There’s a little bit of unease as I prepare to return to Canada after this trip. I’m not a big fan of travel, for reasons I will outline in an upcoming post. And who knows what sort of new restrictions the government will choose to place upon air travelers between now and my flight. With those thoughts running through my mind, it seems only logical to rerun this 2017 post about one of life’s biggest frustrations.

I have a theological conundrum that has been bothering me this week. Time to put it out for your consideration.

I was wondering if all the furniture in Hell (assuming there is furniture in Hell) comes from IKEA.

If you’ve ever struggled with putting together IKEA tables, dressers and other furniture based on their drawings, you understand what I am saying. I know the drawings are supposed to give you easy instructions on putting together whatever it is you have purchased, but they make no sense to me. I need words, not pictures. I understand it would cost IKEA more to include instructions in multiple languages with the product, but is it too much to ask that they make them available online?

The picture versions are fiendish, dare I say devilish. Yesterday’s table instructions, if I had followed them as the picture showed, would have resulted in blood everywhere from the cuts on my hands. There was no way I was grabbing a headless screw and turning it by hand.

Maybe Hell really is a place where they hand you an Allen key and a cardboard box of IKEA furniture – and you spend an eternity trying to put it together.

If so, modern theologians are missing an opportunity. If they started describing Hell like that, maybe more people would pay attention.