And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy.
D&C 130:2
During some of my recent health trauma, I had time to reflect on the nature of Heaven. As coronavirus worsened for me, the probability of life coming to an end went up. So naturally, I asked God, “What will heaven be like?”
Beautiful thoughts came to my mind as I fought the illness. The most precious I have ever held in my mind, the pieces of which I had considered before but the whole of which I had never before felt at once.
The dream came over the course of several days. It came as I talked with my friend Dayo Amosun, in person, and fielded phone calls with other concerned friends and family, especially my parents.
There was an outpouring of love that lifted me up in a really difficult time.
It was really cool. I’ll share the dream as best I can. It inspires me to live a better life, and perhaps it will uplift you too.
I saw a society of men and women, wherein each individual maintains an enriching, fulfilling, and wonderful existence of joy and peace.
As the quote at the start states, we interact with each other in much the same way we do here in mortality. We can get each other’s attention. We can communicate. We can laugh and have fun. We can and do help each other, primarily by giving our attention. We focus on the best work, which differs from person to person.
We also interact with each other in ways radically different from this mortal life. There is no fear in anyone, nor the desire to invoke fear; purely peace. There is no jealousy, ego, dishonesty, harm, or pain; purely health and integrity. There is no sadness; purely joy. There is no pride; purely strength in humility. There is no hate; purely love.
I saw that we are with our families; those with whom we wish to share the largest portion of our attention.
Families learn from each other and teach each other. There is no end to learning. We continue to explore: people, places, things, and ideas. We keep meeting new people and our attentive ability expands as we do. This is hard to comprehend in mortality.
There are no needs, but there are wants. Our interactions with one another enrich and edify, always. We continually learn from each other. The connectivity of the group grows as we work together to accomplish goals. We are happily and respectfully connected, in super fun and deeply good ways.
We all love each other. Each pairwise relationship is its own proper connection with its own proper boundaries of interaction.
In that vein, we do not judge each other nor do we judge the nature of each other’s relationships. We just know that everything, everywhere, and everyone is all good.
No one does anything they do not want to do. The breadth of things people want to do grows. The respect for those who do not desire some things grows.
When we meet someone new, we still go through the process of getting to know one another. We invite each other to do things, respectfully. We politely say “yes” or “no” to each other, and we each pleasantly accept the free agency of others.
Everyone is different. We are still who we were in mortality; just the good parts of us anyway. We learn so much from each other.
There is so much love in Heaven. The pure love of Christ.
Those who didn’t learn much about Christ in mortality now know, love, and worship Him. Those who knew of Christ in mortality learn that He was actually very actively guiding the lives of good people everywhere and through all ages. And the knowledge of that expands our knowledge of Christ himself and guides our continual determination to follow Him. It removes from our hearts the evils of ideological pride, which is a form of hate.
We are excellent at organizing things, at using scientific principles to do amazing things. We continue to explore. “No man has seen pure space,” is a statement from the song below that to me means that Heaven is definitely not boring.
We really enjoy it all!
All the righteous desires of our hearts are fulfilled, jointly with those whom we love, from our eternal companions to our kids, parents, siblings, extended family, friends, acquaintances, and those we have yet to meet.
Parents continually teach their children. And learn from them. We rise up together. All the way up. The family unit lives on.
When we love our children, we love them at once and always with a cumulative and combinatorial sort of love that in mortality was modified by their age. Imagine loving the innocence of a baby, the energy of youth, the production of an adult and the wisdom of an elder all at once for one person and for all people.
That’s a glimpse, a feeble attempt to describe indescribable glory.
This dream motivates me. After beholding the dream, my next logical question was, “What do we do to transition into a state like that? And how can I help?”
I received answers to those questions too. The answers were straightforward helpful things I can do for myself, for my family, for my company ArrayFire, for my church, and for those around me.
The motivation is for me to be a better person and to be better to those around me. The call was to produce value with what remains of my life, which hopefully is quite some time if I can steer clear of hospitals!
I close with one of the coolest songs I grew up singing in church, “If You Could Hie To Kolob.”
I imagine it means to Kolob-orate, a Grand Collaboration to get from where we are now into a Heavenly state.
Lyrics are here.
If you could hie to Kolob In the twinkling of an eye, And then continue onward With that same speed to fly, Do you think that you could ever, Through all eternity, Find out the generation Where Gods began to be? Or see the grand beginning, Where space did not extend? Or view the last creation, Where Gods and matter end? Methinks the Spirit whispers, “No man has found ‘pure space,’ Nor seen the outside curtains, Where nothing has a place.” The works of God continue, And worlds and lives abound; Improvement and progression Have one eternal round. There is no end to matter; There is no end to space; There is no end to spirit; There is no end to race. There is no end to virtue; There is no end to might; There is no end to wisdom; There is no end to light. There is no end to union; There is no end to youth; There is no end to priesthood; There is no end to truth. There is no end to glory; There is no end to love; There is no end to being; There is no death above. There is no end to glory; There is no end to love; There is no end to being; There is no death above.
“Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men [and women],” is perhaps the scripture that describes what will again be said “suddenly by the multitude of [our] heavenly host praising God” at that time. And the angel may say unto us, “I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people: for, behold, all people fear not.”
Is heaven on earth? That sounds nice to me, and while we are here, we might as well do what we can to build it. We are who we are until we do something to change, for better or for worse. Let’s choose to be better together.
It’s a nice dream and a motivating thought. What do you dream Heaven will be? What are the righteous desires of your heart?
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