Sunday, July 31, 2016

I See... When is Heaven?

The Mormon Third Eye has talked about Heaven before, often in the context of what makes us happy. You can read more about it here, here, here, here, and here. We often entertain thoughts of a perfect world in the future filled with our favorite things and people, or we describe “heaven on earth” as a particularly wonderful event or existence frozen in current time and space. The Mormon Third Eye, however, goes beyond the present and the future into the past to find Heaven. It happened two nights ago... in the dream.

Two nights ago the necessary strains of my 56-year old body would not let me sleep so I wandered upstairs into my college daughter's empty bedroom to avoid punishing my wife with my insomnia. We had our temple shift to work Saturday morning so it was important that at least one of us got a good night's sleep. After endless tosses and turns and Seminary New Testament manual musings, I finally fell asleep.

I was awakened in my unusually realistic dream by the appearance of my college-age daughter as a cute, bouncy toddler wearing a white temple blessing dress. She flitted from toy to toy around the room and we had a grand time playing together and reading bedtime stories like we used to; however, the only phrase tumbling out of her two-year old mouth was a perky “I'm all grown up now daddy!” It seemed like heaven.

Then my married and soon-to-be father adult son entered the room dressed in the white clothes he wore when he was baptized at age 8- more heaven. We played and talked and laughed together as a young family for awhile. I texted my wife to come upstairs and join the fun. She quickly arrived and was pleasantly shocked with our ability to magically transport back in time to the youth of our grown children. While we both wanted the joy of this impossible experience to last forever, reality started slowly encroaching into my subconscious and we feared that if we left the room to get ready for our temple shift, we would lose them. However, we made the right choice and I woke up. And suddenly, my daughter was still in college in Utah, and my son and his wife were still expecting the birth of their first child again. Just like that it was over.

The dream left a lasting impression on me. While I found heaven in the memories of joyful times spent with my young family, I'm glad that's all they are- memories. I wouldn't want to miss enjoying their bright future trapped in the past!


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