The herd were trapped in a toxic culture, and still are for the most part, yet you have released both keys and key-making instructions. With your pen you have unlocked their pen, given them a chance to make new lore that functions for the benefit of all humanity and creation. Heaven thanks you. Best of luck with the next stage. Every blessing will bring its challenges, and you will certainly have your fair share of those - victor village rarely inspires universal love.
When heaven calls to the heart, it comes through the anguish of true love and the need for others to stay well and healthy - so be willing to let your heart break a little bit, then have the courage to stand up and be counted as an everyday humble hero. As Leonard Cohen said, "Love is not a victory march."
What if the heaven of another species included their love of eating humans, especially the tender flesh of the babies cooked in cheese made from the breast milk of the mothers? Surely a heaven for human-kind, a heaven-on-earth, must be wonderful for all creation. It's time to think more broadly of what paradise could be other than through our own limited human vision.
My teacher asked me to design my perfect heaven and I got a bit stuck, there weren't any notions of it I could imagine doing forever - unless I could keep solving puzzles and learning I don't think I could do it.
So I have some requests for God , a sort of prayer I guess,
Dear God,
Being reborn and being a kid all over might be nice - but isn't that reincarnation? Can we have that in heaven, I think that would be great! Can I always be the mother of the kids I have now? But they need to grow up and have kids - they don't want to be kids forever. So I guess my heaven would have reincarnation. As a bonus, it would keep evolution rolling I suppose. Can I have different parents next time though? I love them but I want a mother who loves me like I love my daughter. Can you do that?...
Authored by , here.
Emma couldn't recall how she'd died, only that she had passed on. Her body was perfect, younger, healthy. She cast her eyes around for the source of the music, it was the Beetles, the same song her mother used to dance around the kitchen to when she was a girl. On an old wooden table was a wireless, crackling a little. "She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah!" She was about to take a closer look when the smell of cinnamon buns fresh from the oven stopped her. Her mother baked them every Sunday after church. She turned. There in the watery light was Mom. Not old like she had been at the end, but strong. youthful. Emma reached out to touch her, running her fingers over her warm outstretched arm. Her mom drew her into a hug, then covered her face with kisses. So this was heaven, baking cinnamon buns with her mother. Not everyone's idea of heaven perhaps, but it was certainly hers. She turned, somehow knowing there would be a coffee machine behind her, not one from the sixties though...
In heaven we are wrapped in God's perfect love. We are whole, we are healthy and we are together with those we love. After death we walk hand in hand with Jesus on pristine sands as clear waves lap at our bare feet. His forgiveness is perfect, complete. He takes away the sins of our lives, washing them away into the gentle tide. He answers every question, lifts away all the burdens of our life. When we are ready our loved ones appear on the beach ahead, all traces of judgment gone.
The messenger was asked about heaven, what was it? Where was it? Who got to go? She sat down on a rock and spoke softly, like a mother. "You were told the end times would come, but you were confused. The end times come whenever the earth goes past the tipping point and all life will suffer from that point on. Right now Earth can still become heaven, but in a few short years of continued pollution that won't be possible anymore. No loving God could condemn you all to hell, which is what it will become year on year after the tipping point."
"So to answer your questions directly, the earth will become heaven when we humans learn how to listen to God again. Your souls are immortal and belong to God, he can't loose you because that spark in you that innately knows right from wrong is still part of the Divine, still connected. But there is no other place for God to put you other than earth, you evolved here, this is your home. The end time prophecies have been harmful in that they encourage an attitude of earth as disposable, that you leave earth behind for a better place. I can't put it more simply that this, 'if you destroy the earth, you destroy heaven and make hell.'"
Danny found himself sitting under a mango tree, a warm breeze blowing his long bangs just enough that he could see the ocean beyond. Every facet was as good as a mirror and a different hue of blue. How odd he thought, that he'd never noticed how many shades of blue there are. It occurred to him that he was a good deal older than he felt, his limbs hadn't been without pain these past ten years yet he sat slumped like a teenager, his legs jutted up like coat-hanger wires. A girl approached him from the beach, black haired, beautiful, looking like a younger version of his late wife. She smiled and his heart stopped for the second time that day. No-one smiled like that but Hannah. So this was heaven. Somewhere here was his Ma, his Pa and his brother Leonard. But all that could wait. Hannah was close enough to touch. "Hey watcha doin' down there lazy bones, where's my kiss?" Danny jumped to his feet, hardly daring to touch in case his hand went right through her. Heaven, Hannah, mangos...
