of how the man without a youth had almost gone through with that great prank. In short, they were only enjoyable to those who knew the old man, and knew that he had always been an old soul, and they appreciated the irony of the stories.

His family would tell you that he was the sort of man who very much favored helping others, so long as they didn't become too interested in being helped. He had a very staunch and very stern philosophy regarding people who couldn't or wouldn't take care of themselves, and if he'd give you the shirt off his back when you needed it (and there are reports that he did at times do so), he'd still expect it returned clean by Tuesday, and thank you very much for the starch.

His practical principles had led him to father just two children, one boy, and one girl, one to marry and carry on the family name, and one to be given in marriage, and no more to trouble the family income or disturb their modest and moderate living. After all, he swore to himself, while they might never be rich, they could at least console themselves by never being poor.

His children would tell you that he was quite an excellent father, not given to flights of fancy or the sort of bombastic extravagance that other fathers heaped upon their children in play and at rest. Their words would tell you that they were glad to have had such a solid foundation in a man for their families, a man who, while he never raised their spirits, at least never disappointed them either. After they grew up, they counted it a fair exchange to have never had a bed time story created out of thin air and the magic of the imagination for the stable values he had taught them through stolid repetition. The only slightly curious fact in his children, something he never quite understood, was that neither took the same approach towards their children, and indeed, they could never explain why themselves.

There is more that could be said about this man of reasonable goodness, but let us suffice it to say that he was the sort of fellow who believed himself to have lead a good enough life, and was satisfied as he approached its twilight that he would be able to continue his practical existence with God in Heaven, (if God and Heaven truly existed), and who he saw as the very first to propound that beautifully austere maxim, "Moderation in all things," even if just as a mythological character in a story he would normally not have read.

So the old man, after some time, passed on, dying a respectable death of old age at the average age of 72, his breath giving out as he slept. His son remarked in the eulogy that it was exactly the sort of death he imagined the old man would have wanted, and while he cried, he begged everyone else to remember the man who had never shed a tear, even if it had meant that he could never truly laugh.

And finding himself dead, the man did the only practical thing there is to do. He went directly to the Gates of Heaven and St. Peter, fully confident in his admission, and sure that he had been good enough for God.

But something strange happened there. When he arrived, he found that the Gates were shut, and St. Peter was not around. Being a simple and reasonable man, he sat himself down to wait and in the meantime studied the exemplary architecture of the Gates, which seemed to be made of a luminous white stone, carved in a delicate pattern and gilded in gold brighter than the sun. He even went so far as to fancy that he himself would have enjoyed having so beautiful a gate at his own home, if only he had ever seen one rendered like this. So caught up in his admiration was he that he didn't notice the return of a rather flustered St. Peter, who held in his hands a very long bit of parchment. St. Peter, in fact, had to clear his throat rather roughly to earn the attention of the man of moderation, who immediately stood up and stuck out his hands in the ritual greeting of the rational man everywhere.

With a rather amused twinkle in his eyes, St. Peter shook the man's hand, and then asked him if he was lost and needed directions, almost as if he didn't know his duty as the Gate-Keeper to Heaven. The old man (who suddenly realized that now that he had died he didn't feel so old), said that no, he had quite found the place he meant to be, and was waiting for St. Peter to do the reasonable thing in opening the Gates. St. Peter then had the temerity to do something most unreasonable. He laughed! He laughed right in the old man's face and exclaimed, "But wait, aren't you so-and-so, the mildly famous man of moderation?" Impressed, and, he could admit to himself, rather pleased at this recognition by the great St. Peter, the old man fairly preened in replying that yes, he was indeed that man.

Of course, this, it turned out, was entirely the wrong thing to say, as St. Peter shortly thereafter pronounced that he could not go in, but he (St. Peter) would be happy to give him directions to somewhere else that he could go. Confused, the old man asked what St. Peter could possibly mean. After all, his whole life he had dedicated himself to that most difficult to master of virtues; moderation. He had never drunk too much, nor had he ever been too angry, he'd never felt too much of any one of the passions which could be twisted to vice. He protested mightily that he'd been good enough all his life, and that everyone thought so, and indeed, he presented a fairly convincing case.

In reply to all this St. Peter merely unfolded his parchment, and read, and then said to the old man that if he could answer any single one of the questions that St. Peter would ask about him with a yes, honestly and fairly, then he would open the Gates and let him in. The man replied that any one who lived a life of moderation and practicality had nothing to fear from such an interview, and so readily agreed.

The first question St. Peter asked was whether he had ever cheated on his wife, but then repented, and asked her forgiveness. The man replied happily that no, he had never cheated on his wife. St. Peter frowned at this, and the man wondered why, surely the Apostle couldn't want him to have cheated on his wife.

The second question asked, concerned whether the man had ever told his children something that wasn't true, even if only to amuse them, by enticing their imaginations into a world beyond the one they lived in. The man replied firmly that he never lied to his children, and certainly never tried to encourage such fantastical codswallop. The world was a practical place of firm realities, and that was what he encouraged in his children. To his disappointment, St. Peter's frown only grew worse, with furrows creasing his brows and a sorrowful sort of pain creeping into his expression. The old man couldn't understand, not even for the everlasting life of him, but he imagined his heart had skipped a beat. Nonsense, of course, he reminded himself, since here he didn't have a heart.

