Here in Heaven...

R. Sherman's comments to my Friday Category have hit a nerve and in deciding how to comment, I realized that my thoughts and feelings were too many to contain in a single response. So here are some more detailed thoughts about Heaven...

First of all, I truly admire R. Sherman's comments and his Dad's beliefs when it comes to Heaven. They are deeply moving and profound. From what I read, the gist of his beliefs were that Heaven was the last resting place for all the souls of the dead and departed saints and that as the White Throne of God, it should be given profound honor. Not much I can argue with that. And if my category on Friday seemed to cheapen the idea of Heaven, or Heaven itself, I am truly and deeply sorry.

However, it did get me to thinking.

Almost since the concept of Heaven has been around, people have been wondering what its like. Two slices of media that I recently dined upon had wildly different views. In The Lovely Bones, the main character has been murdered and is in Heaven watching all the events unfold before her. In her description, Heaven seems to have at least two different areas - a place where you exist while you are learning to let go of the life you've left behind and a deeper, more beautiful place (presumably the Heaven that we all think about). She further declares that everyone's Heaven is slightly different and composed of the things that the soul esteemed while on Earth. The second thing I watched was Angels in America, a wonderfully moving play and one of the best literary works I have ever heard performed. Its slightly more eccentric look at Heaven was that it was a place where the Angels hung out and that it looked exactly like San Francisco after the 1906 earthquake. Bizarre. These views of Heaven couldn't be further apart.

In Albert Brooks film, Defending Your Life, departed souls arrived at Judgement City and were subject to a week long trial to determine if they were ready to move on to the next level of existence, or go back to Earth for a little more seasoning. In Heaven Can Wait, Warren Beatty's character is removed from his body before he's actually killed and is allowed to return into another body. In Ghost, a bright light signifies Heaven, and dark malevolent souls drag evil doers down below. In The Divine Comedy, Hell is described as several layers decending to the lowest level of the abyss where Satan resides, Purgatory is a giant mountain that souls must climb, and Paradiso is a vast and wonderful expanse filled with all the saints (probably the most traditional view). And in What Dreams May Come, Heaven is an embodiment of your thoughts and feelings at the time you die, or some such - the special effects were good, but the plot was kind of dry and boring.

I could go on and on.

The Bible is not much help in the "What Is It Like" department. While Jesus describes The Kingdom of Heaven, he is often using metaphorical speech to suggest what sort of souls might be found there, not the types of architecture and the food that is served. Our human minds are naturally curious and left to fill in the rest of the details on our own.

Spider Robinson wrote a story once (I can't remember the title) which suggested that when we die, our souls become part of a great collective - a single entity of thought, feeling, and emotion, a sort of virus version of God. To be honest, this vision scared the heck out of me (as it does the protagonist), mostly because I can find no fault in its logic. God is the ruler of us all. We are given free-will, but if we come to know God, we should want to be one with Him - we should want to be absorbed into Him, with no individual thought and feeling and emotion. This is the essence of Christianity, is it not? This is the ultimate goal, I believe - to be of one mind with Christ.

My own personal view of Heaven is that its something wholly unexpected. I have, on occassion, in my stories referred to Heaven. These ideas are based upon sort of wish fulfillment scenarios (as are, I think, most stories about Heaven) - like, Wouldn't it be cool if... I do not think these thoughts cheapen the experience of Heaven. I think, if anything, they enliven it because it means that people are thinking of it, are imagining it, are trying to grasp its reality. Heaven becomes a friendly place for them - the ultimate vacation destination - and that removes the fear of dying, or at least lessens it for a while. I should think that thinking on Heaven daily is probably a good reminder.

Of course, if South Park is to be believed, it doesn't matter what we think because only Mormons are going to Heaven. ;)