Author Information
A LITTLE BIT OF HEAVEN ON EARTH
I was brought up quite religiously; we were taught heaven was up in the sky,
when we died, if we were good down here, there was a place for us on high.
A place where miracles happen every day in this paradise floating above
where we walk with angels among the softness of the clouds, enveloped by love.
When I grew up and began to think for myself, to question and to clarify
I kept returning to this concept of Heaven and couldn’t help but wonder why...
Why wait for Heaven to experience miracles when so many miracles can be found
happening before our eyes…right here…on the ground.
Every day is filled with miracles…miracles large and small….
So many miracles abound we can’t possibly count them all.
From the highest mountains…to the deepest valleys…from the tiniest shrubs to the tallest trees…from the the kaleidoscope of colors in the sky…to the breath of an invisible breeze.
From the birth of a baby whale at sea…to the birds that populate the sky…
From the gentleness of the elephant to the metamorphosis of a butterfly…
From the tides in the largest ocean…to the tiniest babbling brook
miracles are all around us…all we have to do…is look
I've been blessed to be at the birth of my children and grandchildren and don’t think it’s preposterous to say…in the maternity ward of a hospital you walk among angels every day.
I’ve experienced love…I’ve watched my family grow and blossom and thrive…
I have witnessed the beauty of sunrises and sunsets…all while I’m still alive.
Which makes me question if my original concept of Heaven was wrong…
if my religious teaching was remiss
as I look around at the miracles in my life…I wonder…can it get any better than this?
There might be a Heaven high up in the clouds…
a place where, once we die, we experience a rebirth
In the meantime
I’m happy with my little slice of Heaven
right here…
right now…
on Earth.
I think Christendom has
I think Christendom has failed to take seriously the Apostle Saint Paul's assertions, in the Philippian letter, that we are a colony of Heaven; and must, therefore, bring the culture of our Mother Country, Heaven, to bear upon the country---the Earth---which we colonize. With that Mother Culture, we are able to see the miracles that God has embedded in this earth, and that these, as foretastes of the Heavenly, are meant to be not only cherished, but closely observed and appreciated: the change of seasons, dawn and dusk, the flowering of a garden and its autumn decline in preparation for next spring. The great (and now deceased) British actor, Peter Cushing, himself a devout Christian, suggested that the recurrence and regularity of the seasons (due, of course, to the 23 degree angle of tilt in the planetary axis) had been meant, by God, to be a metaphor of Heaven's eternity.
Starward