Eternal Bliss May Have Its Drawbacks

There has been much talk lately about heaven. The Life & Style section recently devoted its front page to it.

There is much testimony that it does not exist. For heaven’s sake what would we do without it? The language would be sadly weakened were there no mild expletives such as those derived from the word itself.

Little boys and girls are taught not to say, “The hell with it,” though I can’t see why. Many times when I was a small boy I felt like saying it and sometimes did. But they can say “for heaven’s sake” or “thank heaven” or any other variation of that celestial nowhere.

I used to think the word was especially favored by older women. Whenever she was taken by mild surprise, my grandmother used to say, “Heavens to Betsy,” though she never gave us a clue as to who Betsy might be. Of course to suggest that such locutions are the province of older women is sexist and ageist. I don’t want to do that. Heavens to Betsy!

Heaven is not only thought of in our culture as a nice place to live but also as a source of power or benign favor, like God himself.

The language is replete with such supplications as “Heaven help us!” and “Heaven will help the working girl.” The latter evidently derives from the early 20th Century when young women first entered the work force and were oppressed and harassed by their male associates. Heaven help them, indeed.

Evidently there is a flood of recent books about heaven, some of them by people who have been there. I do not believe a dead person, or a person who has been dead, can write a book (though I have read some that read like it).

Heaven is thought to be a place of eternal bliss. For whom? One can hardly imagine a place that would be bliss for everyone. Eternal bliss is eternal boredom. Imagine lying on a bed of pansies on a nice spring day under a peach tree while naked maidens dance all about. Soon one would want to turn on the TV or read the comic page.

What if heaven were an eternal replay of the USC-UCLA football game? Is there anything that one would want to see over and over again, no matter who won?

No. It seems to me impossible for anyone to write a script for a perfect day in heaven. For one thing, what is life without conflict? Even life without defeat? What if USC always won? Worse yet, what if they always tied--as they did last month? Heaven would theoretically have to be an eternal tie. What a bore.

In heaven (one supposes), everything would be suffused in soft lights and soft music. OK. But what about those who wanted to read the newspaper? What about those who wanted to hear hard rock? (I assume in all fairness a few of them would get in.)

Surely there would be no politics in heaven. Would a citizen like to wake up and read (if there was enough light) that the government had been overturned in a military coup? Who even in hell wants that?

I have never been dead, but I think I have been close enough to know what it’s like. I was in a coma once a few years ago. My heart had stopped. All signs of life had vanished. The doctor told my wife not to expect me to live. I had been on the other shore. Believe me, there was nothing there. No light. No music. No perfume. No football game.

There is no law (this is a democracy, remember) against a person saying that he or she has been to heaven. But they’d better bring home some pictures or I’m not going to believe them.

I see no reason to believe that in case of my death I would not be admitted to heaven. Oh, I’ve committed a few sins, but nothing felonious. I don’t know what the rules of admission are, but if half of us get there the place is going to be as overcrowded as hell. It will be as cosmopolitan as Los Angeles and twice as hectic. Half of us will be USC fans and half UCLA. We will have the same amount of conflict as we do here and the same amounts of joy and misery.

Nobody knows where heaven is. Jesus is said to have ascended to heaven, which suggests that it’s up. But space is all around us. He could just as well have descended.

No planet is big enough to hold the dead of all time. So heaven must just hang free, out there in space. But then there wouldn’t be any gravity. You couldn’t even play Ping-Pong.

My advice to anyone is that if they come for you, don’t go.

* Jack Smith’s column is published Mondays.

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