Heaven on Earth

The tenth anniversary of 9/11 is this Sunday. I remember that day like it was yesterday. A perfect September morning. Blue skies, dry air, and the news as I drove into work. One of our colleagues worked with a five year old girl who filled the office with giggles as the rest of us huddled around a radio, tried to get the ancient television to work, jaws slightly ajar and heads shaking in disbelief as the morning's events unfolded. I have that same slack jawed, head shaking reaction today when I hear stories about victims and survivors of that terrible day.

Sitting on my patio this morning just as light trickled into the sky, I listened to the rush of water in our usually quiet brook and thought of folks in Vermont, flooded; land and homes in Texas, on fire; folks in the Middle East, in turmoil and war. The cliche 'you just never know' takes on meaning in light of life's specifics. A friend's cancer diagnosis, the car accident on the corner because there was no power to the stop lights. What can we do, we who have so little power to prevent these tragedies?

I think what we can and must do is to recognize all the ways of heaven on earth. Not that distant, ethereal heaven of Sunday school, though if it exists, I suspect they are intimately related. I mean all the ways that this earth is our heaven. A spouse warm and peaceful still in bed, breathing that sweet deep breath of sleep. The smell of our old dog as he wags his tail in morning greeting. The crickets still chirping at dawn. The flattened jungle of my front yard garden, still fragrant and full of color despite the hurricane and recent flooding rains. The hummingbird guarding his feeder through the storm... (Can you see him on the perch?) These are my heaven right here in my unearned but so appreciated piece of earth. I don't know if it will transform the world, but it will transform the pain of all of those 'you never know' tragedies that we in fact know will come.