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Envisioning Heaven
The changing landscape of the final exit
Almost everyone at one time or another gives some thought to what heaven is like, or whether it exists at all. Given the certainty of death, it would be hard not to. I guess I am no different, and the older I get, the more I find myself asking the question “What’s next?”
Some people I know believe in a physical place they call Heaven, and a physical place to torment they call Hell. Others believe that Heaven is a state of mind, as is Hell. The Bangles think Heaven is a place on Earth.
I have no inside scoop on any of this. I suspect no one really does. After all, despite all the people who have claimed to have died and come back, we really have scant evidence of anything on “the other side,” or that there even is “the other side.”
Many people I know say things like “See you on the other side” at the funerals of loved ones. They wish their deceased family members and friends a “Happy Heavenly Birthday” on their Facebook page. Who can blame them? It is certainly more pleasant to think about that than to imagine there is nothing after death and that their loved ones simply don’t exist anymore. We like to think we are more important than that.
We hope the Universe gives a damn.
Over the years my concept of and belief in heaven has evolved. As a child, I was raised in a Catholic family and went to a Catholic church. Hence, my concept of Heaven and Hell was pretty cut and dried. Hell was where you were sent when you were bad, and it had flames and the Devil, and you stayed there forever. Heaven was up in the clouds, and while it wasn’t an exciting place, it was nice and it was your reward for being good. There was also Purgatory, where you went for a shorter time to have your sins burned away, sort of a Hell Lite. There was also a place called Limbo. That was a nice place for babies who died before being baptized.
That is where my thoughts on Heaven and Hell stood until well after I got out of high school. The truth is that I never really thought about it all that much. There were a lot of things about those…
