Earth, Heaven

It wasn’t a fist-shaking, jaw-thrusting rant at heaven. But I doubted the goodness of God.

It wasn’t a low opinion of him either, really. But I was praying, and I was praying words of the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy. Holy, said three times, speaks of the perfection, the perfect goodness, of God. When I reached the third holy, I was uneasy. I lofted a question to God: "Really?"

1. Mud everywhere.

In fairness to me, I see a lot of crap on a daily basis. It’s everywhere. And I even try to avert my eyes so I don’t see crap that I don’t have to see. I skip a lot of movies.

In my work as a lawyer, even among the best people of our (local) society, things aren’t right. There are people who eat delicious hors d’oeuvres in members-only country clubs while tuxedo-ed artists play soothing music on gleaming grand pianos. They have status and wealth that others envy. Their future comfort seems promised by stock portfolios and homes and overflowing bank accounts. They drive past sweating, food-stamp needing plastic-bottle pickers; they don't see them through the shiny windows of the air-conditioned, leather-seated luxury of their brilliantly engineered, valet-polished cars. Some are lawyers who use their tax-payer funded lawsuits to ruin lesser people, for no measurable benefit to society. They stand for the rest. If I were in their place, I would be them.

I look at them, and I look to God, and I say, "really"?

Not, of course, that I’m a jewel.

Maybe I’m like a man who has lived under months of rainfall. There’s mud in the streets, there’s mud on the sidewalks, there’s mud in the parking garages, and, when I go into my house, mud goes in with me. I can’t imagine a world without mud.

2. Cracking through clouds.

I forget what it’s like to jet away from a rainy climate. The ascent at the end of the runway presses you gently into your seat as the rain-soaked airport falls away, and soon you’re lost in clouds. Soon after that, you crack the sky above the clouds, and the brilliant sun shines down on you, and it shines back up from the layer of clouds below you. The brightness gladdens your spirit, and you gaze at mystic fields and fantastic towers of cloud-architecture that goes on forever.

3. Visions.

It’s good to remember people who have had spiritual cloud-cracking experiences.

Like Moses, who asked to see the glory of God. God allowed it, but he allowed Moses to see him only from behind; the glory of his face would have destroyed mortal Moses. Moses saw from a cleft of a rock.

Like righteous, ruined Job, who took his gripe to God. God gave him a vision of God's own glory. Amazed, Job covered his lip and took back his complaint. The fact that he covered his lip was significant. Lepers in Old Testament times, as they walked, had to cover their lip and call out "Unclean! Unclean!"

Like Isaiah the prophet, who was in the temple, and he saw God in heaven. God’s robe reached down and its hem filled the temple. The vision was overwhelming. ""Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; yet my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" (Isaiah 6:5 (NRSV).)

Like Paul, who took beatings, whippings, stonings, ship-wreckings, starvation, exposure to harsh weather, imprisonment, ridicule, all for the sake of spreading the Kingdom of Heaven. But one day, he was carried up into the "third heaven". He "heard inexpressible things, things that no one is permitted to tell." (2 Corinthians 12:4 (NRSV).)

Like the apostle John. He was at the end of his life, starving on the Island of Patmos. There, he had the glorious vision that is the book of Revelation. And part of what John saw was the worship and praise and honor of God that takes place in heaven.

4. On earth as it is in heaven.

It’s rare to break though the clouds as Moses, Job, Isaiah, Paul, John, and others did. At least, it’s rare to do it in that way. But we can praise our God, and then our thoughts and words accord with heaven. In heaven, all of present hardships and privations fade like a dream fades to one who wakes up.

On earth, we need better eyes. And when I say "we", I mean "I". I would like a dream like Jacob had, with angels ascending to heaven and descending to earth, and God next to me. I would like to wake up and say, like Jacob, "Surely the Lord is in this place – and I did not know it!" (Genesis 28:16 (NRSV).)

The seraphs that Isaiah saw cried this to each other: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory." (NRSV.) It would be good to know the glory of God around us.

5. Prayer (by Reginald Heber):

     Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
     Early in the morning our song shall rise to thee.
     Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
     God in three persons, blessed Trinity!

     Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,
     casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;
     cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,
     which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.

     Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness hide thee,
     though the eye of sinful man thy glory may not see,
     only thou art holy; there is none beside thee,
     perfect in power, in love and purity.

     Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
     All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth and sky and sea.
     Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,
     God in three persons, blessed Trinity.