I have always been fascinated with Heaven. I remember being angry at Adam and Even when I was small, that they messed it up for all of us, and -I- would have left the apple alone. If it had been me, we would live peacefully among the animals with fruit every day, no meat or milk that I had to finish up before leaving the table. No anger, no itchy clothes, nothing scarier than a talking snake. Took it very personally.
I clearly remember once crying at the song Toyland- because I so wanted to be there. Not quite understanding what the lyric "Once you cross it's borders, you can never return again" meant. At times thinking that if I could get there, I would never see my mother again, at others that if I couldn't find a way there very soon, I would not be able to get there when I was grown up. I think I conflated it with other children's songs about the idyll of childhood and Big Rock Candy Mountain (Burl Ives version.) I didn't get the nostalgic ideal of a wondrous childhood, not being in the middle of one.
I could also not wrap my mind around the Christian, Catholic Heaven. Eternity praising God. Like endless Mass. I just boggled at the idea of that as a reward. Despite being assured that once I saw the face of God, that would be glorious. Hm, seeing some old white guy's face forever is... I'm sorry, could you explain that again? Talking with those gone before seemed good, I could chat with St. Joan and ask her about her life, and other saints and historical figures, and Leonardo Da Vinci. (I'd seen an Italian documentary about him, and had a bit of a crush.)
Studying moral hierarchies and operant conditioning, I made the connection to what the literal religious people did with the Heavenly reward and the stick of Hell. I was appalled. This life didn't matter, only the next life? And the only reason to be a good person in this one was to make it to the next one, and avoid eventual suffering? Christian definition of being saved. Saved for what? Was that like saving it for marriage? Yeah, God Said it- but Who Said God Said it? Too much living in the ideal future, with too little attention to the eternal present. Too much like yearning for an idealized past that never existed either. A lazy theology, to believe that idleness is ideal, rather than useful work. How ungracious, to be given this amazing opportunity, and say,"I'll endure this, but I want more, better, different." How petty and selfish. How limiting.
My search for the ideal afterlife was my first step in discovering my own spirituality, my critical and rigorous search for a genuine and attentive life. I developed an elaborate set of rules for being introduced into one's own heaven, who you could talk to, who you could punish. One gestalt involved those who hurt me living through a version of my life as me, feeling what they did from inside me. Being fair, I also had to live those moments of other's lives that I made painful. After all that was done, I could go to any place or time and observe, understand. But, this being eternity, then what? Idleness not being a virtue presumably even in heaven.
When I first read about Nirvana, I was even more deeply confused. True nothingness, loss of personality and individuality to merge with the universe and end the separate life of my soul. Horrifying, frightening. Over the years, finally not hoping for "reward", nor accepting that Someone was there to hand any out, I have come to find this infinitely comforting. When I am ready for this, I become, again, the eternal and infinite. Oh.
Having experienced strange liminal events surrounding deaths, I suspect that there is more to what happens to us when we die. I refuse to define it. I do not know, cannot know, and am suspicious of those who claim they do. I like the philosophy of reincarnation, give me however many chances I need to get it together. I do not desire, but I am comforted simply ending as my life ends. I have love, I have life, how could I be greedy for an unknowable more, or different?
The reward for a life well lived is a well lived life. It's up to me to make it heaven.
If I am given more, I will accept it with grace, and gratitude.
Like that last bit of chocolate.
9 comments:
Your last couple of posts have been very thought provoking. Thanks. I've been investigating these themes poetically as well as spiritually.
As a lapsed RC with all the concomitant sedimental guilt, this internal debate is very familiar to me.
As we get older we seek for simplification, less baggage in life and in mind. I like very much the position you have reached after long thought. The state of acceptance of not-knowing.
Well, you know, I could be wrong....
*The reward for a life well lived is a well lived life". So well put. Thank you.
Thought-provoking, yes. I never gave heaven much thought, but balk at the idea that my consciousness may come to an end - perhaps why the concept of reincarnation appeals, along with other, more vague concepts of continuation. Takes a lot of personal peace to say, "I don't know, and I'm okay with that," and also to say, "I am okay with whatever happens."
I've read this several times now. There's so much here. It keeps me thinking. Thanks.
Heaven seems to be an unfashionable concept, probably because it has been so trivialized or made childish by religion. But I do believe in it.
Your post makes me want to think more about it, and perhaps to write my own definition. Thank you!
p.s. I like your bark, too!
If you do believe in it, I think it is important to know what it is you believe in. Leaving the details to others is asking to wind up in another place entirely.
ATMOSPHERE
In our lungs
in arteries to cells then molecules
Heaven is blue air,
On our skin tickling.
Photons of bark and branch
ambulate through heaven
to our eye.
Zhoen rocks
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