By Moristotle
To a friend’s confession yesterday that as a boy he had wished that dogs could go to heaven, I said, “I can assure you most reliably that dogs do go to heaven.” (Of course, I could “reliably” do no such thing, but my friend was free to be assured, or not, as he wished.)
Earlier the same day, I had overheard the audiobook my wife was listening to, about “sportsmen’s” wanton slaughter in the Nineteenth Century of thousands and thousands of pigeons by shooting, and I had said to her (and she agreed), “Humans are the worst creatures on earth” – certainly not as good as your average dog.
So, a little later, I added to my friend, “but few people qualify to accompany them.”
But though barbaric, humans have always longed for immortality, for life after death – in an imagined heaven, of course.
Alas, humans could observe that some people didn’t seem to deserve to go to heaven. Or, anyway, there were other humans they certainly would’t want to encounter there.
And in particularly sober moments, even relatively good humans would realize that they, too, weren’t really all that good. And what if they weren’t good enough to qualify for heaven?
One such concerned thinker came up with a rather brilliant idea: What if he invented a miraculous occurrence and attached to it the promise that if people would push aside their natural tendency to question miracles and believe this one anyway, they would get a ticket to heaven, however good or bad they had been?
Voilà, Christianity was born!
| Copyright © 2018 by Moristotle |
A dear friend emailed me minutes after this posted that it "put me in mind of [James] Dickey, naturally." And he gave me a link to the following poem by Mr. Dickey:
ReplyDeleteThe Heaven of Animals
Here they are. The soft eyes open.
If they have lived in a wood
It is a wood.
If they have lived on plains
It is grass rolling
Under their feet forever.
Having no souls, they have come,
Anyway, beyond their knowing.
Their instincts wholly bloom
And they rise.
The soft eyes open.
To match them, the landscape flowers,
Outdoing, desperately
Outdoing what is required:
The richest wood,
The deepest field.
For some of these,
It could not be the place
It is, without blood.
These hunt, as they have done,
But with claws and teeth grown perfect,
More deadly than they can believe.
They stalk more silently,
And crouch on the limbs of trees,
And their descent
Upon the bright backs of their prey
May take years
In a sovereign floating of joy.
And those that are hunted
Know this as their life,
Their reward: to walk
Under such trees in full knowledge
Of what is in glory above them,
And to feel no fear,
But acceptance, compliance.
Fulfilling themselves without pain
At the cycle’s center,
They tremble, they walk
Under the tree,
They fall, they are torn,
They rise, they walk again.
James Dickey, “The Heaven of Animals” from The Whole Motion: Collected Poems 1945-1992. Copyright © 1992 by James Dickey.
Very good and interesting musings.
ReplyDeleteIt was a wonderful sentiment sir, and I choose to be assured. But then do we not all choose the myths and archetypes that suit us best? It is existentially interesting, is it not, that one man's musings upon the meaning of an obscure word can lead us to our own obscure yet enthralling imaginings? Thanks for the reassurance, I have had so many good, good dogs, and would love to see them once again in my own imagined heaven. Herewith a John Updike poem which never fails to evoke a tear. https://hellopoetry.com/poem/10222/dogs-death/
ReplyDeleteThe Updike gets me too – so true, so real. That good dog is absolutely there.
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