Hell and Damnation Lite

If you read Thoreau's journal entry (below), you will notice that he was pretty unhappy that a possession had been taken from him, but he also had perspective on his loss. Enough so, he could satirize his own and others' tendencies to get really upset about the small stuff.

How much of what would someone need to do to you for you to sincerely condemn them to the fires of Hell? Again, if you're not going to condemn them to Hell after all, then why are you mistreating them with gossip to your friends, or with silent accusations, or with personal distancing and unfair thoughts? Why do you prefer a grudge to a relationship? I expect Thoreau's point about his lost dipper was that in its place he made the surprise discovery of his recriminating self, a self that deserved to be laughed off. The same goes for us. Whenever I think something has been unfairly taken from "me", I need to think for some time about who "I" am. How could anything be taken from me? "I am the very least of all the saints..." (Ephesians 3:8).

Thoreau's Journal from January 17, 1852
One day two young woman—a Sunday—stopped at the door of my hut and asked for some water. I answered that I had no cold water but I would lend them a dipper. They never returned the dipper, and I had a right to suppose they came to steal. They were a disgrace to their sex and to humanity. Pariahs of the moral world. Evil spirits that thirsted not for water but threw the dipper into the lake. Such as Dante saw. What the lake to them but liquid fire and brimstone? They will never know peace till they have returned the dipper. In all the worlds this is decreed.