By Ingrid Albuquerque-Solomon –
If I did not believe in the concept of heaven, I would have committed suicide long ago. If there were nothing abiding beyond this perishable, hurtful, often evil, material world, I would have found it a misery to exist.
We all want to ride the tide of the contemporary; I am no exception. I was one of the first to run for the iPhone 5 when it came to Bangalore. Then it fell into the water and died. Could not be repaired because its insides were “completely corroded.” So what was the point in running to be among the first in the queue to buy the blessed thing? It means it’s all vanity, chasing the wind, to rush to buy “stability, style, and security” – a house above all others (with EMIs that hold your life to ransom for the next 20 to 30 years), to sink a huge part of your fortune to buy a Lamborghini Avantador that can be disfigured in the flash of a crash because of the folly of a fool driver, cells that get stolen or fall into the water and die, love that is going, going, tone the minute you possess it.
Pitiful parody…
Aha, therein is the irony – desire loses its desperate yearning the minute you get what you craved for.
If I were to source my springs of joy within these transient things, my life would not only be insignificant and deplorable, but a waste of time and energy, a ghastly irony, a meaningless, aimless ripple drifting on that silent, shore-less sea of eternity.
This is no sunset musing. I have hankered for heaven from the time I was a child, or at least when in school or was it college, I had to memorize ‘Andrea del Sarto’ in which poet Robert Browning penned the words that became the bedrock of my soul:
A man’s reach has to exceed his grasp; or what’s a heaven for?
This is part of (Browning’s) dramatic monologue narrated by Renaissance painter Andrea del Sarto to his wife Lucrezia. She wants him to sell his paintings to a friend. Poor Andrea (like many of us) is aware that his work lacks the spirit of contemporaries Rafael and Michelangelo because his brush strokes mere flip glimpses of heaven since he is trapped within earthly inspirations. Andrea’s basic dilemma can be boiled to one that still burns the breast of today’s artist: should he\she pursue high art or commercial art.
Destiny deserters…
Why just artists – the same pang pierces each one of us – we know, we are called to be greater and better but our feet are stuck in the slush of financial necessity.
If planet earth had a voice, it would bemoan the same. Although it counts its existence by millenniums, the most arrogant scientists have humbly admitted “all things are in a constant state of flux” and Science prophecies bid us to expect that the earth shall one day become like some of the stars, a burnt out mass of uniform temperature, unable anymore to sustain life. It will end by falling into the diminished sun; “the earth and the works that are therein shall be burnt up.” (St Peter in the Bible)
Relationships that are divinely ordained need to be selectively discerned, treasured, and cherished, as they will endure in heaven.
However “things”? Is not it a little pathetic that day after day we plunge ourselves into these passing vanities that cost us our sanity. I would have to be an imbecile to risk my strength, peace, and joy for things that crumble and change. If at all we must, we need to hold to these mortal joys with a loose hand, knowing they are there for a little time, passing away even as we gaze at it. Like little children, coming home from school with a daisy in one hot hand and a small vanilla cup clutched in another – which by their very clench hastens the withering.
Eternal Lifeline…
There has to be something undying in the death we are submerged in. Heaven. Another world, a new order, where there will be no more tears, no sorrow, no more death or dying, rapes, molestations, injustice — simply uninterrupted peace.
Heaven. And God. With His endless, imperishable love.
BTW, methinks God needs us as much as we need Him. For His love too must have undying creatures on whom He can pour it on. We run to temples, churches, mosques to get, however feeble, a few sips, and predications of that love that is in God.
Those sips keep me alive and fearless. I know that I know that I know that I shall live beyond what you see of me now. I look at death with a smirk and say, “You have no power over me, you vain, arrogant enemy. I am eternal because God loves me with an everlasting love. Through all the dark and dreary events of my life, His loving kindness never has, never will, depart from me. I know that all these “things” shall be dissolved, but I have an eternal house in the heavens, not made with hands, and because He lives, I shall also live.”
Let us meet there, shall we? Through the only sign-manual from Heaven that can get us there.
Ingrid Albuquerque is an author, journalist, trainer, and Bible teacher. She is part of the mainstream media for over 47 years.