What is the Slow Passage?

Purgatory in Gastropodean theology, a very long stone path in gentle continuous rain where souls who were mostly righteous but occasionally rushed go to finish learning the Sacred Pace. Enquiries about estimated completion times are not answered, but are recorded, and the path gets measurably longer with each one.

Is there a Hell in the Church of The Holy Snail?

No. The Council debated it and found the concept too final, too dramatic, and frankly too fast a judgment for a tradition that takes this long to decide everything else. The truly difficult are given a very long stone and the freedom to cross it at whatever pace they choose. The Holy Snail will be waiting when they arrive.

The Afterlife — The Garden Eternal of The Holy Snail

Q: What happens to the righteous after death?

The righteous ascend to the Garden Eternal, an infinite perpetually damp expanse where the lettuce is always just ahead, the pace is always exactly right, and nobody has ever once pulled out their phone. Time there is not a resource that depletes but a medium that simply is, and the ones you loved are waiting.

Where do righteous souls go? What happens to the wicked? Is there a Slow Passage?

The Righteous - those who learned to love, who welcomed the stranger, who gave without counting, who dwelt in presence with others - ascend to the Garden Eternal - an infinite, perpetually damp expanse where the lettuce is always just ahead, the pace is always exactly right, and nobody has ever once pulled out their phone. There is no destination in the Garden Eternal. There is only more garden, and in that garden, the ones you loved. And you have all the time that ever existed to finally, completely, dwell with them. "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne." This is considered paradise. Admittedly it sounds like it might get repetitive, but the Council points out that you thought that about the present moment too, and look how that turned out. And in the Garden Eternal, the ones you once rushed past are there, and you finally have time to know them completely.

The Wicked - defined not by cruelty, murder, or general villainy, but specifically by chronic haste: the honking of horns when the light has been green for one second; the aggressive refreshing of pages; eating while walking; the refusal to welcome the stranger; the judgment of those they did not take time to know; and the compulsive checking of time during other people's sentences - are returned immediately to the mortal world. Not as punishment, technically. Simply because they clearly need more practice in the art of love, in the discipline of welcome. They get another try. They always get another try. The Holy Snail is patient with the wicked in a manner the wicked find personally insulting, because The Holy Snail loves them too, even the ones who do not know it yet. "Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you." The Snail prays for them. The Snail waits for them. The Snail does not give up.

Purgatory is called the Slow Passage, and it is exactly what it sounds like, which the Council considers refreshingly honest for an afterlife. Souls who were mostly righteous but occasionally rushed - who once ate lunch at their desk, who answered an email during a conversation, who passed by the lonely without stopping, who used the phrase I just need five minutes and then took three, who loved conditionally or with calculation - are placed on a very long stone path in gentle, continuous rain. They are not suffering. They are learning. They are practicing love. They are learning to welcome. They are simply not done yet. The Slow Passage has no fixed duration. Enquiries about estimated completion times are not answered, but they are recorded, and the path gets measurably longer with each enquiry. The Council regards this as self-regulating. But there is a Welcoming Stone at the end of the Slow Passage, and The Holy Snail waits there, and the wait is not angry. The wait is love.

There is no Hell, strictly speaking. The Council debated it at length and found the concept too final, too dramatic, and frankly too fast a judgment for a tradition that takes this long to decide everything else. The Council also found that hatred - even the hatred of the damned - is still less powerful than love, and The Holy Snail loves even the ones who cannot yet accept love.

The truly irredeemable - if such people exist, and the Council is keeping an open mind, though it doubts they do - are simply given a very long stone and the freedom to cross it at whatever pace they choose. They will arrive eventually. The Holy Snail will be there when they do. "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent." The Snail has not been watching the clock. The Snail has been waiting. The Snail has been ready to welcome them home the moment they decide to arrive.

The Discipuli Pacis (Disciples of the Pace), the dogs and cats whom the Gastropodean Theological Society recognizes as creatures whose pace was correct in life, are received into the Garden Eternal without examination. There is no Slow Passage for an animal that already knew how to wait without complaint, how to be still without apology, how to sleep with complete surrender. The Council spent several years examining whether this was theologically consistent. It concluded that it was not only consistent but required: a God of unhurried love who made creatures embodying that love would not then put them through purgatory for administrative reasons. The dog who waited at the threshold will be at the threshold in the Garden Eternal. The cat who slept in the afternoon sun will find the sun has not moved. They have been passing the examination all along.

Patientia vincit omnia. Amor vincit omnia. Even this. Yes, even that. Even the ones you thought were beyond saving. The Council has thought about it. The Holy Snail has loved them all along.