I woke up this morning with that song in my head. ("How Far is Heaven," by Los Lonely boys) It actually started playing in the middle of the night when my little one came in at 2:31 to tell me she couldn't find Baby. If you knew my little angel, you would know that not knowing where her "Baby and Purple Blankie" are is a full scale emergency and warrants me stumbling downstairs in my underwear to seek out her Princess backpack to rescue Baby from her dark prison. That's when I realized the soundtrack in my head had changed. (I went to bed trying to drown out Taylor Swift whining about her "Trouble"by praying to release the anxiety caused by the money trouble I was uselessly worrying about. When I finally gave that to Mary to handle for me, I was able to clear my head and sleep.... that's when "They" planted today's message) At 5:40, when my alarm wore off, it was still playing, throughout my morning prayers, shower, hair drying/make-up ritual, and finally when I was feeding the dog, I asked, "Ok, so how far IS Heaven?" The answer came immediately in the form of another song (of course), (Warrant, this time) "Heaven isn't to far awaaaay.... Closer to it everydaaaay....No matter what your friends might saaaay...." So there's your answer. Simple right? Or not.
As a kid, I always had this image of Heaven. It's this place way up in the sky where God and all the saints and profits sit on the clouds eating chocolate cake with the angels. Everyone is happy. Then that image shifted to an island paradise and this idea that whatever you like on Earth you get lots of in heaven... yay, more chocolate cake, right?! Wrong. Heaven is not Disney World, but it is the happiest place on Earth. That's right on Earth. Heaven is right here. It is all around you. You just can't see it.... or maybe you are open enough that you can. We can get glimpses of it. I've had blissful moments where I have felt so connected to the divine, that the illusions of this world fade away and I just exist in a state of pure joy, pure love, and nothing about this lifetime even matters. It's kind of like being high, but it's not a chemical induced delusion. It's a real experience, a real connection to Heaven and the infinite flow of God's love.
You have had these experiences too, these moments of detachment where you feel that beautiful connection to something much bigger than you. Maybe you felt it when you held your child for the first time and looked into her eyes and saw your soul and her soul forever intertwined and you understood that this person is someone you have always known and whom you have been connected with forever. Maybe with a sibling or a best friend where you laughed so hard for so long that time seemed to stop and nothing else mattered. Maybe you have been so in love with someone that when your lips met you lost track of where you end and he or she begins and all sense of anyone and anything else in the world disappeared. Maybe you have had an experience where you felt the presence of a passed loved one so strongly in a song, or a smell or a sign from nature that you felt completely loved and just knew that everything is as it should be. These are moments when we connect with heaven. Heaven ISN'T too far away. It is right here in all of the love relationships in our lives when you let down the barriers of ego and exist in a state of complete vulnerability with another soul. God is the essence of your soul. When two souls connect, regardless of the relationship, you experience God's pure love... and then you are experiencing heaven.
Chocolate cake is divine, and tropical islands are paradise, but despite the opinion of Marie Antoinette, eating cake won't make you happy. And you can be miserable in a place called paradise if your heart is longing for love. The answer to all your emotional needs is found in loving other people. All people. Open your heart. Bare your soul. And when others bare theirs to you, let them see yours, and you can be in heaven every day of your life.
(Thank you God and Archangel Gabriel for today's divine inspiration.... and for the feather that just floated onto my keyboard!)
(Greater than 3)
Not.
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| The Kiss, Gustav Klimt |
Chocolate cake is divine, and tropical islands are paradise, but despite the opinion of Marie Antoinette, eating cake won't make you happy. And you can be miserable in a place called paradise if your heart is longing for love. The answer to all your emotional needs is found in loving other people. All people. Open your heart. Bare your soul. And when others bare theirs to you, let them see yours, and you can be in heaven every day of your life.
(Thank you God and Archangel Gabriel for today's divine inspiration.... and for the feather that just floated onto my keyboard!)
(Greater than 3)
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