Imagine there’s no Heaven

I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one glimpse of New York’s skyline … The sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need?
– Ayn Rand

This last week saw another of the Beatles laid in the grave. Not literally, of course. George Harrison’s body was cremated and his ashes scattered to the wind. He is now an indelible part of the earth. Much like the oxygen atoms that Jesus breathed on the Cross. The ones he expelled when he uttered, “It is finished.” The very ones you and I still occasionally inhale and exhale as we go about our daily lives.

“Sept. 11 changes everything,” we are told. I don’t believe it. Partly because the people telling me that 9-11 changes everything are the same people telling me about everything before it was changed. Nothing’s changed there. Did the ACLU and its kissing cousins from PETA to the PTA suddenly embrace prayer in public schools? I don’t think so. Have Democrats reversed course in their rush for the throne at the end of the Road to Class Envy? Have Republicans gotten out of the corporate welfare business and stopped redistributing tax breaks and tariff goodies to friendly campaign contributors? Nope. Have you and I stopped trying to buy happiness? The malls look pretty full to me.

Yet, for some of us, things have changed. A loved one is no longer with us after the attacks. Military families are separated and must live with the certainty that – for some of them – they will never again be together on this earth. For some, fear or a brush with death during the carnage upended long-held value systems. For the heroes who rushed into the burning buildings to rescue others, their value systems cost them their lives. Ironically, theirs were the lives that probably didn’t need changing.

Imagine there’s no heaven. It isn’t hard to do. You and I do it everyday. We do it when we recognize death as the end of our life – and not our birthday into eternity. We do it when we convince ourselves that the New York skyline is more beautiful than God’s sunset, because the New York skyline represents the will of man. Trouble is, the earth is not inhabited by Adam alone, but by many “Adams.” Each has his own individual will to power over his or her fellows. Each has a different view of how to remake New York’s skyline in his or her own image. Over the years, many people have carved their initials on New York’s skyline. On 9-11, we saw another rendition.

When the Apostle Paul traveled to Athens in the first century, he told the men of Athens, “I see that you are most religious …” They had a different god on every street corner. Today, it’s the 21st century, and so do we. If everything has changed, please tell me how?