Most of mankind is casually sitting, walking, and jumping around the lip of hell every moment of his or her life as if it makes no difference. Despite my early misconceptions of hell, I do believe that it exists. I believe it because Jesus believed it and told us about it. 

Some time between 1950 and 1952 I saw the hole to hell. I was three or four years of age. We were living in Fordyce, Arkansas where my father pastored the First Baptist Church.

The hole to hell could be seen on the main road leading through the residential area by the flag pole in front of the High School. The hole was otherwise known as a concrete planter, or, as I could see years later, a concrete bench that I imagined was open in the middle. You could look down into that hole and see the flames of hell. Likely my older brother, Tom, assisted his preschool brother’s imagination in order to understand that clearly. It is, in fact, one of only two or three images of this period remaining in my memory.

We came this way often, so I was attentive to that alarming object ride after ride. We moved from Fordyce to Kansas City when I was four. I’m not sure I had yet come to any other conclusion about the hole to hell than I just described when we left it behind us.

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