I
remember the night a hurricane blew close enough to our town to do considerable
damage to vegetation around town. Leaves, small branches, and occasional blowing
debris cluttered yards, roofs got their share of wind damage and loose
shingles. My beautiful willow lay on its side, with roots exposed to the air
and its trunk crushing the fence and completely blocking the lower end of our
street. I was inconsolable. Today, I can still remember seeing those exposed
roots as much as I can the tree as it stood properly, shading that part of the
yard. Had it blown down in the opposite direction, it would have fallen on my
bedroom and very probably hurt me very badly, physically as well as
emotionally.
It
occurred to me today that I felt some of the grief I had when I awoke that
morning and saw my friend dying and waiting to be cut up by the cleanup crew
and hauled away they could open the road. It was a feeling of disruption, loss
of something precious, and a signal of change that was strange and unsettling
in the eyes of a child. Mostly I remembered how beautiful it was and how much I
would miss it. The world would never be quite the same again.
I
had grown up in a large extended family of older folks, so I was no stranger to
an aunt or uncle “going to be with Jesus” every year. It was an opportunity to
see all my favorite relatives at one event instead of visiting them
individually every few Sundays in rotation. I would miss the one who was being
buried, but there were so many living ones to enjoy, even if I were only four
or five or six. I knew death meant I wouldn’t see them again until I died and
went to be with Jesus myself and had a large group of relatives waiting for me
at the Golden Gate. Still, I never learned that favorite things, like pets or
trees, would be with those relatives.
I
could never have articulated the difference between Christian souls and those
without them. I knew people who weren’t “Christian” in the same way my church
taught, the ones who would go to hell because they didn’t “Know” Jesus.
But the idea of dogs, cats, trees, rocks, or rivers and creeks going to be
familiar again in Heaven never occurred to me. It seems they didn’t have souls,
and besides, Heaven would be so much more glorious than anything earth could
produce. We’d be so busy praising God that we wouldn’t think about things we’d
left behind – or that had left us.
Maybe
it is fanciful, but I wonder from time to time what Heaven would be like. Oh, I
know the Bible talks about many mansions, streets paved with gold, and such,
but I don’t want a mansion. Am I sacrilegious to ask for a room large enough
for some books, cats, plants, and not far from woods with familiar trees and maybe
a willow tree outside my window? It would be a place where our dog during
my childhood, Bitsy, would lay down comfortably with all the cats I’ve had and
loved, the windows would have prisms that scattered rainbows all over, and
comfortable chairs to sit and entertain (and be entertained by) friends I’ve
missed for so long? I’ll happily sing God’s praises in chant, Baroque
polyphony, and familiar hymns. Still, I’d also hope there would be a saltwater
river nearby with waves lapping on the sand to walk in and think or pray or
both.
God,
if wishes count, could my willow tree be there too? And maybe the pine tree
overlooking my river where You and I met so often when I was an adolescent? Oh,
and could there be a village like Three Pines with warm and friendly people, a
sense of history, and a little Anglican church, for meditation and occasional
concerts? By the way, I’d love to have about half the town I grew up in as
neighbors as well? I hope that what I believe is really true, that hell will be
empty, and all that I loved would be in Heaven. I don’t think it would
genuinely be Heaven without them, human, animal, deciduous, evergreen, and all.
Thank
you for listening, God.
* Penny, Louise, How the Light Gets In, (2013), St.
Martin’s Press, New York. Kindle Edition.
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