When Mike opened his eyes he was on a river bank. Cool water flowed by, eddying around the twigs of a fallen tree branch. Behind him was a willow tree, exactly the same as the one he used to sit by with his father and grandfather as a boy. Across the way sat a kingfisher, its blue plumage resplendent it what must be the light of summer, though early in the morning. He cast his eyes up to find the sun but it wasn't there. Odd. Then he recalled running into a burning building with his team, collapse, flame, but no pain. So perhaps he was in a coma, perhaps this was a dream. He dipped his hand into the water and brought it out, watching the drips form their ever increasing circles on impact. So vivid. He held his wetted fingers to the air, there was a breeze, just softly. His eyes caught a dragonfly briefly before he heard is father and grandfather hollering from up the river path, both of them carrying rods and tackle boxes. "Heaven," he breathed,"this must be heaven."
Ryan had worried his son would be alone in heaven without him, without his mother, but he needn't have. In heaven he was bundled in God's perfect love, happy, joyful. He could not recall the pain of dying, God had washed it from him. When Ryan joined him fifty years later it was like only a day had passed, Tommy hugged him in that way only a child can, melting into him like they weren't really two separate people at all. "I'm sorry it took me so long to get here," he croaked.
Tommy looked puzzled, "So long to get where?"
"To heaven, back to you." Tommy leaned in for another hug.
"I've been just fine with God, Daddy. He's pretty great, but I'd rather have you!"
Micha lifted his head from the damp grass. He could hear his daughter calling but was so afraid it was a dream or worse, a trick. He had missed her every day for the past forty years, every since his car span off the road on black ice. Now his time had come to meet his maker and instead he found himself in his field. "Papa! Papa! Come see our house, come see it!" squeaked Gabrielle. He raised his eyes with the slowness of an old man only to see her hurtling toward him, arms outstretched. In seconds he had scooped her up, spun her around, planting kisses on her soft face. He grin was now mirrored on his face. "House, Daddy, house!" she pointed over and over. He set her down and she lead him to the cottage, forget-me-nots in the grass and wide roses growing up the white plastered walls. He crouched down to be eye level with his child.
"Is this heaven, Gabby?" Her face split a gin.
"It is now you're here!"
Emilio hadn't heard his mother's voice in almost thirty years, not since the cancer took her. But the second he heard it he knew it was her, though it was far younger in sound than his recollections. With great effort he opened his wrinkled eyes to see his wife and children looking down at him. "Mother is calling," is all he said, so softly it was almost inaudible against the hum of machinery in the hospital room.
HIs wife touched his arm softly, "then go to her my darling." What she said next was lost in an involuntary sob. As she turned into her son's arms Emilio closed his eyes. From a blinding white light came his mother, a young woman again, holding out her hand. He reached forwards to clasp it, his earthly limbs staying quite still. The sounds of crying grew fainter and he found himself in his perfect heaven. Under the boughs of an Italian olive grove sat his father and every loved one who had passed on already. Birds sang into the endless summer air, his mother hugged him...
In the darkness of hell Donald no longer had use for his eyes. He sat on the damp ground, adding the moistness with his own tears. God had asked him to come through to heaven but he had shaken his great shaggy head. He had failed that November night forty years ago to save his children from the house fire. Now he wanted to burn too, but the gate to the furnace stayed closed no matter how many times he beat on the door for admittance. Then from his left he heard his son's voice and he was afraid to look at his charred skin. A beam of light slanted across him as if a door had just been opened to summer and three children came bursting in, whole, happy, unharmed. They bundled onto him with cries of "Daddy!" Before he could argue they lead him away from hell's gate and into the warmth of heaven.
Michelle stood at the gate of hell, the fire licking at her skin. She wanted the cursed fire to punish her. She hadn't managed to save her daughter from the drugs and she had shouted at her grandson more often than she should have. Many times she had raised her hand to him in anger when he really needed love. Now it was time to pay. With gratitude she lifted her foot from the cool white tile and placed it into the ashes that send up glowing embers into the smoky gloom only to feel the kiss of refreshing water. The inferno was gone and her foot was in a placid ocean, the sunset glowing orange ahead. Behind her came a gentle voice telling her she was forgiven. Her sins were gone. She turned. Jesus stood, looking nothing like the pictures she had ever seen of him, on the sand. "But I never believed in you," she said, her quietness almost carried away in the breeze.
