Friday, August 9, 2019

Your Heaven vs. My Heaven



Yesterday I had a meeting right after work, so Travalon went to the gardens to get us a margarita pizza. After dinner we debated about playing tennis, but I had walked a lot that day and was very tired, so instead we took a boat ride. As we passed by, we heard a band playing at the Nau-Ti-Gal, all women but the drummer, and they sang in beautiful harmony. We saw another glorious sunset lighting up the lake, and we returned just as darkness fell.

Someone I know says Heaven is an eternal Mass, and I told her that would not be a selling point for most people, who can barely stand a one-hour Mass. She said, “What could be more wonderful than being in the Presence of God in the Sacrament?” or something along those lines, but a lot of people say they actually feel closer to God in nature than during church services. Then I started to think about it, and everything in a church is created by people. The stained glass may be gorgeous, and the music may be moving, but many people are more drawn to things actually created by God. Maybe that is why I feel more like I am in Heaven going to my garden plot in the evening, when it is full of birds and butterflies and flowers and laughing children, than going to church. After all, God created all those things at the gardens, but people made the stuff in the church.

Who can really say what Heaven will be like? Mark Twain once wrote a snarky short story about an angel mocking people who say Heaven will be sitting around and playing harps, since they don’t even like harp music in real life, so why would they like it in Heaven? This angel said Heaven was actually one long orgasm, but in his sarcasm Twain stumbled onto something closer to the truth, since a lot of highly-regarded theologians agree that the physical act of lovemaking creates a unity between two people that is a reflection of the unity we will enjoy with God in Heaven. I think you could sell a lot more people on religion if you said Heaven was like unending sex than if you said it was like an unending Mass! But that sums up why our evangelization efforts often fall so flat: we are emphasizing the rules to follow over the joyful relationship with God. You can see where a lot of people would think, “Why do I want to go to a boring church service every week just so I can spend eternity in a boring church service? No thanks, I’ll keep my belief that there is no afterlife/we become part of everything/Heaven is a big party” or whatever the average person believes. They have a point, but I do think Heaven is like a big party AND like becoming one with everything, or at least a lot more like that than like Mass. I certainly hope there is an afterlife, but I can comprehend the idea that there isn’t one way more than the idea that there is one for humans but no other life forms. That idea makes zero sense to me, and it’s probably losing a lot of those other people too. To quote Will Rogers, “If dogs don’t go to Heaven, I want to go where they go.” All these hardcore Catholics who are promoting an idea that we have to follow a bunch of strict rules just to end up in an eternal church service where there are lots of self-righteous people but no plants or animals shouldn’t wonder why their religion is losing adherents. I wouldn’t want to be that religion either, but I don’t think that is really what the Church teaches. Too bad we aren’t emphasizing the joy of knowing God instead of people’s opinions about Heaven.

Famous Hat


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