NO ACTORS IN HEAVEN

My mother has always had an interesting notion of the afterlife and heaven.  Or maybe it's the way most people of her generation see it.  There is God's great immaculate throne and around him is everyone singing in their white robes and praising God with instrument, all quite suddenly able to do whatever you want.  Nothing but happiness and joy.  And everyone is always laying down their crowns in reverence to God.

Now I have no problem with reverence or respect to the creator of the universe.  I mean, he did make EVERYTHING and me and I do owe him EVERYTHING I HAVE.  Nothing wrong with that.  But I have always seen it differently.

I know many people are kind of upset with this version of heaven.  Singing and playing harps for all eternity.  Does seem repetitive and boring.  And maybe, your point of view changes when you pass on.  I have never seen it this way though.  Most of the time, to me, I have this view of heaven.

It's beautiful.  MASSIVE!  This biggest, most lush, place you have ever seen.  There is love everywhere and it's so strong you can feel it, physically in the air.  And that is God.  He is everywhere and everyone knows.  The residents are as they were meant to be in Eden, innocent, and yet intelligent.  You spend your post earthly life living the way we were intended.  We can go and speak with God as you would any friend, and father, and teacher.  Jesus is there and you can sit with him a while and listen to him.  And the Holy Spirit is there like the sun, a constant reminder of God's presence.  There are seasons and change so you don't get bored, like you could.  You always learn and get better at things.  There is no pain or suffering or loss, but I think there is occasional sadness.  Not the sadness from death or pain from losing someone, but there is the longing to be around someone you know.  The sadness you get after a long happy evening with a good friend you never want to end.  But it is never followed by the sadness of never seeing them again.  All that is good and wonderful in this life is also good and wonderful in the next.

What do we not have?  Doctors and nurses aren't needed, because there is no disease.  Teachers, I think, will still teach.  And Actors, and here is where I differ from many, can be more focused on the things they love to do.  No, I don't think acting is something you do in heaven.  I think there will be music, because God loves music, but Acting is didactic.  It's there to teach a moral lesson.  And in heaven why do you need to show how terrible people can be?  In Heaven there are no terrible people.  No one needs to be reminded of how violent and angry the people whom God created made themselves to be.  Heaven won't be a place to be reminded constantly of how far we fell from God.  No, it's a place to be with him finally.  And since God can wipe those sins away as if we never committed such acts, why would he remind us of them once in his house?

I like to think Heaven is beautiful and astounding and always changing around the one constant thing in the universe, God.  And that is a beautiful thought indeed.