"I believed in you," came his reply, "welcome to heaven."
Kayla drew in a sharp breath of dewy air. She sat bolt upright. The hospital and the tubes were gone, her limbs worked, she could breathe. Before she could figure anything out her dog come bounding over the thick tussocks, tail wagging furiously. She ran her fingers though his glossy coat and he licked at her face. If Sherpa was here then who else was? Under a tree across the way sat Abdul, picking reeds and blowing into them to make a whistling sound. She picked herself and wandered over. He looked up with a smile that Kayla couldn't return just yet. "What is this place?"
"Paradise, heaven, the elysian fields, it's whatever you want it to be. But since we are here together, perhaps you'd like to spend some of your eternity with me?" He patted the grass next to him and she sat.
"Can I see my mother?"
"Anytime you like, for as long as you like, doing whatever the two of you choose to do. Same goes for anyone else you wish to see again." Now Kayla could smile; thank God for heaven.
In the cool soft light on heaven Fiona felt a rage build inside her like she'd never known before. She wanted to rip God limb from limb, make him hurt like she had, like her daughter had. He was there all the time, doing what? Watching them suffer year on year. Her head spun, she cast around at the golden trees looking for the bastard, if this meant hell then so be it. An old man was walking toward her, she launched herself in full fury, fingers curled into tight fists, arm muscles tense, ready. He didn't flinch or alter his course, he didn't raise a hand to defend himself. Fiona stopped, breathing heavily, looking into the eyes of one who was only capable of love and fell to her knees, pounding and ripping at the grass. Without meeting His gaze she asked "Why?" knowing that no explanation was needed.
"I watched over you every day of your life, I felt your pain, I worked though every good heart and mind around you to alleviate your suffering. I never left either of you, not ever."
Lara wasn't even sure she wanted to go to heaven. Everyone would be there and they hated her. She had made mistakes, too many of them, more than she could retract and repair in several lifetimes, let alone one cut short by lung cancer and binge drinking. She had shunned God, never even muttered Jesus's name unless it was a curse, and only entered a church once as a girl to steal some flowers. Yet here she was, the most unworthy, standing on sacred ground. Before she could run away a soft hand alighted on her shoulder. "You're not ready to see them yet. Will you walk with me?"
"Jesus?" The young man laughed.
"So you do know my name." He held out his hand for her to take.
"Do they all hate me?"
"No. They love you. Heaven is only love."
"But don't they remember what I did?"
"Yes. But you are forgiven, as are they for their sins."
Lara swallowed. "Okay. What if I don't forgive them?"
"You will. In heaven you will understand every event from every point of view and move on..."
Heaven and hell were the same gift, perfect insight into the effect of your life. Had you done more good than bad, been nice more often that you were nasty, then you were bathed in the happiness you gave others. The more profound the goodness the stronger the effect. The worse you had been the weaker the effect, until the balance tipped to more pain inflicted than alleviated. Then the effect was hellish. For those unfortunates their eternity was to feel that pain they had inflicted. The worse the deeds the more intense the anguish.
The messenger angel sat on the cold stone, her head tilted upward toward the sunlight. "There will be no heaven without the muslims. There will be no heaven without the Christians. There will be no heaven without the Hindus. The same can be said for every other faith. Our Father the Creator is the Father of us all, not just one select group. When you take up arms against one another or use propaganda to rob them of sympathy when they are in desperate need, you are acting against Him. All children are born with great Love. God is Love, no matter the name used to call Him by. You need to let go of your human want to be superior and correct. When you release hate, when you ward off thoughts and messages that bring you to a hostile mindset, meditate on Love and He will guide you through.
The only key to heaven's gate is love; carry it in your heart, let it be the power that keeps you safe and well.
You can't have Earth "on life support" because she supports all life. You can't burn the ladder you stand on while you burn the tree canopy above and pollute the skies. You can see where it all ends, yes? With you all having no life or support. That is hell, my friends, and I'd rather you all made a heaven instead.