The third question inquired as to whether the old man had ever committed some act of foolhardy bravado and impetuosity, even if no one would truly have been hurt by it, or would have found it a most splendid sort of joke. The man answered easily that he had never believed in such activities, and was proud to have lived a life without heart pounding adventures. They weren't at all the sort of adventures a man of moderation would pursue, though he retold with relish the story of how he once almost ate from a jar of expired mayonnaise, and was rather disappointed when St. Peter didn't sigh with relief, or smile, or give any signal of approbation as he revealed that he'd caught himself just in time by catching a glimpse of the expiration date as he returned the jar to his refrigerator. He hadn't wanted St. Peter to think he was a risk taker, after all. Indeed, St. Peter's response to this only furthered his dismay. He remembered suddenly that the Saint had declared he could only enter if he could answer with an honest "Yes!" and now the old man started to feel the pressure. He didn't know how many questions were left, but he was desperate to find one that he could answer with a yes.

The questions continued for some time as St. Peter scrolled down his parchment asking question after question, all of the strangest sort conceivable, from whether the man had ever written a sonnet (no, he had always found poetry to be far too frivolous, but he had written an excellent essay on geology) to whether he had ever worn the same pair of underwear twice in a row without washing them, (no, of course not, that was hardly hygienic!). Question after question came, and the man could not answer yes to any of them. As you can imagine, his predicament began to tell on him, and his voice grew hoarse, and his eyes darted about seeking some means of escape. That the practical reality of his lack of eyes here never occurred to him should serve to inform the reader as to just how deplorable a state this man of moderate virtue had been reduced to.

Finally St. Peter announced that he had reached the final question. If the old man could not answer this one in the affirmative, he could not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. The final question was, without doubt, the oddest of all to that point. It was very simple, and somehow the man thought it was very telling, even if he wasn't sure how. It went simply, "Have you ever given anything without expecting something in return?" and the man had the most difficult time answering it, not simply because it was his last opportunity. He cast about through all his memories, to the time he had given away his shoes for a sandwich, to the time he had given up his shirt, but only once it was agreed that he'd get back a coat. And with growing trepidation, he realized that he could not answer this. Never had he given change to a beggar, instead he'd always given the solid advice of employment. Never had he given his coat to his wife, instead, he'd gone shopping with her so she would have her own. He could not think of any instance where he had truly just given away something of his own without the expectation that he'd receive something in return, and as he did so, his heart sank and sank, until it seemed as if some part of him was drowning or buried with it.

St. Peter looked at him, and the expression of sorrow had grown to a look of horrible pity as he rolled up his parchment list, and the man could not bear it. One more, he cried, one more! One more try, please, oh please, give me one more chance!

St. Peter felt such pity for the man, and he remembered his own life and his own failure to answer a certain set of questions with a simple yes, and he decided that just this once, he would allow for one more question. The man nearly fainted with relief when he heard, and set himself to answer it, come what may.

St. Peter stood quietly for a long moment, considering the man, considering the question to be asked, and finally, he spoke, "Have you ever admired anything of beauty, simply because it was beautiful, and for no practical or reasonable reason whatsoever?"

Looking back on his life, the man could not answer. He had never been one for art or frivolous pleasures of any sort, and from his earliest memories, now restored by death, he searched avidly for some recollection of beauty. All throughout his life he went, until finally he came to his moments before the Gates, those beautiful, brilliant Gates, and looking up he trembled. St. Peter began to smile just as the man gave a shout, "Yes! Yes, I truly have!" And he leaped up to his feet (never realizing he had sunk to his knees) and danced about (something he would never have done in life), and whirled St. Peter about in a frenzy of joy so contagious it seemed St. Peter couldn't resist laughing right along.

Finally, after calming down, the man asked St. Peter why he hadn't been good enough in life to enter Heaven, why he was initially denied entry... and St. Peter responded soberly that; first, no man was ever good enough, because, in strict point of fact, there was no such thing as "good enough." A man could be as good as God could make him, or he could be not good at all, there was no dividing line between good and evil that one could stand on just the right side of to enter Heaven. Loving God was an all or nothing deal, he explained. The second point was because, since no one was ever good enough, God had to make them good, and that required faith, a thing altogether frivolous and impractical, and deeply related to all the things that St. Peter had asked the man about, like Beauty, Imagination, Love and Repentance. While it was true that the man had never committed any great wrong, St. Peter pointed out that Heaven was for the living who had died on Earth but lived in Christ, and he pointed out with some asperity that the man had never truly lived at all. And with that, the old man's change from old to young, which had begun so early in the exchange, was complete, and he felt again all the passions and humors of youth, the exuberance of love, and remembered memories long since buried of passion and love with his wife, of the joy in his heart upon beholding the faces of his children at their births, of the raucous jokes he told his friends in their childhood, and the pranks he played upon his sisters.

Stunned, he looked at St. Peter, and St. Peter smiled. All along, the man had denied himself the very memory of his humanity, and he realized as the tears poured down the cheeks he certainly had, how much he had missed, and how much he had forgotten and lost, and he finally understood all the sorrow he'd buried with the pleasure he'd ignored. Indeed, there was no such thing as "good enough," but there was at least such a thing as "good." His knees hit the ground with a dull thud, but he didn't notice. He looked up at St. Peter, and asked if he could go in now. St. Peter smiled, and said no, but that he could go on living. And with that, the old man awoke, and the very first thing he did (of many rather rather impractical things to come), was build a beautiful gate to lead up to his house...