One of the many lovely things about summer is the opportunity to read books that are for pure enjoyment. They don't have to be a learning experience and in my case currently on the curriculum of the Spiritual Direction Program that Lorna and I are taking. While at my extended stay at the cottage I have had some good cottage reads including a couple a books by PD James. I have not read much of her work but have enjoyed the TV adaption of inspector Dalgliesh and from what I have heard any of her books are worth diving into. The most recent book I just finished is Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold which is a real page turner right to the end.
The heroine of the story is a fourteen your old girl who was murdered and is narrating the story from her heaven. It is her heaven because each person has their own heaven which can intersect with other people who they have encountered on earth and some who they haven’t. The geography is what they most liked on earth. Our heroine is watching how the lives of her family deal with her death and how they move on with their lives or not. I highly recommend it as a great read and as I say it is a page turner.
The question running around my head this morning is, “what kind of a heaven do I believe in?” I don’t believe in angels floating on and I don’t believe that when a bell rings another angel gets his/her wings. I also don’t believe that all is revealed the moment after we depart this life. However at this point I believe that possibly we go through some kind of purification in the process of reaching a more complete union with God. Leaving out the possibility of hell at this time I think it may be something akin to purgatory and heaven depicted by Dante in the Divine Comedy. Speaking of comedy (not in Dante’s sense) I do believe that there will be a great deal of holy humor in heaven. God certainly does seem to have ha great sense of humor that I don’t always get immediately.
To end with an Irish blessing, may you be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead.
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