High School History & Heaven
From time to time each one of us wonders into thoughts of the truly vast complexity of life. There are days when the weight of our world and the worlds beyond us rests in our heads and pin down our hearts.
Humanity is a complex and complicated endeavor a truth that you need not look further than your own individual existence to understand. Though we all inherently know the truth behind this statement these words only represent one of our lives many truths. There is no ultimate truth behind life. However, there are infinite layers of truths that guide our lives like stars.
For all the complex truths living just beyond our comprehensive reach there are those truisms all our humblest children come to know. Perhaps our most basic and clearly stated truth is defined by our own life’s end. All life ends in death.
This singular and simple thought carries with it a powerful gravity we all face before our own living story turns its final page. From the beginning of time through our present moments all conscious beings occasionally toil over this reality.
Generally speaking I would assume for most of us our sophomore year high school world history class would not be the place nor the time to be thinking deeply about death or the afterlife.
But, that happens to be a moment in my life I specifically started to think about what comes after death in an entirely new way.
One day my high school history teacher who was an interesting storyteller in his own right walked into the classroom and started writing notes on the board much the same as he would on any other normal boring day in learning of the histories of the world. But, for some reason on this specific day he started his lecture out by saying, “I know what Heaven is.”
This got my attention. What is he talking about? What does this have to do with history? What is for lunch? I hate high school. He proceeded.
“Heaven is whatever you think it is….”
High History Teacher Heaven
He continued. “Since Heaven is whatever you think it is I know what my Heaven is…”
“Heaven is a place with a polish sausage stand. And not just any polish sausage stand, but the best polish sausage stand ever created. The polish sausage stand in Heaven has every kind of the most fresh polish sausages you could ever imagine. A round and red-faced old Polish man who is also extremely friendly operates this stand. He has any and every kind of polish sausage fixing you’d ever need or want. He is always ready with your favorite order calling you out by name and asking you how your day is going with a smile. And in Heaven the polish sausages are always free.”
I remember his story very clearly. Thinking at the time – WTF?
He continued, “Also, in Heaven this wonderful polish sausage stand is on a street corner next to a beautiful park with gently rolling hills and nice grassy open spaces. In the middle of the park on the top of a small hill is an old, large, gentle, and stoic oak tree.
Across the street from the park is a library with ornate and wonderfully carved marble pillars and elaborate glowing stained-glass windows. When you go into the library there are many helpful librarians ready to help you find any book on any topic you could ever imagine. They will take you to the card catalog knowing just where to search out the answers to you questions and lead you right to the books you’re looking for. In this library they have many copies of every book so there will always be a copy waiting for you. And of course, there are no late fees.
If I am able to make it into Heaven I will go into the library to search out a wonderful read for the day and grab a delicious polish sausage with all the fixings. I will walk across the street and sit in the shade of the large oak tree on the hill to eat, and read, and watch all of the other happy people eating while others are coming and going in and out of the library with the sun shining and a gentle breeze blowing the wonderful polish sausage smells my way.
This my friends is Heaven.”
Hum. Repeat thought number 1. – WTF?
After hearing my history teacher’s version of what Heaven was to him I had two preceding thoughts. One being – that is most certainly not what my version of Heaven would be. And two – well then, what is my version of Heaven?
I’m not sure if I thought about it much more on that specific day, but I have thought about it from time to time since then. And I imagine that my answer would probably be just as absurd to most people as his idea of Heaven was to me.
My version of Heaven is also fairly simple and for whatever reason I can’t seem to imagine much beyond it even though I have, as some would describe, a bit of an ‘overactive imagination’.
I’m happy with my version. Maybe someday that will change, but for now I know what Heaven is too.
My Version of Heaven
I’ve likely seen too many movies, but for some reason I imagine that in order to get into Heaven you need to walk up an imaginary set of cloud stairs and stand in line at the ‘pearly gates’. When it’s your turn to get into Heaven you get to the bouncer Angel and he asks for your name and ID like you’re at a bar. He has a big book in front of him to look you up and make sure you’re on the list.
The list is determined by a very simple thing – did you do more good things in your life than you did bad things? Were you mostly a good person? And it’s all there if he wants to look it up. He might ask you a couple questions like, “Why did you push that girl off the dock when you where 7? Or why did you throw away your little sisters toys when you were 9? Or why did you stop to help that old man change a flat tire when you were 19 on the way to the first day of your new job making you 2 hours late? Etc. etc. He would ask you these questions in the same way the bouncer at the bar would ask you your address, birthday, what color are your eyes, etc. etc. making sure you didn’t have a fake ID.
He would ask you a few questions already knowing if you where in or not. You wouldn’t be on the staircase in the first place if you weren’t already in, but you don’t know that. After a few questions he’s like, “Cool, you’re in. You did more good stuff in your life than bad stuff, you get to go into Heaven. Here are your books.”
