I think there is something rather off about our expectations of heaven. One of the things that I often fall into the trap of thinking (along with many other people), is that desperate notion of trying to make heaven more like what we already have here on screwed up earth. E.g. “Oh... I hope there will be fried chicken in heaven, I’m not sure that I could live without fried chicken. What about this book that I love? Sure, it has fornication and murder in it... but it’s SUPER awesome. It’ll be waiting there for me, right?”
True, I did take a very snide and sardonic tone there, but the point remains. Of course, only focusing on apophatic knowledge (that is, knowing what we don’t know) does no one any good. If you tell the kid “don’t eat the cookies!!!” and then don’t give him anything constructive to do instead of munching on empty calories... the inevitable will surely take place. You know what that means, right? Yup! Time for a story that will initially seem completely irrelevant and tangential.
My first memories of life are a collection of bizarre and silent moments; like random clips from the beginning of a horror movie, where you are too petrified to scream. My first first memory is of a puffin, or rather a poster of a puffin, which was placed directly across from my crib in my bedroom. Apparently, every time I woke up, the very sight of the thing would send me into fits of silent terror. Being only two, it was difficult for me to describe to my mother exactly what was so frightening... but eventually she got the idea and took it down. She has repeatedly apologized to me for the incident as an adult, which has always made me smile inside, since I don’t really remember why the poster was so terrifying. But while I have largely gotten over my fears of people in hoods, darkness and germs... I still twitch a little every time I see a puffin.
One of my other first memories took place a few years later, when I was about four or so. Easter has always been a huge deal in my family; second only to Christmas. It has always seemed fitting to me, giving the two most important holidays surrounding Christ’s redemptive plan for the world the same amount of importance. Anyway, one of the my families best kept Easter traditions is the search for the Easter baskets. The methods my sisters and I had to employ in order to find them varied from year to year, but find them we always did. Usually there would be a movie or CD or something similar, along with gobs of candy. I’m 23, and to my knowledge that has not and will not change.
So for my fourth Easter, the noteworthy hunk of candy was a chocolate cross. Not a crucifix, but an empty cross. It was beautiful. It was one of those marvelously crafted pieces of candy that, had it been made out of wood, could have been prominently and proudly displayed on a mantlepiece for years. The carving of the cross had been very carefully managed, and the base, a chuck of dark chocolate representing Golgotha, was detailed with tufts of grass and butterflies. Now that I think back on it, not only was it a beautiful piece of chocolate, but I cannot for the life of me think of a candy bar that made such a bold theological statement.
As I am want to do, I was eating my least favorite part first, the top of the cross, and saving what seemed to be the most beautiful part for last, the grassy knoll with the butterflies. (I still do this often with steak and mashed potatoes, especially if the potatoes are laden with garlic and cheese.) My mom, seeing the deliciousness that was my chocolate cross, asked if she could try some. What human in their right mind wouldn’t? I was happy to oblige, and my chocolate covered self handed it to her. What my four year old self failed to mention, however, was my rapidly developing desire to save the best things for last. And my mom, thinking that I was of course nomming on the cross first because that was my favorite part, decided that she would do the considerate thing and take a bit out of the base instead. Chocolate butterflies and grass knoll go.... bye bye.
Once the chocolate cross had been returned to my grubby little hands, I stared in shock. I could not believe what had happened. The beautiful little redeemed Golgotha had been desecrated, and it was at that point that I could no longer be consoled. Only Christ had suffered more than I, and I made that fact abundantly clear all the way to church that morning.
I have completely forgiven my mother since then. And she has more than made up for the misunderstanding... even going the extra mile the following Easter and special ordering three chocolate butterflies the size of my head. I know that if and when she reads this she will go and scribe another long apology to me, but let me state firmly here that that is not the point of my telling this story.
Over the course of 23 years, I have lost many, many things. And I am sure, before my time here is done, I will lose many, many more. I have lost things under couches, at parties, in stories, around friends’ houses. I am still looking for the black hoodie from my favorite metal band with a brown knight in armor on the front. I already miss that little stuffed rabbit that I returned to Barnes and Noble because I realized the money I spent on it would be better used on gas money and saving for my future life with Leslie. I’ve lost things that I can’t get back, like the naivety to believe that adults didn’t really have that many worries; or the ability to ignore that providing for one’s own self, let alone others, could be so nerve wracking; that innocence I so desperately wish I still had... that optimism to get out of bed in the morning to face a new day full of possibilities.
...... and yes, even that eager excitement to check the mail, because you never know what sort of treasure might be inside.
I’ve written a 50 page paper on heaven, and still all I really know about the place is that it will contain far much more than we could ever imagine. But in the end, one more thing I know is that it will not contain those things that we so desperately cling to here. Those idols will be stripped from us. The sex that we think will fulfill us, the money that we think will provide for us, the temporal joys that we think will satisfy us... they must be killed, they must be put on the alter... and we will wave goodbye as we sail away to another shore...
...but on that shore we will find... those things we never thought we’d see again. That friend who slit their wrists, those beloved CDs you never got back from your old roommate, that teddy bear that got burned up in the house fire, the grandmother who left that gapping hole when she passed, that joy you never fully had, that Lord you never fully understood, that life that you thought had slipped away.... and yes............ maybe even a few chocolate butterflies, dancing around the foot of a cross.
The cross that brought you back to that world of lost things... that turned out to never be lost at all.
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