Heaven is a place without time or space where perception is made of affection…
Yea earthly oceans of orphan tears divide a parent from a child. Earthly deserts of disease part a wanting husband from his faithful wife. Here friends are lost in forests of affliction and family in cruel workhouses of want. Missed trains and aeroplanes, flat tyres and run over bikes conspire to ruin happy reunions…
In heaven, a mutual thought of love unites them instantaneously. Nor shall they part but upon a whim of their own. Whether beside a seaside or a sand-dune surrounded oasis, singing camped in serene wood clearings or gathered around the ancestral hearth, no matter then, no desired meeting of the like-minded can be delayed or disbanded. Love is the aviation there, imagination the high-speed rail and the chosen location a picture-perfect representation of their choice relationship…
Heaven is a place without hunger or thirst where the food is the good and the water truth…
Yea earthly crops are condemned before the oncoming locust cloud. Earthly orchard first-fruits are often pilfered before freshly picked. Here vigorous rivers are poisoned with pointless pollution and lustrous lakes made dim with discarded uselessness. Dogs scorn the mouldy bread and the drunks puke bitter wine into thirsty drains…
In heaven, the wheat fields ripen in the fullness of joy. The wider the smiles the sweeter the grain and the more belly laughter, the more bountiful the harvest feast. As long as there are generous souls, apple, orange and pear trees grow, in such abundance there is a want of hand to relieve them of their pleasant burdens. As long as there is wisdom, gardens are there, and untended flowerbeds of amaranthine blooms flourish always. Among them rush the brimming rivers of knowledge crystalline…
How magnificent, the music afterlife! Every mere utterance is as much. Spoken language and poetry there are linked inextricably. We have everyone seen depictions of happy angels plucking harps in loving praise of the liberal divine, but afterlife their very tongues resound with vivid notes upon every syllable. The very footsteps of the cherubim sing, my brethren….
Have you ever truly asked yourself alone, ‘What is my personal dream of paradise?’ Ask yourself now. Is it an unlimited perception of sensual pleasure? Innumerable virgins, petty man, to willingly realize your every sexual whim? Really at last, nothing to learn and nothing to teach? An endless holiday with nothing worthwhile remaining toward which you might eagerly and earnestly toil? Or is your heaven learning and teaching forever? Paradise labour eternal; the sheer unlimited joy of being of mutual use together? For the future state is not the end of human endeavour, but rather its blissful infinitude. Perfection is not a permanent state of being, so as to believe, ‘I am perfect.’ Perfection is a permanent state of becoming, so as never to doubt, ‘I am perfecting myself.’ Angels do not have the answer, my brethren. Angels never tire of the question…
To build a house upon the Earth, you need a plot, bricks and mortar, planning permission. To build a house in heaven you need a happy dream of home and nothing more. Have you chosen the good? That is your plot. Do you charitable deeds? Behold your bricks. Can you speak the truth? Such is your mortar. All enough to construct a paradise palace of unlimited proportions, my brethren…
Heaven is a place without time or space where perception is made of affection. I would rather not write of hell…
© Thomas James Foster 2015
Go Forth and Beautify... 