Heaven is a way, not a place

Q:What is your vision of heaven? What images - from Scripture, tradition, culture or your personal experience - best describe heaven for you?

There is no particular vision of heaven shared by Friends (Quakers), and I have no personal view of one, either. Commensurate with a religious people pretty much "symbolically impaired," Quakers focus on inward spiritual realities rather than physical places and images.

For me, "heaven" is a state of being rather than a place, and I am informed not only by Quaker writings on the matter, but by others, as well. It was a Medieval Catholic saint who once said, "All the way to heaven is heaven, for Christ said 'I am the Way'."

The 20th cenury Quaker philosopher Rufus Jones expresses it well for me: "The Kingdom of Gd (Reign of Gd) is something that we do; not a place to which we aspire."

We create our own "heaven" and our own "hell" on earth. "Eternal Life" is something we enter into in the here and now by our own decisions. Another 20th century Quaker philosopher, Thomas Kelly, writes of the "Eternal Now," an understanding that "the Kingdom of Heaven" is Present, and we can choose to live in it now.

Perhaps the most poignant expression of this understanding for me is in the poetry of the 19th century New England Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier. In his poem "The Eternal Goodness," he has these verses (often heard at Quaker memorial meetings for worship - what Friends often call funerals):

I know not where Gd's islands lift their fronded palms in air;
I only know I cannot drift beyond Gd's love and care.
I know not what the future hath, of marvel or surprise,
Assured alone that life and death, Gd's mercy underlies.

By Max Carter  |  March 22, 2010; 3:36 AM ET Save & Share:                 
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