One of my mentors died recently. Ben was a kindly old gentleman, when I knew him. I’d guess he was a bit of a rebel at a younger age. The pastor at the funeral had obviously never met Ben, since he couldn’t pronounce his last name correctly, which was bad because it was projected on the wall behind him through the entire service.

The theme was that Ben had gone to a better place. There he would wait for us, and we would eventually join him in eternal paradise. Where Ben is now, there is no sickness, no pain, no want, and no strife. I got to thinking about this blissful place. There all your desires are met; you are never cold, never hot, never disappointed, and never alone. You never have to toil for your daily needs.

I suppose everyone has a different vision of what paradise is. And, I suppose, we probably would change our minds after a few days of living in our own version of nirvana. But for me, I don’t want the paradise the pastor described. I want a place where, if I put in a hard days work, I feel accomplishment. I want to feel the emotions of love and loss, for what’s one without the possibility of the other. I actually like hot and cold, not because they feel good, but because they complement each other. Who would really want to be luke-warm forever? In my view few things are better than a job well done, but that means that I have to plan and I have to execute to make it all come together. Without the possibility that I could fail, where would be the accomplishment?

I hope the pastor gets to experience his kind of heaven, right there next to the Lord. But I suspect that after a few months he will be looking for a few souls to save. Me – I think I’ve found my heaven - right here, right now, with all its gritty, bitter, sweet, sweaty, knarly details. How much better can it be than this world of ours?

If I’m wrong, and heaven is perfect, at least I’ve made the most of my time on this beautiful planet.