I don’t have any use for heaven. The idea of eternity is a bit much for my poor human brain to fathom, especially eternity with a bunch of folks with whom I have no affinity. Think about it. Do you really want to spend forever and ever and ever with that jerk who cut you off today while you were driving and then gave you the finger as if you had done something wrong? And what about the abusive husband you divorced years ago and still cannot tolerate. Do you really want to spend eternity with such a jerk? Or what about . . . well, no need to go into more detail. You get the picture.
Some people believe that our jerkness dies with our bodies, that we immediately become wonderfully stellar creatures, but then what’s the point of striving to become more than we are here on earth if in heaven we automatically become that “more”?
Even more confusing, one person’s heaven is another person’s hell. For example, to some people, heaven would be filled with dogs, but to others, that would be pure horror. So, if there is a heaven, or even an after life where we are more than oblivious waves of energy, do we get to create it to our own liking? If we are active participants of creation instead of simply recipients, then heaven could be infinitely plastic, molded into whatever we wish.
R
ecently, I posted a saying by William Watson Purkey:
I keep thinking about that last line: live like it’s heaven on earth. If heaven is malleable, is earth also malleable? If we are participants in creation, can we create more than just art or crafts? Can we mold ourselves and our surroundings into something more than they are? Something . . . other?
Perhaps we are already forming our world with our thoughts. If everyone thought of a different world all at the same time, would our world change to that new vision? It’s difficult to get three random people to agree on anything, so getting eight billion people on the same wavelength would be impossible. Still, can one person remove herself enough from the collective consciousness so that whatever she writes with her life becomes manifest?
Maybe life isn’t what we think. Maybe it’s a tool, like a pen or a box of crayons, and we can write whatever we wish with it. What will you write? What will I?
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Pat Bertram is the author of the suspense novels Light Bringer, More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire, and Daughter Am I. Bertram is also the author of Grief: The Great Yearning, “an exquisite book, wrenching to read, and at the same time full of profound truths.” Follow Pat on Google+. Like Pat on Facebook.
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August 2, 2013 at 10:53 am
What a fascinating thought. It’s a little like what Buddhists believe, I think. That the world outside of us can be changed by us thinking it better. Or willing it better, maybe. I’ve never really bought the idea because It’s never worked for me, plus I need to see a mechanism. Still, I try to be open-minded. Maybe it hasn’t worked because there just aren’t enough of us all thinking the same thing at the same time…
August 2, 2013 at 6:22 pm
My main objection to the belief that thinking can change things (besides the fact that I’ve never been able to make it work for me) is that those who adhere to such a belief are generally smug in their attitude that if things go wrong in your life it’s because you didn’t believe enough or want it enough. It puts “blame” on us, when generally, there is nothing and no one to blame except life itself. I have a hunch that life is writing with us as much as we are writing with it.