Chapter 10: Heaven and Disillusionment
Chapter 10: Heaven and Disillusionment
I wanted to know what these life forms had anticipated, what
they had found, and why they had returned.
I asked my editor if I could follow up on this, and I was
given the assignment. So, I sought out one of these people.
The man I found had lived in the twentieth century on a
planet called Earth. All his life, he believed that if he were good, he would
go to heaven to live with God. He knew that heaven was the greatest place
because God would be there. He felt that when he got there, he would be given
wings and a harp and live forever.
When the time came to die, he felt scared. Throughout his
life, he tried to do as the Bible told him, but it seemed the more he tried,
the less he was able to do. So, he was afraid that he might end up in hell (a
place of fire where those who were evil went). When he woke to find himself in
our time, he was sure he was in hell. This was not because of anything in our
time, but mostly because there was nothing of heaven here. When the chance came
to redeem himself, he took it and went straight to heaven.
When he got there, it was everything he could have hoped
for. He was taken through the pearly gates by St. Peter to the roar of a huge
crowd. He walked straight to the foot of his Lord God. Sitting next to him was
his son, Jesus Christ. God spoke to the man, saying how proud he was of him and
how glad he had made it to heaven. He even told him that he did well by not
staying behind in the land that he had left because it was hell (this was as
the man wanted it).
He was given beautiful white robes and a golden harp, which,
strangely enough, played rock and roll music. It was everything he had ever
dreamed of.
While he was there, he met his relations of the past. There
was something not right about them. They seemed not to be as they had been.
They had become what he had wanted them to be, especially his mother-in-law.
She was warm and loving toward him, and it nearly made him sick.
Soon, he was meeting others from the past, those he had
heard of all his life. These were the people who had shaped his world and made
it what it was. When he met General George Washington, he found him to be a man
of honor and decency. As the legend had told him, he was not capable of telling
a lie. But soon, he found that the General was just as unable to tell the
truth. The man knew that what he had learned in school about the General had to
be imperfect. Still, the General was not able to fill in the blanks. It was as
if the General only knew what the man wanted him to know. The same was true of
all the other men of the past.
Then he realized that there were no people from the future.
Had time stopped? Was he the last to live and die? He wanted to know the truth,
so he went to his God and asked him,
“Why is it that the people here are only what I want them to
be and not more real?”
God answered him, “They are not real. They have been created
from your mind, so they can only know what you know and do what you want. If
you forget them, they do not exist.”
The man said, “That is why there are no people here from the
future. I did not know of it, so it could not be. But there was a future?”
“Yes,” said God, “there was. You were once in the future,
but you thought that it was hell. You came here to live with yourself and me.
Now I think you are ready to go and live in the time that you left behind.
Remember, I did this because I love you.”
Suddenly, the man found himself back in our time and was
ready to live.
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