And That Will Be Heaven
and that will be heaven
and that will be heaven
at last the first unclouded
seeing
to stand like the sunflower
turned full face to the sun drenched
with light in the still centre
held while the circling planets
hum with an utter joy
seeing and knowing
at last in every particle
seen and known and not turning
away
never turning away
again
(Evangeline Paterson)
I shared in the funeral of my friend Stewart today, and was given the privilege of trying to explain the mystery that is the human life, precious, unique, surprising, the gift of presence, and communion, and inward companionship. The poem expresses the breathless wonder of our earthbound eyes seeing through the eyes of God to the face of God, and how in the end God will be all in all.
Amongst the words borrowed and used in the service were these from Julian of Norwich, Stewart's favourite theologian, and fro m Paul, who understood the limits of human thought and experience to comprehend the infinite mystery of eternal love, stooping to redeem and renew:
Thus I was taught that love was our Lord's meaning.
And I saw quite clearly in this and in all,
that before God made us, he loved us,
which love was never slaked nor ever shall be.
And in this love he has done all his work,
and in this love he has made all things profitable to us.
And in this love our life is everlasting.
In our creation we had a beginning.
But the love wherein he made us was in him with no beginning.
And all this shall be seen in God without end.
In the end the beatific vision is to gaze with joyous wonder on the brilliant dazzling darkness that is the mystery of Love Divine:
When I was a child,
I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child.
But when I grew up, I put away childish things.
Now we see things imperfectly,
like puzzling reflections in a mirror,
but then we will see everything with perfect clarity.
All that I know now is partial and incomplete,
but then I will know everything completely,
just as God now knows me completely....
and all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.
Comments