HEAVEN

Much Bigger… Grander, More Subtle, More Elegant… Even Greater Than We Dreamed…

Pierre Jean-Louis and other artists have transformed afros into the cosmos… For more visit For Harriet.

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Please enjoy an audio reading of this essay.

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What I mean by “I don’t believe in a heaven or a hell but that the afterlife is just a next stop, a next new existence, a next purpose, a next path of wonder” is I don’t feel a need to believe in the heaven or the hell that the prophets have presented. 

When Jesus said things like “I go to prepare a place for you” and “In my Father’s house their are many rooms…” I don’t imagine a big house with literal rooms. And no, it’s not just because, historically, fathers with big houses do not bring to mind images of welcome for me and my kind – as a woman, as a Black woman. I mean, why would we want bigger houses with more rooms to manage? Right now, you should see the clutter on my desk. Right now, I’m pretending not to know that the dishwasher needs to be emptied. I’m pretending what’s left of my summer garden on the back patio can magically water itself. I even asked Google can the moisture in the air water the plants? Is humidity nature’s watering can? The answer is no and yes depending. All that to say—who needs another room to care about when we are promised rest and peace in death? Not me. 

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I was reading an interview with Nikki Giovanni on Shonda Rhimes’ shondaland website, and the poet who, like me, is a big fan of stars and galaxies, said this at the end of the interview: 

I’m a big fan of the spirit. I don’t think that death is the end of us. I just think that there is a transition into another world. I happen to like diamonds, but I have a sapphire, and I was looking at it one day and realizing that this sapphire is somebody 1,000 years ago. At some point, it was somebody. He or she was put into the ground, and one day, he or she was dug up. Now this person has transferred into a stone, into something else. It was a realization that they can’t be gone. It’s just not possible. We make this change. I won’t be here in 1,000 years but hopefully someone will pick up a ruby or diamond and say, “Oh, look at this poet.” It’s the spirit.

At the very bottom of the webpage, shondaland wants the reader to know: This interview has been edited and condensed. 

Morgan Jerkins, another fabulous writer and thinker, a young Black woman who I believe is also a stargazer because she includes “Proud Gemini” on her website’s bio page, conducted the interview. For the rest of the day, I’m depressed knowing that I’ll never know the fullness or ripeness of their whole conversation. I’m jealous but protective of their union across generations. Giovanni is from the Silent Generation and Jerkins is a Millennial. As a Gen Xer, it’s characteristic of me to want to fill in the gap between them with all my questions about our collective past for the elder Giovanni while expecting the younger Jerkins and her children and their children to fix that past and save the future of our planet. It’s true, Generation X is the Lost Generation caught in the matrix of red and blue pills, arguing over whether the Earth is round or flat. 

Speaking of planets, ours is not all there is. Not only are there nebulas and stars and black holes and dark matter and galaxies and quasars – there are other planets. So who’s to say that heaven or hell is based on what happens here on Earth? Clearly there is so much more out there. Could it be that these are the rooms that Jesus spoke of? Is it possible that all of outer space is God’s house? Don’t even get me started on the multiverse or parallel universes or gravity – just don’t even get me started on gravity! If there’s a heaven high above, then by God it is full of many many more possibilities. It could be something far more beautiful than golden rivers and mansions. Who’s to say the prophets had the proper language to convey what they dared to imagine? If the universe is ever-expanding (and many astrophysicists believe it is) then the width, the depth and the breadth of a supposed celestial heaven is as unimaginable as death. 

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So far no one has returned from the dead with pictures and evidence to prove to us that there’s a there over there. Lazarus didn’t come back with a report. As far as we know, he was brought back only to die once more for good. I’d like to know what he saw. Yes, we have reports of near-death experiences. But the word to pay attention to is “near.” Lazarus was dead – as dead as his tomb. Was he disappointed after being resurrected? If heaven is a mansion with many rooms, who’d want to come back to an occupied Bethany? When he entered back into his ho-hum life, living with his two sisters, did he feel robbed? I think I would’ve. Who’d want to give up eternal rest for more of Martha’s complaining and Mary’s whimpering? I know… I know… I’m reading into things, placing things into the text that just aren’t there. Lazarus was raised from the dead and nothing more about it was said or written. 

Okay here’s a fact: when a star dies it creates all the makings for future generations of stars. Its final exhale of carbon and oxygen gives us air to breathe down here on Earth. When Carl Sagan said, “we, all of us, are solar-powered… Our ancestors worshipped the Sun and they were far from foolish – it makes good sense to revere the Sun and the stars because we are their children… The cosmos is within us – we are made of star stuff,” he was stating facts and not waxing poetic. But oh! Why not wax poetic about such a wonder? Walt Whitman did: 

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars,

And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren,

And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest,

And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven,

And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery,

And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue,

And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

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When there is so much more than meets the eye, why choose a heaven that lacks imagination? Why long for a carbon copy of what is here and now, but without the worry of a pile of bills? With the rotating cycle of expansion-compression-death-birth-and-repeat carrying on light years above us (and don’t get me started on light years) why are we so afraid of death that we’ve created a God bound to our limits? You tell me there’s a God with many rooms and mansions and I will tell you who needs that God. Give me the God with many stars and galaxies. I want to follow the One whose storehouses are filled with star stuff. Let’s pray to that one! Tell me more about them. 

Did you know a human body decomposes much like a star? Decay is nothing more than a body expanding and exhaling, then compressing and inhaling until its flesh and bone collapses in on itself, breaking down into carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. Ashes to ashes. Stardust to stardust. We go on as such. Sextillions of infidels? I don’t know. Jesus told the religious leaders of his time, “If the people are silenced, the stones will start to shout out.” 

Isn’t that funny? That’s exactly what got me about what Giovanni said: “I won’t be here in 1,000 years but hopefully someone will pick up a ruby or diamond and say, ‘Oh, look at this poet.’”  

Right here in land of the living, Giovanni is proof of heaven on earth – spilling her star, sprinkling her words like stardust for future generations to create, beckoning our spirits to hover and brood over whatever is dark, whatever is abysmal, whatever is unformed, void, and missing on this planet and call out, “Light! Light! Let there be light!” 

May we all be future stones—granite, marble, rubies, diamonds—exclaiming and shouting into the atmosphere of this heaven right here on earth. And oh my God! When we see that light coming into being, may we all exhale, “It is good!”  

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Do you believe there’s a heaven in the afterlife? Why or why not? What are your wildest imaginations about heaven?

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