What Does Heaven Look Like?

Saturday Stories

March 24, 2018

"I believe in angels, something good in everything I see..." This line from ABBA's timeless song "I Have A Dream" says what I want to say a lot better. 

I still believe humanity is inherently good. I think we human beings have more in common with each other than we realize. 

We all want to live in peace, we all want our lives to be meaningful, and we all want a better future for ourselves and for those we care about.

We also hold on to the promise of a life after life. Whatever name we give to the source of our being, we want to see a better world than this.

Our ideas of the afterlife have evolved through the millennia but the core elements remain. There is no more boat on a river called Styx, yet there is still a passage. There is no scale to weigh our hearts anymore, yet we'd still see our whole life unfold before us.

A friend and I composed a poem about what awaits after the hour of our death. We named it "Heaven" because she is Catholic and I love the song by Bryan Adams.

Our poetry duet was published on March 8, 2018 in Galaktika Poetika Atunis, a magazine based in Albania. Here is one stanza from each:

Heaven

By Elizabeth Castillo and Jonathan Aquino

(Excerpt)

Elizabeth:

The Tower of Babel man even built as they wish to step into God’s gate
Sharing one language at the Genesis of it all but have they succeeded?
Man cannot fathom what the Creator has in mind,
Heaven is not a place for greed but of selflessness and compassion.

Jonathan:

Perhaps God does not exist, but maybe He is real,
and angels and demons too, and it seems to be true:
the creator of the world moves in mysterious ways,
yet we may even see: God is with us until the end of days.

See The Full Poem At Galaktika Poetika Atunis

Photo courtesy of Dreamstime.com