Your Book of Statistics
At this point he gives you two books. One is a book of stats. And the other is a book of people. The book of stats is a book that has all the statistics from your whole life. For example, how many hours you slept in your whole life. How many times you clipped your fingernails, how many pizzas you ate, how many movies you watched, how many times you cried, how many specific sunrises you watched… it is the book of facts of your entire life. Any single specific fact you could imagine that you would like to know the numbers on from your whole life would be in this book.
It is amazing. It is everything. It is your whole life in numbers. The thought of this makes me happy.
Your Book of People
The other book is a bit more complicated because it is more interactive. The book of people is a list in order from birth to death of every single person you ever interacted with in your whole life. And it has notes about these interactions, it has the specific dialogue between you and that person, your side thoughts on this interaction, and their side thoughts on this interaction – it has a written form of perspective on the interaction. All of them, all of your interactions with everyone you ever meet in your entire life.
This book is also amazing because you can see your whole life in relation to people that were a part of it. But, this book also has another element to it.
When you read this book it is in a room that for better or worse sort of resembles a police interrogation room. There is a small white empty table in the middle of an empty room with a single light hanging down from the ceiling with two plain chairs, one on both sides of the empty table, one for you and one for them. Because when you read through this book you get to bring the people in you’re reading about into Heaven to chat with you. One on one.
It works in an amazing way. You can bring them up into your plain empty room and talk with them at the same point in time you interacted with them in your book (in your former life) or at any other point in their living lives as well.
For example, say you had a fight with your best friend on the third day back to school your senior year of college. You could bring them up to your room in Heaven and talk about it. You could figure it out… you could talk with them knowing how the rest of your entire life unfolded. You would be talking with them not as your college self, but as your afterlife self.
Or in that same scenario after having not talking to your best friend from college for 25 years because you moved to India and lost track of most of your friends from before your mid thirties because they abandoned you after your second divorce – you get to talk to him as an old man. You could talk with him about the rest of his own life. You would get to find out about his grandchildren, his various careers, and the cabin he loved in northern Idaho. You would get a chance to reconnect with a person who was for a time one of, if not, the most important person in your life. You would get to come full circle and answer some questions that you never knew you needed answers to.
Or you could even begin a new friendship with someone you met only once for 3 seconds when they took your money for a movie ticket when you where 42 traveling by yourself in St. Louis on business.
You would get a chance to connect in a new way with everyone who was ever in your life at any point for any amount of time.
But, that is it. When you get to Heaven there is no one else there. There are no new connections. Your living life was your opportunity to know everyone you’ll ever need to know for the rest of your eternity. The people of your living life are the only people that get to be apart of your afterlife because when you were alive that was your opportunity to meet everyone you should ever need to know.
Beyond this my version of Heaven has a few other perks, but they don’t seem to have the gravity or importance as the 2 books you are given once you pass through the gates.
I guess my version of Heaven would have a comfy bed, I wouldn’t need to work any more, I could eat basically whatever I wanted via a kind of Heaven room service, (I would order lots of pizza, nachos, pasta, beer, whatever I felt like I guess…) and there would be a really cool personalized home theater system with endless amounts of movies that popped up with whatever I was feeling like watching at that time. My room would have a nice view. Maybe mountains, a busy street, the ocean, a sunrise or sunset, or whatever I needed at the moment.
But, mostly my Heaven would be the sum total of my living life with a chance to talk to those people who made it so.
That is my version of Heaven.
Again, I’m not exactly sure at what point this became my version. I doubt it was the same day as my history teacher proclaimed to the class his ideas on the subject. But, I find it interesting that as I’ve aged and from time to time think about what my version of Heaven would be I continue to be satisfied with the version I imagined.
I like the idea of having a finite amount of people that make up your life and eternity. It makes me want to reach out to more people. It makes me want to make sure to say hi to every girl I see that catches my eye because even if I can’t falling in love her now I might get a chance to fall in love her in the afterlife. It makes me want to say something to everyone I see who seems like they need help because even if I can’t help them now maybe I’ll be able to help them later.
It is kind of like an automatic second chance at the life you are living right now. But, not a second chance at a life you never lived in the first place. My version of Heaven makes real life right now feel more important.
And I love the idea that real life right now sets the stage for our afterlives. My afterlife isn’t a second change, but rather an extension of the here and now.
What about Hell?
After thoroughly confusing our entire class that day my history teacher said one more thing.
“I know what Hell is to. It’s being chained to that damn tree smelling the polish sausages and watching happy people go in and out of the library for the rest of eternity.” I think my version of Hell would be if I dropped my books in a puddle and my life was erased forever. I would be stuck in a tiny white room by myself forever with nothing to do and no one to spend my time with.
To be on the safe side I’m trying hard to be a good person. So, say hi, and I’ll see you on the other side!
