Daily Reading, May 19
One enduring sense I have is that everything will be revealed in the hereafter. In the words of the old Anglican collect for purity, heaven exists in the presence of the God “unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid.” I think of this when I say something disloyal about someone who is not present, or when I try to hide the truth about myself from people whose illusions flatter me. If all of this will be perfectly transparent by-and-by, why not prepare for that by practicing transparency now?
Of course I also harbor the hope that if I have managed to do or be any good for God, that will be transparent too. I am embarrassed to admit that, but as someone who has spent my whole life confessing my sins, the prospect of being allowed to discover what I might have done right in this world sounds like heaven to me.
If it is true that most of us give what we want to get, then in the end my highest hope for heaven is simply to be rescued when my time comes—plucked from the roadside where I have fallen, struck dumb by all there is to love and grieve in this world—and gathered into God’s own safety, whatever that turns out to mean. I am willing to forego the details, as long as I know whose lap I am in.
From “Leaving Myself Behind” by Barbara Brown Taylor, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org