If I Saw You in Heaven

Would you know my name
If I saw you in heaven?
Will it be the same
If I saw you in heaven?

--Eric Clapton, "Tears in Heaven"

Last week I was asked a question about heaven. The questioner, still grieving the loss of his sister two years ago, was wondering what it would be like to see her again in the presence of Christ. He had been comforted by the thought that she was in a better place, he said, but that comfort was shaken by a conversation with other family members. They said it was not helpful to picture her with Jesus, because it would not really be her. She would not have her quirky personality, they said, and she would not be the silly, funny person they had known and loved.

I grieved at that picture of heaven.

Was Jesus less Himself in the Transfiguration, when He offered a glimpse of heaven on earth?

I don't know much about what it will be like to be in the presence of Christ. Most of the biblical images seem designed to say that it will be unfathomable, but it is hard to say much more than that. But I think we can say this: my friend's sister will not be less herself in heaven. Rather, she will be more herself than ever before.

As we are freed from the incurvature of the soul--the inward turn that moves us away from others and toward ourselves--we will love as we are loved. We will glorify God through the marvelous diversity of our personalities. Our senses will not be dulled, but heightened. Our passions will be magnified. Our delight will only increase.

Will it be the same if I saw you in heaven?
No. It will be better. It will all be better, and it will be all better.

Bob

Fracture

"Fracture" was the title of my teaching in church yesterday. We explored the fractures of our lives that are often uncomfortable for Christians to acknowledge. Everything is supposed to look like a Thomas Kinkade painting, right? Warm, fuzzy, elegant: no cigarette butts in the gutters, no guardrails flattened, no static on the line. But our real lives look more like a Jackson Pollock abstract, with fissures and edges and a wild mix of color.

The idea of fracture led us to the mystery of grace. Grace as the undeserved, unmerited favor of God's love WHILE we are YET chasing after far lesser loves. While we are ALL fractured beings clinging to the grace of Christ's redemption of us. Grace as the space to breathe. Grace as the permeating fluid injected into our lives through the cracks of fracture.

Engineers build computer models of fractured structures. They call it "fracture mechanics." Look at this...

A fractured structure with fluid injected into the fissures. The true picture of what our lives are like. Philip Yancey, in What's So Amazing About Grace, quotes C. S. Lewis...

"We are mirrors whose brightness, if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us...through grace we become 'jolly beggars.'" Yancey continues, "Our wounds and defects are the very fissures through which grace might pass."

May your spiritual discipline this week be injecting the grace of God into the fissures, the fractures, of the lives you encounter. May the Spirit of God remind you of your status as a jolly beggar before God.

Joni

What I Learned from My Mother

There was a funeral in West Texas over the holidays. An old, crusty rancher went to ride the greenest pastures, as they say. Buried 100 yards from his front door so his family can say hello periodically. It was a privilege to stand with the family in the presence of death. Such a clarifying place to be. One breath away from being alive. Recalibrates a person's perspective.

My mother sweetly graced us with her presence out in the badlands of the west. Brought fudge and divinity candy. The combination of my mother and the funeral reminded me of Julia Kasdorf's insightful poem.



What I Learned from My Mother

I learned from my mother how to love
the living, to have plenty of vases on hand
in case you have to rush to the hospital
with peonies cut from the lawn, black ants
still stuck to the buds. I learned to save jars
large enough to hold fruit salad for a whole
grieving household, to cube home-canned pears
and peaches, to slice through maroon grape skins
and flick out the sexual seeds with a knife point.
I learned to attend viewings even if I didn't know
the deceased, to press the moist hands
of the living, to look in their eyes and offer
sympathy, as though I understood loss even then.
I learned that whatever we say means nothing,
what anyone will remember is that we came.
I learned to believe I had the power to ease
awful pains materially like an angel.
Like a doctor, I learned to create
from another's suffering my own usefulness, and once
you know how to do this, you can never refuse.
To every house you enter, you must offer
healing: a chocolate cake you baked yourself,
the blessing of your voice, your chaste touch.

And that is what I am still learning from my mother.
Joni