The last judgement is the day we’re no longer afraid to be alive again, it when we come back to our real state , our divine self, where we feel a communion of love with everything in existence (Don Miguel Ruiz, The Fifth Agreement)
This is a far cry from what I grew up believing.
Though I was spared ‘The Left Behind’ series, UK evangelicalism hadn’t fallen for this work of christian cult fiction (or taken it as the underlying influence for US christian education policy) , I still had given to me, from Sunday school and home, a deep worry of what ‘the last judgement’ could mean.
Hades, Hell and eternal damnation, or absence from the love of God permeated in my prayers, behaviour, diligence and attempts to be good christian boy/man – with the requisite states of shame for failings and repeated eradication of sin.
The Last judgement stood as a place of reckoning – appearing even in the Family game ‘The game of life’ . I imagined a replaying of the TV screens in a production room of all the scenes of my life, the good, the bad and the ugly, and everything else. I was going to be judged, and fearing this judgement, and the possibility of ‘going to hell’ featured heavily in my evangelical upbringing as well as further theological studies. The conversations about the end times rattled around endlessly, when a so called 1000 years might occur and how it related to the fires of Hell and end times. No one could even consider that it was more metaphorical than real. That wasnt the question, the question was which.
The heat of hell was to be feared and avoided.
Hell was real……and ….
there were many sermons that would decry that ‘one of the tricks of the devil, is to say that he doesn’t exist, that hell isnt real’ – stoking the fear of disbelieving hell even more – even in slightly more compassionate theological evangelicalism in the UK, this was still a thing said.
As a good christian boy, I believed it all. Every action was seen through a lens of being judged one day.
So in effect I did a very good job of judging it each time myself.
Did I hurt that person? Did I make a mistake? Could I have done better? That was embarrassing James…
The fear of judgement, created my own personal judgement.
Id push myself to the brink, because being self critical was a skill, and being ‘reflective’ was a thing people consider me known for. Asking questions.
None worse than the judgement I gave myself.
Judgement poured inwards.
All questions, and almost no heart. Restless frustration that world should be a better place – whilst im wallowing in an ache of hurt, pain and internal suffering that im judging myself for. Spewing criticism outwards, as an outpouring of my own conditioning.
Hell was what I was living, it wasn’t just in my own mind, it was the drama of all around.
The last judgement. The decision time.
Without question, part of my awakening process has been to see my faith in different ways, and though rejecting some of it, re appropriating other aspects, and so whilst I probably rejected the notion of ‘end times Hell’ a long while ago, realising that I was living in my own personal hell and taking power to change it, has taken a very long while.
Since the moment in 2023, after an emotional breakdown, and undergoing therapy for the 4th time, I saw myself differently.
(This is the story of that moment)
It felt different.
It was as if something awoke inside me
I felt clean. I felt whole.
I felt as if I had been swimming in shark infested water all my life, and now I was standing on an island in the sunshine that I didnt even know existed, I couldnt even see it. I felt light, joyful, whole.
It was a feeling, a sense, a reality that has, with the exception of a few challenging situations, been a place that I have been able to stay in, to return to – because I know now that it exists.
Some might call it awakening, or realisation of consciousness or the moment when I walked through my own personal shadows and hell, to gently loving let these parts of me go.
The last judgement might just be the last time you make a judgement.
I didnt believe it would continue. There was a part of me that would envisage me falling back into the waters, and theres been moments of my toes and maybe knees getting wet again. But these moments haven’t been met with self criticism, or failure, or disregard (you know that voice that wants to disregard the ‘good’ moments as blips, and suggest that ‘real’ is the struggle)
The last judgement.
Is a place thats possible to create- but its a place the finds you. I didnt go after it, there isnt a magic formula, it arrived when I was ready.
Judgement is a place of safety, security and dependence, it’s also a place of fear and lack of self trust – and this stuff is hard to work through. But when it happens, you know, you just know.
It’s like that inner spaciousness that gets bigger.
It’s not just a crack where the light gets in- thats the start – , more an embodied lightness of being, where being is love and light – and its judgements, of self, of the other, of the past, of the future, of the world – that become the blockages in the light tube.
Maybe they were the true ‘sins’ after all. Not the actions, but the judgements.
But 45 years of self critical programming, I realise had to be reorientated. The language I used for myself, in how I spoke to myself – had changed in the preceding 5 years – but the voices of my inner protective dialogue hadn’t been dug out at their roots – and they were my default programming, I was unconsciously competent at beating myself up, for everything I did or didnt do. That was the voice. I didnt need God to do this for me – though deep down I believed in a God that was about to… I did it to myself.
After the moment when my therapist heard my story of taking myself into the shadows, and telling me that ‘James, you are incredible’ and my response, instead of self denial, or reluctant acceptance, was ‘I think I believe you’
I walked down to the bookstore and wrote the positive words of being incredible, down, and repeated and repeated. I bought a blank journal for 2024 and wrote down only positive messages of myself to myself each day, sometimes it was wrestled determination, but most days, using coloured pens, there were stars and hearts and rainbows and words of grace and love and joy and power for myself – from my imagination or the universe to myself……and a re-writing of my inner dialogue – to retrain or to give more practice – or to give more weight to my inner God, my inner heart, the voice of my soul.
Using language to become acquainted with the beauty of love and life for myself. To create on a daily basis a space of the island within my being. Using words of love and not self judgement for myself. Writing it daily embodied my belief in it. Writing it daily fed the loving voice. And where there is love, there isnt judgement.
I get how positive psychology is both derided and believed in – (this could come across as this). This wasn’t a path I chose, it just found me, as I realised that self belief was something that I could make for myself. But I couldnt allow myself to do so, whilst I was in place of self judgement.
Fear of the beyond, where critical judgement wasn’t the dominant voice wasnt a known place, it was a prison of my normal…so it was easier to obey and stay at its mercy.
Faith in yourself is the real faith. Real faith is to trust in yourself unconditionally , because you know who you really are, and you really are the truth
(The Fifth Agreement)
When you find the place of self truth, it will become apparent that the ways of living previously were prisons that you (and I) had made ourselves more comfortable in than we would like to believe. And one of those was the place of judgement – where someone, something, some system, some part of ourselves – is to blame or causes us to blame ourselves.
Judgements are fractures in our wholeness, beliefs to keep us stuck in places of restraint and comfort, they feel easy – they lie easily and are believed easily – especially when we feel we need to belong in the very systems that permeate them (religion, family etc) as moral codes or stated behaviours….until we realise, or start to notice….that to buy into the judgement is to remain stuck, in someone else’s personal hell or even our own. Judgement creates it.
Notice what happens when you stop making judgements.
Notice what happens, when you stop yourself beating yourself up.
Notice what happens when you feed the voice inside that is gentle warm and kind.
Notice what happens when you completely accept yourself. Your body. Your actions. Your past. Your emotions. Your thoughts,
Notice what happens when you let go of being judgemental
Notice what happens when judgement feels wrong and not normal anymore.
Notice what happens when the lie of judgement is exposed.
The last judgement, might be the last judgement you might make – before life actually begins.
Beyond judgement beckons, as place of deep agreement – where no-thing but love, light, life matters – it just is and it feels like heaven.
Maybe the last judgement is the last tine you make a judgement.
James Ballantyne 