Heaven

One day when I was in second or third grade, my Sunday school catechism teacher matter-of-factly told us that pets didn’t go to heaven because they don’t have souls. One of my friends burst into tears and cried so hard and so uncontrollably about the idea of never seeing her pets again when she died that she had to be taken out of the room for a while to get calmed down.

This is one of the things I struggle with in Catholicism. I have been a pet owner my entire life, and I’ve known and loved my pets for far longer than most people in my life. I understand conceptually what my teacher saying. We were given free will and the ability to choose to follow God because we were created in His image. This comes in the form of a soul, and it’s what separates us on a fundamental level from even the most intelligent animals; having the ability to act on something more than instinct.  Souls are the part of us that have life after death. (I don’t think any Christians are arguing against the validity of decomposition of the body, at least not within the doctrine of any denomination I know.) People who don’t believe in life after death also tend not to believe in the concept of a soul; the two go hand-in-hand.

But if heaven is paradise, how can my pets not be there? There’s little that makes me happier than fuzz therapy, a lazy afternoon playing with my cat or cuddling with my dog. Then again, how can I even begin to imagine what heaven is like? If it’s all it’s cracked up to me, I’m sure I won’t even miss animals.

…I don’t like that option very much either though.

(I thought I was here to write about pets, but I think maybe I’m here to write about heaven instead.)

I mean, the idea of heaven is absolute paradise, right? By definition, it’s one of those godly things that are so infinite and vast that humankind can’t begin to grasp what it’d be like to be in such total bliss.

I’m sitting here thinking about that and knowing that that’s supposed to be comforting, that that’s always been what kept me from being afraid of death – knowing that there’s something far better to come – but I’m realizing it’s actually pretty terrifying.

I like to know things. I hate feeling like there’s a concept I can’t grasp, to the extent where I get surly and lash out at people when they’re not explaining something in a way I feel like I can understand. Of course, accepting things you don’t know everything about is a natural part of faith. But there’s a difference between believing something after a lot of self-reflection and exploration about it, and thinking about a big empty future that we know nothing about other than its theoretical perfection.

There will be no pain, no suffering, no inequality, no poverty, no illness. None of the tragedies that plague our world in ways that seem eternal and unsolvable. But though I think I’m supposed to be excited by the idea that I’d never have to feel pain, it sort of bothers me a little bit. It’s only been in the last year or so of my life that I’ve started pushing myself to feel feelings, both in the form of being willing to talk about them with other people (and thus acknowledge that they exist), and of just letting myself cry or scream or rant or skip with joy, because I’m allowed to feel. And though I can drown in the gut-wrenching-ness of bad emotions, they also make me feel human and very alive. And when I come out on the other side, everything else feels that much sweeter.

I don’t think I like the idea of being somewhere where feelings may not exist. I want to live in a world without evil or suffering, absolutely. But I’m not quite ready to think about stopping feeling, when I’ve only just begun.

But maybe that’s just part of being young.

I think about the idea of not being human anymore, of just existing in some unknown form, of not having a mind that struggles with interpersonal relationships or insecurities or anxieties or world problems, but instead of just being ethereal and eternally peaceful and loving. I think of all time existing simultaneously in such a way that I can exist forever without ever getting bored or feeling like time is wasted.

That certainly doesn’t seem like a bad thing.

But I’m not ready yet – and that’s good. It’s terrifying that the future is unknowable. But whatever it is, if I have faith – and I do – I have to trust that it’s better than I can begin to imagine. But I don’t have to rush to get there. It’s good – healthy even - to have a little fear of it, I think. Because I want to stay here and feel feelings first. I want to laugh and cry and fall in love and have my heart broken and lose someone I love and change someone’s life and maybe have a kid someday and explore everything else out there that’s part of living.

I don’t think I’m scared of death, not really. But that doesn’t mean I’m in any hurry to get there, either. I’ve got a lot more being human to do first.

More on the pet question later.