Heaven Imagined

You step into an empty amphitheater, as large as you imagine it to be. You are there alone. It does not matter where you sit, what look like or how you dress. In a moment you will feel awkward, self-conscious and out of place.

In the blink of an eye, the entire place is filled, packed with angels, with no air space in between them or in between you and the ones surrounding you. They are assembled in concentric circles, each higher and wider than the one above. You can tell that they are not just one layer deep but you do not know how many layers deep behind you they go. They are spirits; you are human. They are clothed in ethereal white. Perhaps you have on a t-shirt, a pair of jeans and some sneakers. You have never felt so foreign but no angel considers you foreign. Knowing that does nothing for you. You are not at ease. You want to shift your weight to get into a more comfortable position but you notice all the angels are remaining still in their places. You dare not move.

They start to sing. They sing in unison. You have never heard anything so beautiful, so perfect, so uplifting, whatever the sounds you hear and whatever you understand their words to be. You close your eyes. You know you are in heaven. You think to yourself: this is absolute perfection.

Just as it could not in your imagination get better, it does. A single voice penetrates and complements the chorus with a song, melodious and harmonious, a voice so pure and clear it cleanses you from the inside out. You imagine the effect to be the same had it been a cascade of cool crystal water from the very first rain ever, extracted from deep inside a glacier somewhere, frozen in time but melted for you to drink and bathe in to purify your body, mind and soul.

While you are being refreshed and renewed, the solo voice diminuendoes and merges with the chorus. You once again close your eyes, feeling lightness all over, unburdened by anchors of earthly concerns and the weight of sins. You become deeply entranced by the angelic voices surrounding you. By losing yourself, you join the angels and the music.

As you have imperceptibly transformed, so has the beautiful music subtly grown. It has become more layered, more complex, more encompassing, grander and more beautiful than what you believed to be perfection to start with. You open your eyes. The amphitheater has become bigger. Much, much bigger. You no longer see the top of it nor can you see the edge of the highest circle and you have no clue how many more layers it now has behind you, but you can see that it is packed with angels, far too many to even think of counting.

Your visual and auditory senses are overwhelmed. You close your eyes once more as the heavenly music continues to bring you total fulfillment. You feel lifted. You are lifted.

Abruptly, the tempo changes. You feel the gravities of earth, life and sins set in. You return to reality. In it, some of the noises you hear are lies, hypocrisy and rationale based on intellectual dishonesty and some of the things you see include those people who hunger for greed or self-importance and those who betray their conscience or pawn their souls to evil.

You pine to return to heaven. There are ways to get there.

The alternative is unbearable.