Warkyisms: On Lion Headed Creepers

Heaven has been on my mind a lot lately. Maybe it's because there are so many different ideas out there about what it's like, or what people do up there. In one of our lengthy evening chat sessions, Tim and I got on the subject of Heaven as it's described in Revelation. And, as our late night chats often do, the conversation went decidedly off course.

It all started with me venting about how people view their family members as Jimminy Crickets up there in heaven. I don't know why, but I struggle with the idea of our close ones just standing up there in heaven, watching everything we do; every decision we make and even guiding us in some supernatural way. I think it's a nice idea, but it's one that people often make up to make it seem like their loved ones are still, somehow, a part of their lives. My take? If I was in heaven right now I would probably be singing in the choir of heavenly hosts, or decking out my mansion, or polishing my crown. Better yet, maybe I'd be talking to Peter, or John or even Jesus. Perhaps I would start asking him questions like why he let all the dinosaurs become extinct before the flood, or if he could, once and for all, settle the debate between pre-destination and free will.

You know what I wouldn't be doing? Standing up there in the clouds looking down at every silly, mundane thing that people I cared about were doing. As far as I'm concerned, that's God's job. But then Tim brought up the fact that time was limitless and infinite up there on the streets of gold, so what ELSE would I do with my time? That got me thinking: what would heaven REALLY have up there?

At my dad's funeral, he basically wrote an outline of what he wanted. He was very specific about what scripture he wanted read, and who would read it. I never even bothered to read it before hand (I was a little busy). So it was a complete shock to me when his college buddy started reading a passage from Revelation that described heaven. No one really knows why he decided to choose that book, or chapter for that matter. Unfortunately for him, not even the guy who was reading it. But Tim felt like it was probably supposed to be comforting because it was describing what heaven would be like. The problem is, it ended up doing just the opposite for me.

Revelation 4:7  The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle

Yeah, so then I started imagining what heaven would REALLY look like. These half ox, half man, lion-headed flying creatures roaming around heaven would be quite unsettling to me. I mean, its hard to even try to imagine it, and even harder to imagine enjoying it's "beauty". Which led me to wonder if other creatures would be in heaven.

We know that heaven is supposed to be like earth before there was sin. Which means that there probably would be a lot of familiar animals around. It's not a secret that I'm not a huge fan of animals in general, but 3 particular animals I cannot stand really: Cats, snakes and orca whales. What would happen if these sinless creatures were to roam the earth? I couldn't imagine these creatures ever being sinless. So I imagined them as toothless.

By the end of the night, I had gone from thinking that heaven was this glorious white and gold city filled with heavenly hosts and beautiful mansions, to thinking of it being inhabited by toothless orca whales and giant flying lion headed creatures with talons.

Maybe I shouldn't drink wine before I have these discussions. Then again, they wouldn't be half as entertaining.

.