I'm in Heaven...

Yesterday evening, I was cooking dinner. I had some giant kosher hot dogs on the grill, and the sun had sunk low enough in the sky to shade part of my deck. So, while the dogs were cooking, I sat down on a padded chair next to my son, and read the newspaper. He, in all his adorability, took on of the other sections of the paper to 'read' too. There was a pleasant breeze putting the shade at a perfect temperature. My beautiful wife came out to join us, reading her favorite author. There was nothing beyond that deck that concerned us in any way. It was a perfect slice of time that froze, and I watched it and consumed it for what felt like all the time in the world.


I do not know when or how, but long ago I ceased to believe in an afterlife. It simply does not make sense to me, and it comes across as a rather egotistical notion to think that of all the creatures to which we are kin, that for some odd reason, we may be granted eternity. We are all bound by the same laws of life and death, physics, thermodynamics, genetics, etc. To think that we have been given even more beyond our gifts of reason and mastery of earthly materials is rather presumptuous.

My studies have also confirmed that others see the idea of eternal damnation/salvation as I do. Namely, it is only a tool created and perpetuated to keep people in line. The reward of an eternal life beyond one's current misery by following the rules and listening to people in charge certainly sounds like false hope. The master will always tell the slave, 'next go around, you'll be free.'

However, the touch, the spark of the divine is not absent from my life. I just do not see a time for me to exist beyond where I am in this form. Nor do I want it. There are too many questions, too many different sets of rules, to know exactly how to wind up in the good portion of an afterlife.

The lack of a beyond is not a point of depression for me. It is quite the opposite; it is a motivation. This is all I have. Why do poorly and wrong in this life, then? It's my one chance to live. It is short, and above all, finite. I have no control over that. But I will have a say in whether it will be nasty and brutish.

I do believe in heaven and in hell, of sorts. For me, they do not coming in the hereafter, I rise into and delve into both during moments of my life. There are times when the soul boils when experiencing or witnessing something terrible. It can be personal or impersonal, but it makes one squint at an indefinable pain that exists only on a metaphysical level. Hopefully, those moments are rare, especially so they are never dulled. When dulled, the awful may happen beyond what one should reasonably have to put up with.

There are in life those opposite moments, too. Those times in hell do get burned into the mind, yes. The heavenly, though, are encapsulated in the heart. They are those moments when, even as they are happening, you can step outside of yourself and watch and realize that you are in fact in heaven. And they are remembered well, too. Those moments in heaven become treasures that can be returned to whenever wanted, and more importantly, when needed.

So yesterday evening I was cooking dinner, and I wound up in heaven.