HEAVEN?

November 2, 2016

What the heck is Heaven?  We attempt to stay in touch with those who have left the Earthly Realm through Day of the Dead and our prayers and the haunting of our material selves in ghost stories.  As inhabitants of a Relative Existence, the only notions of what another realm might be are from the sacred writings (by others also governed by gravity and time) that have been translated and re-translated from questionable sources.  In Revelation we are told about Heaven.  Depending on the version of the New Testament that you choose as 'gospel,' the description of this place for those who have been 'saved' is all in material terms.  The idea of a place where there were new versions of corporeal bodies as we see in New Yorker Cartoons (re: my criticism yesterday   of iPhone slaves.. all the folks waiting at the Pearly Gates are bent over their phones!).. seems a little silly. 

And, as we hear in the end of the Lutheran Sunday Service, "... may the Peace that passes all understanding be with you all..." that makes sense. If there is an afterlife of some kind, by definition it must be beyond the ken of those of us earthbound.  We are bound, like it or not, by gravity and time.  Eternity is out of my ability to understand except that by watching Star Trek, we know that after we have been 'out there' that there is still more Out There out there.  

Eastern Religion likes to posit that reincarnation is what happens.  The Dalai Lama is a reincarnated former Dalai Lama, for example. Some teachings come closer to a Truth for me (the Hindu Upanishads)  with the notion that there is only One Thing.  That's what Mary Baker Eddy constructed her Christian Science Church on.  Of course, the 'science' of her religion is just her "informed" speculation.  We are all entitled to speculate, of course.  Mormons take the word of a former carnival guy who swore that he was visited by an angel in corporeal form. 

Alan Watts is a favorite teacher of mine who says in his The Book that there is One Thing who/that just forgets who/what It is for a while, becoming, in total, our perceived world.  It makes sense to me.  Moments of clarity that mystics have reported and the computer generated images of fractals that are never ending may be helpful.

We cling to the mortal/temporal business of pain and pleasure that satisfies the notion that Life Is Something.  

But, what about Heaven?  Do our temporal/mortal selves really want to be hanging out in some Big Rock Candy Mountain? (are there dentists in Heaven?) Are we awake and asleep? Ageless? Is there a hierarchy of a society of the Holier of the Holies?  The image of a Simpsons episode where every 'Heaven' is populated by different faiths and Marge and Homer are on different clouds comes to mind.  I've wondered, as I imagine we all have. Of course, the only way we find out is to die.  Boink.. 

The Bible tells of a couple of guys who experienced Heaven without dying.  Did the Apostle John really see all the stuff reported in Revelation? The problem is that it's all gravity and time based.  Of course, that's the only reference that most of us can relate to. 

An Infinite Void is, perhaps..  a little like the memories we may have that reflect the time before we were born?  (that's from Alan Watts. Reading his The Book has had an influence on me)..  so.. 

The best we can do is remember that all good stories need to have a problem: conflict.  Over- coming road blocks and Blue Meanies and Gate Keepers  as Joseph Campbell reminds us in The Hero's Journey, is what temporal life is all about. That said, show of hands?...  Who wants to be a poor Wayfairing Stranger heading to 'that fair land?': an infinite Heaven where there "is no sickness, toil nor danger?"  Infinite Rest? with streets of gold, clear as crystal?  Hmmm? 

And, as I sometimes channel surf up in the "Fifties" I see the Christian channel Daystar: 50.3. There is a specific tone of "holiness" that the programs literally ooze with that, frankly, is a little scary. Some of the  programs show these glitzy preachers in huge stadiums pitching for the Faithful to buy one premium or another to add millions of dollars to support their leader. Just spooky.  Charismatic Christians seem to have little to do with the basics of the teachings of Christ.  Really.. All we have to do is Love One Another.

 If there's only one Heaven, I sure hope I don't go where these 'faithful' are going!  

Juice!  We need juice in this relative / temporal world! Will the Cubs win the World Series? Will this older SUV being pursued by the CHP at sixty miles an hour be caught? Light traffic. Three cops well behind?  Conflict!  The driver reaches out the window and slaps the side of the car like a cowboy urging his horse along.  We are fascinated by this stuff. Only Channel Four carries the pursuit. The driver leans out the window. Smiling, he seems to look back to taunt the cops.  Juice.. Conflict.  It's the stuff of Heaven for some folks.  The Chase! Front tire shredded by a spike strip. Comes to a stop. Agitated white guy. Tennis shoes. Short hair. T shirt and shorts. Face down. Four cops. Guns drawn.  Cut to promo of Pitt Maneuver and back to gossip programming.

Heaven? Forever? Sure doesn't sound like fun to me.  Time to read The Divine Comedy?

November 2, 2016

Vote for Clinton!

michaelsheehan 

Chayote :  11/2/16