Is there Play in Heaven?
Teenagers. Teachers. Parents. Someone's child. Someone's mother. Someone's father. Grandparents. Infants. Three-year olds. Lives suddenly severed from earth, gaining residence in Heaven.
Sudden illness. Horrific crimes. Heaven is filled with people of all ages, people who's earthly lives were cut short by the world's expectation, lives that will be filled with laughter and play far beyond the years they would have spent earthbound.
I think of my great-niece, who filled her mother's womb and her father's dreams with wonder and excitement only to be taken from them before she would play or smile or giggle or run. I think of football players and high school drama students who still had years of earthly joy ahead of them with friends and family who no longer have voices in the silence left behind. I think of grandmothers who should have been present at the birth of crying babies who will hear only the sound of tears, of fathers who's presence at baseball tournaments following hours of ball practice will never fill the seats at the stadium.
Is there play in Heaven?
Surely, there is. Play is so natural. Children make believe, adults help them create spaces where their imaginations can excel, and teenagers learn how to care for others because they spend an evening babysitting a child.
Maybe there are life-sized games of Trouble where kids can leap their make-believe opponents in a single bound. Maybe leap frog means lack of gravity restriction and choreographed bounding over the next player. Go Fish might include fishing living cards out of the River of Life.
Why would the end of earthly living translate to the end of playing?
I had a dream. A dream that the son I lost 30 years ago was hanging out with my Aunt Karen, who was playing in a room filled with preschoolers. I could hear her laughter, and theirs, and his.
They are playing. They are not only reaching their goals, and winning rounds, or laughing with abandon during make-believe. They are exceeding anything our finitely limited imaginations can conjure up.
And their laughter is music to the Creator's ears.
Sudden illness. Horrific crimes. Heaven is filled with people of all ages, people who's earthly lives were cut short by the world's expectation, lives that will be filled with laughter and play far beyond the years they would have spent earthbound.
I think of my great-niece, who filled her mother's womb and her father's dreams with wonder and excitement only to be taken from them before she would play or smile or giggle or run. I think of football players and high school drama students who still had years of earthly joy ahead of them with friends and family who no longer have voices in the silence left behind. I think of grandmothers who should have been present at the birth of crying babies who will hear only the sound of tears, of fathers who's presence at baseball tournaments following hours of ball practice will never fill the seats at the stadium.
Is there play in Heaven?
Surely, there is. Play is so natural. Children make believe, adults help them create spaces where their imaginations can excel, and teenagers learn how to care for others because they spend an evening babysitting a child.
Maybe there are life-sized games of Trouble where kids can leap their make-believe opponents in a single bound. Maybe leap frog means lack of gravity restriction and choreographed bounding over the next player. Go Fish might include fishing living cards out of the River of Life.
Why would the end of earthly living translate to the end of playing?
I had a dream. A dream that the son I lost 30 years ago was hanging out with my Aunt Karen, who was playing in a room filled with preschoolers. I could hear her laughter, and theirs, and his.
They are playing. They are not only reaching their goals, and winning rounds, or laughing with abandon during make-believe. They are exceeding anything our finitely limited imaginations can conjure up.
And their laughter is music to the Creator's ears.
Comments
Post a Comment