Talking to Gail about heaven

When we left Canada, the plum trees in front of the house still looked like a bundle of pitchforks threatening heaven, and the yard had been white with snow a few nights before. There was no green in the trees yet. As we drove south, mile by mile, we watched Spring dress the woods in fast forward. First the emerald jewelry flashing occasionally against the brown-skinned limbs flanking the highway. Then the fluttering green umbrellas against the sky. Then trees fully clothed and shimmering, and finally, in North Carolina, the accessories—flowers in all the reds and pinks my heart could wish for after several sorts of winters.

And here in North Carolina I visit and sing and pray and dream of future plans and debate theology and share my story and eat heaping plates of southern food. These are friend supporters I have not seen for several years, so we must compress our time together into these two short weeks, another kind of fast forward. And I rejoice with my friend Caroline who rang a bell instead of a gong and is waiting for medical clearance to go back to her field of service. She’s hoping when she buys her plane tickets that there will be seats together for all seven of her family. Little baby Salem grins at me and roars her lion roar. Her four brothers teach me how to play Ticket to Ride. And my heart is heavy when Frank tells me his wife Leslie has a rare kind of cancer, incurable, deadly, painful. The church family he pastors prays ferociously for miracles. The chemo is bad. Here spring and winter live side by side.

My friend Gail writes down questions she’s pondered lately about things she’s studying in Sunday School at her Presbyterian church (she’s born and raised Moravian). We look over together the Westminster Confessions she’s highlighted—those troubling phrases that contradict the creed she’s lived by for so long, the Moravian Ground of the Unity, where Jesus is expected to have died for everyone, not just the ones who love him back. And we compare Genesis 1 with Genesis 2 and notice how in Genesis 2, God leaves the work of producing wild plants and grains to the earth itself and to its human managers. He doesn’t use a miracle but a natural providence, a divinely handled, natural process.  He loves the earth’s work. And ours. There is no shame in waiting for God to do his job on earth through natural means.

And today she is coming for supper to talk about heaven. Heaven! Talking to Elai last night (I am forbidden from calling Philip since this is “hell week,” his finals. He interrupted his studies long enough to message about a perfect score on his circuits midterm. The last few messages were about a 104% grade, and a 107%. His dad asked him if LeTourneau was just getting too easy, and everyone was scoring high. He didn’t think so…) Elai wondered what we could possibly have to say on the topic of heaven. I mean, “how do you know?” I said I don’t. Not more than anyone else. And the Bible only hints. Ahh. But I have so much fun imagining. Don’t you? I could imagine heaven for hours. Just get me started. And what I know is that no matter how far I stretch my brain to imagine greater and greater things, God will always outdo me, so there’s no harm in letting my imagination run wild, wild, wild. Run wild with me! Challenge me (and him) with your imagination. There are no losers in this game. We live in winter now. But the emeralds flash against brown-skinned limbs. Winter and Spring live side by side.