Mistakes About Heaven
       

1 .

Contrary to what is said,
longing exists there.
Imagine the soul as one
so involved with the music
as it played the game
of walking around the chairs,
it discovered too late
that it had no chair. Having lived
its only life in the body,
it sometimes misses
the walking and the sitting down
and above all, the music.

2.

Having done bad things
can actually get you in,
particularly if you have been
a parent, and did bad things
for the love of your children.

3.

Swearing is perfectly okay there,
even though it's hardly practiced,
cursing being a response
to frustrations on earth
that stand in the way
of mortal service. These God damns
every time He is asked.

4.

The ones who deny themselves
all enjoyment in preparation
for heaven gain admission
only because God
feels sorry for them.
There is pleasure in heaven.
God is known
for the way He parties.

5.

Since the basest
of human motivations
are storing up wealth
beyond measure
and plotting for one's own
future, as the sermon
recommends, they have no
honor in heaven.

6.

The holiest are not the men
who once looked upward
in suits or robes
to speak to a ghost,
but the forgotten ones
who sat beside trash barrels
or beneath an overpass
listening to voices,
unsure of which to follow.
Heaven is not up
or down but a place outside
programs. Those most
ready for it have spent
their lives unable
to make up their minds.

7.

Mysteries are not solved.
The most heavenly experience
is the feeling, as in art,
of something immanent
that never quite
takes place. This is the feeling
those who go there
inhabit always.

Copyright © 2010 Wesley McNair All rights reserved
from Lovers of the Lost
David R. Godine, Inc.
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission