I made it through our recent trip to
The most interesting book was Alice Sebold’s 2002 novel The Lovely Bones. It is the story of Susie Salmon, a 14 year old girl murdered and dismembered by a serial killer who was her neighbor. Susie narrates her story from heaven as she watches her family and friends deal with the aftermath of her death. This was not an easy book to read… but it was even harder to put down.
Susie inhabits her own unique heaven. All the buildings look like 1960-era school building. There are lots of dogs. She has an intake counselor to help her adjust. At times her heaven intersects that of others, so she does have friends. In one chilling scene she meets other victims of the same serial killer. Mostly she sits in a gazebo and watches earth—and she is variously worried, afraid, sorrowful, lonely and bored. She watches her family grieve and struggle and fall apart… and then eventually pull together and survive. She watches her killer evade justice. She watches the place where her “lovely bones” are buried and are never found. She watches her friends grow and change. Mostly she longs to return to her life… which she does in one strange and never fully explained scene.
Susie’s heaven is a stopping place before she moves on. She is told that once she stops longing for life on Earth, then she will go to a heaven that bigger and brighter and fuller. But there is nothing really that compels her there. She sees only earth, and she longs for life there. Ultimately the only real peace she experiences is when her family starts to find their own peace with her loss.
What is missing from Susie’s heaven is God. At the center of the heaven of scripture is a throne. There is no sun and no night because God is the Light. Those in heaven are not looking back on their lives on earth; they are too focused on the glorious joys of being with God. There will be no sadness or fear or pain or loneliness because God is there. We will not long for what we lost on earth because the peace and joy of God will be too great. I liked Susie; I wish she’d have seen the real heaven—the one with God. That is the real point of heaven.
And that is the real point of Earth. We shouldn’t get too focused on Christianity as a way to live so we can see God someday. It is really about living in relationship with God both NOW and FOREVER.
1 comment:
Personally I have a little trouble (I always have) with books and movies that are the results of peoples imaginations “making up” heaven (I could name many). The heaven of the Bible is quite different from the one described in “The Lovely Bones”. I am not going to attempt to understand what was going through the authors mind when that person wrote of a heaven with dogs and I don’t need to read or listen to that book to know it is . . . (“Would blasphemy be to strong a word”) . . . (perhaps?). . . I do not want my children watching that movie (if there ever is one) or reading that book until they have read and understand what heaven is and what heaven in not. Man has imagined all kinds of things and wrote much about were we will go when we leave the earth that is our vehicle. What better source for information about us than the “written word of life” of the author of life itself. I have such a difficult time and still, I do not know what I need to know, all I want to know about what is written about heaven in the Bible. The cross is bare, that is a fact, the one who died on it is not there. (Look above and stay focused on that) The cross was the instrument on which he was nailed, you will not see Christ there (do not look to the cross for your answers) It is bare. Rest in it’s shade if you must but look toward your reward in heaven, if you have died to sin walk with Him and find your rest there. (Amen?)
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