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I was always drawn to Arthur Dent's situation at the beginning of Mostly Harmless. Being the venerated sandwich maker of a pre-industrial society.
Posts: 2010 | Registered: Apr 2003
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Two words-Celestial Library Every book ever written. Even versions of books that never got published, that the author just thought of while riding on a bus to work. All of my books would be there. There would be an unedited, original version of the bible translated into English. You could actually read the first concious thoughts of the universe translated into any language you want! And, most of the people there would have wings for flying from one shelf to the next. The food would be spectacular and I'd have my own carrol where I'd spend 5,000 years studying everything I am interested in.
Also, there would be the music collection to consider... Albums that don't even exist yet would be there! Original recordings of Mozart conducting his own symphonies *Wistful sigh*
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That's what I like to imagine too, Syn. Plus, one huge set of gilded encylopaedias containing everything mankind never figured out.
Posts: 8504 | Registered: Aug 1999
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There was a two-week period in Detroit that is my mental image of heaven.
I was very close to my companion. We were completely united in our goals, ethics, and intentions, but split the labor. I loved and adored my district (larger family), where everyone got along but no one was being disobedient. We were having success and heartbreak in our work at the same time, but neither was attribuatable to personal qualities. I was close to the Lord and having a rush of answers to prayers. In a phrase, I was completely committed to the purpose of my existence, doing my best, with a perfect support system, and had regular communication from the Spirit. It's as close to heaven as I've ever come. I want it to feel like that. I think it might.
[ February 18, 2005, 11:00 AM: Message edited by: Lady Jane ]
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It will definitely be cooler than the coolest thing I can imagine: My own private full size movie screen in high definition with every movie ever made available. On a tropical island with no bad weather. And an endless supply of chocolate that doesn't melt in the warmth. Yeah, I think that does it.
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a full scale, full motion VR simulator of any and everywhere you want to go in time and space to find out what it was/is/will be like would be way cool.
The best description I've seen, though, is "The Great Dance" section of C. S. Lewis's Perelandra (for a full excerpt see here and scroll down to "The Great Dance")
quote:"Where Maleldil is, there is the centre. He is in every place. Not some of Him in one place and some in another, but in each place the whole Maleldil, even in the smallness beyond thought. There is no way out of the centre save into the Bent Will which casts itself into the Nowhere. Blessed be He!"
"Each thing was made for Him. He is the centre. Because we are with Him, each of us is at the centre. It is not as in a city of the Darkened World where they say that each must live for all. In His city all things are made for each. When He died in the Wounded World He died not for men, but for each man. If each man had been the only man made, He would have done no less. Each thing, from the single grain of Dust to the strongest eldil, is the end and the final cause of all creation and the mirror in which the beam of His brightness comes to rest and so returns to Him. Blessed be He!"
"In the plan of the Great Dance plans without number interlock, and each movement becomes in its season the breaking into flower of the whole design to which all else had been directed. Thus each is equally at the centre and none are there by being equals, but some by giving place and some by receiving it, the small things by their smallness and the great by their greatness, and all the patterns linked and looped together by the unions of a kneeling with a sceptred love. Blessed be He!"
"He has immeasurable use for each thing that is made, that His love and splendour may flow forth like a strong river which has need of a great watercourse and fills alike the deep pools and the little crannies, that are filled equally and remain unequal; and when it has filled them brim full it flows over and makes new channels. We also have need beyond measure of all that He has made. Love me, my brothers, for I am infinitely necessary to you and for your delight I was made. Blessed be He!"
"He has no need of anything that is made. An eldil is not more needful to Him than a grain of the Dust: a peopled world no more needful than a world that is empty: but all needless alike, and what all add to Him is nothing.We also have no need of anything that is made. Love me, my brothers, for I am infinitely superfluous, and your love shall be like His, born neither of your need nor of my deserving, but a plain bounty. Blessed be He!"
"All things are by Him and for Him. He utters Himself also for His own delight and sees that He is good. He is His own begotten and what proceeds from Him is Himself. Blessed be He!"
"All that is made seems planless to the darkened mind, because there are more plans than it looked for. In these seas there are islands where the hairs of the turf are so fine and so closely woven togethre that unless a man looked long at them he would see neither hairs nor weaving at all, but only the same and the flat. So with the Great Dance. Set your eyes on one movement and it will lead you through all patterns and it will seem to you the master movement. But the seeming will be true. Let no mouth open to gainsay it. There seems no plan because it is all plan: there seems no centre because it is all centre. Blessed be He!"
"Yet this seeming also is the end and final cause for which He spreads out Time so long and Heaven so deep; lest if we never met the dark, and the road that leads nowhither, and the question to which no answer is imaginable, we should have in our minds no likeness of the Abyss of the Father, into which if a creature drop down his thoughts for ever he shall hear no echo return to him. Blessed, blessed, blessed be He!"
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Kat, that is the coolest description of what I hope for Heaven too. I'm going to probably be thinking about it all day now. Lovely Posts: 5948 | Registered: Jun 2001
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Jim-Me, what's odd is that I read that description and it sounds as horrible and hyperbolic as the most nightmarish vision of Lovecraft.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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An infinite, portable IV morphine drip. I have tasted heaven already, but human bodies cannot keep it forever.
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As a missionary I was asked by a 9 yr old girl what it was like. Since I don't know for sure, I copped out and asked her, "What do YOU think it will be like?" She got a puzzled expression on her face and then her 8 yr old sister interrupted with, "I think in heaven we ride horses and eat marshmallows". To which I replied, "You'll probably be able to". That was the end of that.
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Recordings? Mozart will be conducting his own symphonies, including some new ones. Musicians who loved their instruments throughout their lives would think of Heaven as Hell if they couldn't play.
And cats would still be getting underfoot to trip people. Hey, they got their own idea of good times Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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See, what's creepy to me about the passage Jim-Me quoted is that it's a short step from there to Lovecraft's description of Azathoth.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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A Celestial Library is my hope too. I'm a lifelong bibliophile.
And Tom, I've read Lovecraft's description of Azathoth...wasn't he described as being an 'idiot god' type, not truly aware of anything or a understanding it's place in anything?
That doesn't seem to be what the Lewis passage describes.
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Plus, one huge set of gilded encylopaedias containing everything mankind never figured out.
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