Posted on 11/11/2003 12:01:31 PM PST by yonif
DALLAS - (KRT) - What's heaven really like?
Linda Lopez has an idea. Heaven, she figures, is a lot like the sun-dappled cloudscapes she's seen from airplane windows. "The only thing we are missing on the clouds are the angels jumping from cloud to cloud," she said. "And flowers."
Since her childhood in Mexico, Lopez has set up an altar every year to honor her loved ones in heaven. Every Nov. 2, on the Day of the Dead, she is sure that her grandmother pays her a visit.
Marigolds, sacred candles, an Abuelita brand chocolate bar - the altar is heaped with treats to welcome the spiritual guest.
Lopez firmly believes that heaven is a place - a place as real as the Bath House Cultural Center in Dallas, where her elaborate altar was featured in an exhibit dedicated to the Mexican observance.
What's heaven really like? Kathy Windrow's notion is far less concrete than Lopez's.
"I don't picture them floating on clouds or any of that," said Windrow, who chairs the art department at Eastfield College in Mesquite, Texas. "But I do feel that something essential about their energy or spirit exists out there."
Just as there's no consensus on what God is, does or looks like, there is no single model of heaven. While most Americans say they believe in some sort of afterlife, those beliefs don't necessarily tie in with the teachings of any particular religion. Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Baha'i - the list of traditional visions of the world to come is as long as the list of faith traditions.
People in general - more than eight in 10 Americans, according to a Harris poll - cling to some notion of heaven.
While most of us didn't set up altars for the recent Day of the Dead, many share visions of the hereafter with those who will. In best-selling books, in popular songs, on movie screens and in surveys, we reveal what we know - or hope we know - about the world to come.
The Harris Poll - conducted in February and reflecting attitudes on religion similar to those in earlier years - found that about 90 percent of those questioned said they believed in God. About 84 percent said they believed in the survival of the soul or something like it. (But only 69 percent said they believed in hell.) Close to a third said they believed in reincarnation.
The vast majority who believe in heaven figure they're going there; only one-half of 1 percent told Harris pollsters that they'd go to hell.
Another pollster, George Barna, found widely varying views of heaven. In a survey released last month, he reported that among those who believe in heaven, 46 percent describe it as "a state of eternal existence in God's presence," while 30 percent said it's "an actual place of rest and reward where souls go after death." And 14 percent said that heaven is just "symbolic."
Barna, an evangelical Christian, notes the diversity of opinion without approval:
"These contradictions are further evidence that many Americans adopt simplistic views of life and the afterlife based upon ideas drawn from disparate sources, such as movies, music and novels, without carefully considering those beliefs."
What's heaven really like? Mitch Albom has an idea.
The erstwhile sports columnist for the Detroit Free Press is best known as the author of the runaway 1997 bestseller, "Tuesdays With Morrie," a book about his final weeks with an old college professor who was dying.
Albom has a new book, "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" (Random House, $21.95). It, too, shot to the top of The New York Times best-seller list. While Albom insists it's anything but Wednesdays with Morrie - for one thing, it's fiction - the new work plows some of the same moral and spiritual ground. It asks and tries to answer Big Questions about life, death and meaning.
The 198-page novel tells the story of a man who dies and meets five people who died before. Each was connected to his life, some in ways he could not have imagined while alive. At the end of the five meetings, the man's seemingly mundane life makes sense to him as something important.
The message - that all lives are meaningful and connected, and that we'll eventually understand how - has clearly struck a chord with readers.
But is this really what heaven is like?
Albom, who is Jewish, acknowledges that his concept isn't specifically from his faith tradition or any personal divine revelation.
"It's not researched first-person" he said. "I didn't go there and come back. But it is my hope that if heaven doesn't work exactly like that, the spirit is like that."
What is heaven really like? Anthony DeStefano, another author, has another idea.
Like Albom, he has a new book that's selling pretty well. "A Travel Guide to Heaven" (Doubleday, $18.95) went into its third printing last month. Unlike Albom, DeStefano says his work is Christian, Bible-based nonfiction.
Heaven, he says, is a physical place where there will be recognizable people and colors and sounds and cities and animals. It will be lots of fun for those who get there - and the party will build toward a big finish. (The full payoff of heaven, DeStefano says, won't happen until after the resurrection of the dead.)
Like Albom, DeStefano is no professional theologian. A Catholic, he is executive director of an anti-abortion organization in New York. But he said he was careful not to let his day job leak into the book.
"I stayed away from controversial moral or political positions," he said.
The point of his book: If people really understood the Christian promise of heaven, they'd be more excited about it and more inclined to try to get there. The 208-page book is modeled on a travel guide, with the highlights gleaned from centuries of Christian writings about the hereafter.
"I'm obviously pushing the envelope a little. I want to be a little provocative," DeStefano said. "I would not bet my life that there are animals in heaven. I would bet my life that I'll have a body in heaven and there will be colors in heaven."
So what's heaven really like?
For many, questions give way to hope.
For Lopez, her altar for her grandmother expresses that hope.
"I was very close to her and I still think she is with me and takes care of me," she said. "Every day."
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"No religion is genuine that is not in accordance with truth" - Lactantius
And every woman in Hell would look like Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi, so many choices available!
Man nor beast should be subjected to this over the line punishment, huh?
And every woman in Hell would look like Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi, so many choices available!
NO man or beast should be subjected to this over the line punishment, huh?
Luv ya Grandma. ;-)
That wouldn't be so bad. I personally suspect that the women in hell will look like Janet Reno or Andrea Dworkin. The more attractive ones might resemble Rosie O'Donnell. Madellyn Murray O'Hare will undoubtedly be there too.
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