Modern Mystics

I ran across this interesting article, and though I haven't read the books reviewed by the author, I find myself agreeing with him that the view of Heaven espoused in said books is far too small, a mere paradisiacal reimagining of what we currently know.  I can understand secular culture, such as 'The Far Side' comic strip with its middle aged, chubby, spectacle wearing heavenly citizens with stubby wings, ill fitting robes, and shabby halos, seeing the afterlife as dull and tedious in the proposed lack of evil and conflict, a necessary ingredient (in our meager understanding) in all great stories, but to have that same view from a theoretically Bible literate believer is ridiculous.  How can you read Daniel, Ezekiel, or Revelation and walk away thinking there will be no drama, no glory, no wonder, no story?  How can you read the final chapters of Job and still think you know anything at all about this mortal earth and its functioning, let alone of what comes after?  The Apostle Paul saw Something, Something so tremendous he wasn't allowed to speak of it and was given some grievous affliction to keep him humble, lest his secret knowledge drive him to pride and away from the very wonders he had seen.

True, we don't know much about the hereafter, only hints and teasing glimpses, promises we can barely understand.  But can you truly believe that He who made sunsets and platypuses and all the horrifically beautiful creatures of the deepest depths of the sea, the Inventor of music and light and stars would have so drab a throne room or so dull a court?  If Earth is but the footstool, can you image the throne?  The Psalmist envies the swallows nesting in the crevices of the ancient temple, but can our destiny truly be so blasé?  I think not.

I was probably seven when I looked over at the distant high school and wondered what the older students did during recess with no swings or slides, little understanding that there would come a day when I too would not think the once exciting playground a necessary part of life.  It is a similar line of thought that drives such myopic visions of Heaven.  Like that child, we cannot yet comprehend what it is and is not, we can't wrap our finite minds around it.  Instead of contenting ourselves with these childish visions, rather let us listen to those whose vision is not so stunted and small: the mystics, the poets, the storytellers, the bards, those who though full grown, can still see through the eyes of childlike wonder and try, however imperfectly, to pass those visions on to us.

C.S. Lewis is a personal favorite, 'Perelandria,' 'The Last Battle,' and 'The Great Divorce,' give us little hints and snippets, ideas of what could be, might be, might have been, or at least asks us to take off our mortal blinders and consider things bigger than our own experience.

J.R.R. Tolkien mixes glorious visions of wondrous histories, realms beyond the present perishing world, and echoes of greater beauty and purpose into his prosaic world of war and grim quests, death and despair, much like our own.

G.K. Chesterton is the ultimate child of the Kingdom, his inexorable sense of humor and the ridiculous makes whatever he is writing about, be it chalk or cheese, a joy to read.  His impishness dashes past our jaded guard and straight to the heart, where the Truth he mirthfully revels in both awakens and astonishes.

L.M. Montgomery's stories never stray into the realm of fantasy or fairy tales, but her heroines often find themselves drifting off into whimsical sunsets and October fields, seeing the brief glimpses of heavenly glory that occasionally shine through into our own world and the Great Truths that likewise shine into our own rather mundane lives.

George MacDonald is a man who has seen things, strange and wonderful, as puzzling and fantastic and beautiful as the heavenly visions of Ezekiel or John.

These are a few of my favorites, but I'm sure there are countless others.  After reading their works, I have a very hard time accepting a small view of eternity.  I think it is far more akin to trying to explain graduate school to a preschooler: they just don't understand or care!  It is not Heaven that is too small, rather it is our mind's ability to comprehend it.  John, the author of Revelation, noted that the world itself could ill contain all the books that might have been written of Jesus and His works whilst He walked among us, a mere thirty years or so of earthly existence, how much less everything beyond space and time, eternity, Heaven, the Godhead and all it has wrought?  Small indeed!