HOW DO I ENVISION HEAVEN?
(Miss Rei’s Assignment)
When we were young, our parents would advise us to be good or we would not go to heaven. Similarly, in grade school, our teacher would warn us to behave or we would not go to heaven. Our playmates, too, would yell at us and rebuke us for whatever offense we had done to them saying we would go to hell. There is even a popular song for lovers with title and lyrics that run like this: “You’ll never get to heaven if you break my heart.”
Heaven, thus, had been equated with reward for goodness and proper behavior.
My early concept of heaven was that learned at home: a place above the clouds where God and the angels live; a place where loneliness, crime, hunger, oppression, slavery, injustice, and unfairness do not exist. It is a place reserved for those who lived their lives properly and in accordance with the will of God.
As I grew older, however, and harsh realities came my way, I found it quite difficult to cling to that concept I learned in my youthful past. The world can be so cruel sometimes that we get so disillusioned and cynical about life. Injustice, broken dreams, illness, death of loved ones, life’s unfinished symphonies… all these led me to doubting if there was really heaven. No one among those who died has ever come back to tell his living counterparts what it’s like to be in the world beyond.
There are times when I think of heaven only as a state of mind and a condition in life where there is peace, contentment, and happiness. But this condition may be so fleeting for life is so full of uncertainties. What is here today may not be here tomorrow.
I envision heaven as a happy and holy place reserved for people who lived their lives doing good not only in time of joy and peace but who continued to do good even in time of sorrow and pain. It is a final reward for those who, despite sufferings, did their best to fight for what is right and made the world a better place to live in. It is an endless world for selfless people with God.
