Not Quite Ready

I have been putting off this post a little bit. I realized last night that today's post would push the tribute to my Grandfather off of the front page. I guess I wasn't quite ready to do that. I can't say that I have been mourning all that much since the day he died, but I have already begun to miss him. I think the first time that it really hit me was last Sunday as I was driving to church. I was thinking about what I would do for lunch and realized that he wouldn't be at my parents' home - ever again. It is strange.

Every time I drive by his house in the afternoon I still half expect to see him and my Grandmother sitting on one of their swings on top of the hill at the end of their house enjoying each other and being outside - even though it has probably been 7 or 8 years since they did that the last time. I expect that they are doing something like that now.

Have you ever stopped to try to imagine what heaven must be like? I don't do a very good job of it. The descriptions that I read in the scriptures are too hard for me to fathom. What does an emerald rainbow look like? How can a creature covered in eyes not look freaky? Do you ever wonder if you will get tired of worshiping God all of the time? The human mind is just too small to comprehend eternity. I wonder if we will do the same kinds of things that we enjoy now. I hope that C. S. Lewis' imagination of heaven from the Chronicles of Narnia is accurate. Heaven in his description was all of the things that we loved on earth only more real. Mountains and rivers and oceans and sunsets and forests - all unspoiled, as they were meant to be.

I have never read anyone's version of Utopia that sounded like a place that I would like to be. I read Thomas More's Utopia back in college and thought it sounded hellish. John Lennon's version in Imagine sounds pretty crappy too. Its a pretty song with damnable lyrics. I guess we really aren't meant to understand it on this side. We really have to take it on faith that God in His goodness is bringing us to something far better than we could dream of in our most wonderful dreams.