The thing is at or around 0330 the clear sky and partial moon light the night far better than most grey damp days are lit by what passes for daylight.
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| There's a Fuji downstairs. I can manage a landing but stairs at 0518? This tablet will have to do. |
The other thing is it looks unearthly. Looks so different. It ought to be a privilege to look out at such a vista but in truth I'm sat on the edge of the bed undertaking triage. A wee, a couple of codeine or 10ml Oramorph.
Once immediate needs are taken care of its Oramorph. This hits the pain within 40 mins, all the pain but it also makes my head do stuff. Like think. As I've mentioned before the pain drives me to prayer, I find it takes my mind off me, which, indeed it should. It's not cogent, it's not eloquent but that doesn't matter because it's silent and it follows a different route every time.
I have a map on my laptop with dots on it. Most south of the M4, some North of it and some a long way West and one even more West. I visualise the map and pray for the people who live at the dots. Visual, great, lists are for mathematicians and people cleverer than me. Tonight it's hard to concentrate, the routes are blurred, places indistinct, thoughts imprecise. Thus I find my mind has wandered to a place it often passes but rarely lingers for long before being overtaken with whatever distraction distracts.
Tonight in the clarity of the outside world it looks unearthly and I find myself contemplating the next world, looking forward to it, wondering what it'll be like, I mean really like and I haven't got much of a clue. It'll be real, I'll know people there.
However, none of the speculation is of primary importance. The really important bit is why I'm looking forward to it. It's where God is. Where God is, where God rules and things are done his way is referred to in the bible as his kingdom. The idea of a Trinitarian God isn't an easy one to get your head around, the trinity, but tonight I've spent an hour or two rummaging about in my mind in a very random kind of way but it's been lovely.
I said in an earlier post that I loved my wife unconditionally. She loves me unconditionally, too. Rico Tice explained unconditional love as nothing you could do would make me love you any more and nothing you could do could make me love you any less. That is quite amazing at so many levels because it invokes total security and absolute freedom. However, because the love is unconditional we'd do all we could to ensure that the donor of that love was never hurt, harmed or upset. We'd try to do all we could to ensure their happiness and contentment in us and with us. We'd do all we could to please them all the time. If we could.
Ah, but, I'm me. I fail at so many points and so often but the nature of love unconditional means that excuses are worthless because she's heard them all before but forgiveness is still forthcoming. I fail continually but love doesn't.
Now what if that relationship was perfect? Utterly perfect. Unconditional love perfectly displayed, perfectly executed and demonstrated for eternity? Because that, I think, is the relationship of God the father with God the son. To experience that in its faultless fullest is why I look forward to heaven.
Then there's God the holy spirit.
For the last few weeks my wife has been clearing our loft. She's been getting rid of umpteen tons of stuff that I've kept because it'll come in useful one day. Not only am I running out of days I haven't got the strength to argue my incontrovertible case with her. She hasn't found the box of Cibie Oscars, Bi-Oscars and Super Oscars yet and she won't be able to lift it when she does. She has found the Sachs dampers for a mini, a proper mini and WordPerfect 5.1 on 5 1/4" floppies, DOS 4.4 and subsequent DOS's on 3 1/2" floppies, all variations of Windows from 3.0, and so it goes on. There's even a SCSI Connor tape drive with boxes of tapes. Indispensable in 1992 with IBM OS2 and then Windows NT workstation4 1995 vintage and server 2000.
She also found an exercise book of our daughters from early primary school. In it she writes about her family. Her mum - writes lists and does everything at superspeed, her dad - sits about listening to music. No one knows you as a couple like your kids do and when asked they are totally open and honest. And right. I don't do lists, I do dreckly and I can't deny that much quality time is spent in front of a pair of Epos ES15s beautifully finished in dark walnut veneer and frequent coats of Stones furniture cream which get to sound better with each of the 20+ years they have served so magnificently. They'll sound as good when they're in her bay window, too.
The point is our kids know us and they can tell others about us from a unique perspective. That's sort of like what God the holy spirit does. Being one with the father and the son he tells us what the father is like by showing us the son. With total and utter openess, supreme clarity and in as much depth as we are able to cope with.
Being in the place where he is, where all three exist in their glory is what heaven is all about. To experience the physical presence of Almighty God and spend eternity in that place with all the others is the destiny of all Christians. The prospect of being there is actually quite exciting. When the time comes I hope no one is sad for me, those left behind will be sad and in need of comfort but God says he is the God of all comfort and we'll take him at his word.
Of course there's masses more but for these couple of hours before the Oramorph wears off these thoughts have been a singular delight. Maybe tomorrow I'll be allowed to think of other aspects but for now happiness flows...
The bottom line - I look forward to the next world, heaven, because God is there.
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