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Winter greetings.
Welcome to “Heaven’s Door”…a facility committed, to making your passage a time of joy, not sorrow. Is your body broken? Always wracked with pain? We have a wonderful array of modern drugs, allowing you to cross over in comfort. Diagnosed with a terminal disease? On a fast-track to the grave? At “Heaven’s Door”, we understand your despair…your anxiety. Perhaps you’re just tired…of loneliness…failure…heartache…and life. Then “Heaven’s Door”, is just for you. Just ahead are streets of gold, living waters, and loved ones gone before. Heaven…in all of its glory…is waiting for you. Join the crowd of billions…peering over heaven’s balcony…looking down from above, at loved ones and friends. It’s time to go to heaven.
For about the same cost as a funeral, “Heaven’s Door” wants to make your passing a festive event. After all, you are headed to heaven. We’ll host a celebration dinner in your honor. Your final night on earth, will be filled with friends and family…your favorite food and drink…and your personal knick-knacks and pictures, adorning the room. After the two hour dinner…and the good-byes…you’ll be ushered into our luxurious “Departure Suite”. Here, the ambience is set with aroma therapy, soft lighting, and a final song of your choosing. Then at last…with a cocktail of painless drugs…you’re off to heaven.
One year ago this month, I watched my mother die of cancer. God granted that I could be there, for her last two weeks of life. Through all of the putrid stench…the guttural moans…the whirlwind of hospice…still, I could see mom in those eyes. All the way down into her soul. And I sat in awe, at how a soul refuses to let go of life. Clutching…clawing…gasping, for just one more, breath of life. Finally, she drowned in her own flem…the infamous death rattle…too weak to cough it up anymore.
We today, have so many life-support systems on hand. We can keep the heart pumping, or install a plastic one. We can force-feed the lungs, and keep them respiring. Even our blood supply can be removed, filtered, and put back. We can open clogged arteries, compensate for a broken pancreas, and replace a missing limb. If your bones are weak and deteriorated, we have “Hover-rounds” for that. Then there are the modern, miracle medicines without number. All of this and more…to keep us alive, and postpone heaven.
We believe in heaven. Heaven is our hope. Our only hope. Yet without fail; we choose weeks and months of misery, pain and agony, over going to heaven. Though we’ve spent our lives in the work of the Lord. Though we’ve told many people about heaven…and helped them to get ready. Still, we cling to life. Still, we choose postponing the wonderful heaven we teach…with every branch of technology available.
It is one thing, to stand and eloquently teach: “willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord”. It’s quite another thing, to actually stand at that doorway. And surrounded by a foyer of medical advancements…there’s no question…we choose life, over heaven. However compromised, broken, or assisted…we choose life.
Perhaps that’s why the “Heaven’s Door” spoof (of the old Soylent Green movie), could never work. We are to love our neighbor as ourself. How clear the greatness of that love…for ourself…becomes, when life is in peril. It emerges raw and unadorned, standing at the threshold of the unknown. Yes, we’ve heard about heaven…we’ve read about it…we’ve believed in it…even staked our very eternity upon it. And yet, we choose life.
Heaven’s Door
Welcome to “Heaven’s Door”…a facility committed, to making your passage a time of joy, not sorrow. Is your body broken? Always wracked with pain? We have a wonderful array of modern drugs, allowing you to cross over in comfort. Diagnosed with a terminal disease? On a fast-track to the grave? At “Heaven’s Door”, we understand your despair…your anxiety. Perhaps you’re just tired…of loneliness…failure…heartache…and life. Then “Heaven’s Door”, is just for you. Just ahead are streets of gold, living waters, and loved ones gone before. Heaven…in all of its glory…is waiting for you. Join the crowd of billions…peering over heaven’s balcony…looking down from above, at loved ones and friends. It’s time to go to heaven.
For about the same cost as a funeral, “Heaven’s Door” wants to make your passing a festive event. After all, you are headed to heaven. We’ll host a celebration dinner in your honor. Your final night on earth, will be filled with friends and family…your favorite food and drink…and your personal knick-knacks and pictures, adorning the room. After the two hour dinner…and the good-byes…you’ll be ushered into our luxurious “Departure Suite”. Here, the ambience is set with aroma therapy, soft lighting, and a final song of your choosing. Then at last…with a cocktail of painless drugs…you’re off to heaven.
One year ago this month, I watched my mother die of cancer. God granted that I could be there, for her last two weeks of life. Through all of the putrid stench…the guttural moans…the whirlwind of hospice…still, I could see mom in those eyes. All the way down into her soul. And I sat in awe, at how a soul refuses to let go of life. Clutching…clawing…gasping, for just one more, breath of life. Finally, she drowned in her own flem…the infamous death rattle…too weak to cough it up anymore.
We today, have so many life-support systems on hand. We can keep the heart pumping, or install a plastic one. We can force-feed the lungs, and keep them respiring. Even our blood supply can be removed, filtered, and put back. We can open clogged arteries, compensate for a broken pancreas, and replace a missing limb. If your bones are weak and deteriorated, we have “Hover-rounds” for that. Then there are the modern, miracle medicines without number. All of this and more…to keep us alive, and postpone heaven.
We believe in heaven. Heaven is our hope. Our only hope. Yet without fail; we choose weeks and months of misery, pain and agony, over going to heaven. Though we’ve spent our lives in the work of the Lord. Though we’ve told many people about heaven…and helped them to get ready. Still, we cling to life. Still, we choose postponing the wonderful heaven we teach…with every branch of technology available.
It is one thing, to stand and eloquently teach: “willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord”. It’s quite another thing, to actually stand at that doorway. And surrounded by a foyer of medical advancements…there’s no question…we choose life, over heaven. However compromised, broken, or assisted…we choose life.
Perhaps that’s why the “Heaven’s Door” spoof (of the old Soylent Green movie), could never work. We are to love our neighbor as ourself. How clear the greatness of that love…for ourself…becomes, when life is in peril. It emerges raw and unadorned, standing at the threshold of the unknown. Yes, we’ve heard about heaven…we’ve read about it…we’ve believed in it…even staked our very eternity upon it. And yet, we choose life.
