Democratic Conversation

I just don’t think Heaven is for me.

Firstly, I can’t type its antonym onto certain computer screens without the letters changing to rare-steak red. A warning, perhaps?

Such a restriction makes me want to experience that OTHER place all the more, kind’a like a kid who’s never been allowed to … you know.

More than this little hurdle, however, have been news stories of death and rights to life coming from the American political camp who like to apply state-sponsored death penalties ASAP.

All of this has gotten me thinking about my residence following … gulp! … DEATH.

So I’m making preparations. I’m looking for brochures of both Hot Spots, if you will, just in case I don’t get a choice. Religious orthodox friends speak of my soul lingering in flames within the OTHER place, my body riddled with pestilence. Pretty neat description, whatever your religious or spiritual proclivity. Yet none of these friends can describe a like-colorful Heaven. Why is that? I mean, What does Heaven look like? What do you do there? Is it 41 virgins, as the Muslims believe (some Muslims, aparently, and perhaps the figure is 43—hey, all the better, right?)?

Extant Biblical descriptions of that OTHER place run aplenty (Matt has the good ones), but only Jesus speaks of “paradise” in the afterlife, sans physical description. So be it.

The best account of that OTHER place I’ve found in literature comes from James Joyce’s “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” It comes from of a sermon given a steely priest to students about to engage in a dance (a sort-of sock hop) with the female counterparts to their school. Attention penitents: you’ll love OTHER’s imagery.

Heaven I have learned, by contrast, is all about sitting near angels, who themselves repeat “Holy, holy, holy” for eternity. How boring is that?

So, should Heaven and that OTHER place actually exist outside the minds and intentions of the religious, I’m going to be looking for the “down” escalator. Now, who’s got some SPF 10,000 lotion?