If heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive there?
I first heard this question on the Bravo TV series, “Inside the Actors Studio,” with host James Lipton. He poses it to guests at the end of their interviews in front of students at the renowned Actors Studio Drama School of Pace University.
It reflects a similar question by French television show host Bernard Pivot, based on the famed “Proust Questionnaire,” created by 19th century French writer Marcel Proust.
The responses from Lipton’s guests – celebrity actors, writers and directors – are typically lighthearted or humorous.
“Yes, I do exist, God would tell me,” one actor replied philosophically.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d make it here,” another actor replied with a laugh.
My response to that question wouldn’t be so blithe.
I’d like to know why so many believers in heaven, of any kind, seem so shortsighted when it comes to their mortal lives compared to the bigger picture — specifically under the religious context of promised immortality.
I mean, if I believed in an afterlife that extends into eternity, I wouldn’t care as much about my relatively miniscule lifetime here on earth.
Eternity lasts forever, and God only knows, literally, how long this lasts. Comparatively, our time here is only for decades, if we’re lucky. Regardless, it’s a mere drop of water in the proverbial bucket of eternity.
That’s not to say I wouldn’t care about my actions and deeds in my lifetime here. I would focus squarely on morality, virtue and other heavenly attributes, especially if those holy principles would get me into heaven.
I would, however, looks at things differently on this mortal plain if heaven was undeniably in my future. Or even if I believed it to be true, as billions of people have done for eons.
For starters, I would care even less than I already do about such human foibles as pettiness, jealousy, envy, greed and vengeance. These silly flaws would pale in comparison to eventually going to heaven, pearly gates, gold-laden streets, and all.
More Top Picks Camp Kitchens
I also would care even less about national politics, local government, international warfare and other worldly concerns that take up so much of our time and concern. All of that would seem like child’s play compared to living forever in a utopian paradise.
Why care so much about something you have nothing to do with or have absolutely no effect on? I often wonder this.
Is it simply to be entertained? To try to make a difference? To offer us a distraction or escape? Or, more importantly, is it to prove our worthiness to get into heaven? If it’s not for this sole reason, why are we doing it?
Nothing should mean more to us than that singular objective. Heaven should be the only goal that matters. The only purpose in our life. The only destination on our spiritual map.
Yet, I ask myself, is this true for so many self-professed, heavenly-bound believers? If heaven is all that matters, why do they dabble in earthbound pursuits that only waste their time, inflate their ego or harm others.
There should be nothing here powerful enough to lure us away from eternity. Not if we truly and devoutly believe that heaven awaits us.
If heaven exists, the real litmus test of my belief would come when my loved ones die. If I truly believed they will also ascend to some kind of everlasting rapture, and I would definitely be with them again, I wouldn’t mourn their death. I would celebrate it.
Not with feigned hope and ritualized prayer, but with a profound sense of joy. Of course, I would miss them here on earth for either a few years or decades until I later died. But that longing would always be tempered by the certainty we would be reunited in perpetuity.
This belief would trump any other feeling, whether it’s grief, mourning, sadness or loneliness. The anticipation of heaven would always provide the solace I sought. Is this what it provides for you?
With this said, I don’t sense an unflinching surity in people I know who’ve lost loved ones, and who believe in an afterlife. I don’t understand the mourning of a transitional death when an eternal life awaits their loved one. And when an endless life awaits them, too.
I’ve been to dozens of funerals and wakes over the past four decades, and at each one, I find myself studying the mourners more than grieving the deceased.
Decedents are gone from this existence, I remind myself. If they are in heaven, God bless. If they’re in hell, for whatever reason, that’s on them. It was their misdeeds, their crimes, their sins. If they didn’t believe in either concept, their purgatory died with them.
At funerals, I find the mourners much more interesting than the lifeless corpse in a casket or a mound of cremated ashes in an urn. I’m intrigued how they react to their loved one’s death. I’m fascinated by their grief with heaven awaiting them.
I don’t share their blissful solace, not yet anyway.
If I ever do, and if heaven does indeed exist, here’s what I would like to hear God ask when I arrive there: “Why did you waste so much time on mortal meanderings?”
Twitter@jdavich