joy unending??????

joy unending??????

I remember once when I was in the first grade something one of the Nuns told us when we were having religion classes; she said that heaven is place where there is unending joy.  I remember that moment as if it were yesterday, even though it was almost fifty years ago.  The inner experience of that statement was one of incredulity, something that I could not comprehend and so my inner reaction was one of rejection.  All of my limited experience up to that point taught me that joy was something rare and short lived and it was better not to even begin to hope for such a possibility. 

Even today as an adult I still have trouble with that concept and while it is something desirable I don’t know what to do with that desire.  I do have powerful experiences of ‘joy’ from time to time and I think if they lasted I probably would have died.  My heart seems to swell and enlarge and to encompass the whole universe were I love everyone and everything….and then it goes, leaving me feeling homesick and even lost, sort of like a child left behind by its parents. 

When I was in the Navy I spent a year on Midway Island (67-68) and from the very beginning I thought it was the most beautiful place in the world.  The island is small, five miles square, has white sand on the beaches, clear water and lots of Gooney birds, who are one of the most graceful fliers, but always crash land when they come to ground.  I remember the first day there and I walked around the Island with some other new comers, looking at the homes, and we met some teenagers who were going to the beach to surf.  I felt like I was home and that feeling never left me.  I remember that  I was one of the few that loved it there and would have stayed for my whole four years if they would have let me.  To this day my soul aches when I think of midway, I almost cry with the homesick feeling that I have for it to this day.  I don’t understand it really it is almost a transcendent feeling, a heaven feeling, a place where home is. 

I remember the day I left and a few friends came to see me off and how I did not want to leave but had to of course, it was after all a Navy Base.  As the plane left and I looked back on the Island I could not believe how small it looked from the air and how for a year it was my whole universe and home. 

Perhaps one day I will, and we all will find out true home, the place that mankind  longs for in different ways.  Sometimes music will bring this feeling out, being with friends, were the love you have for them is an actual pain, because you know the moment will not last, in movies and yes in dancing always in dancing.

Is it possible to have total joy?  I am most tempted to atheism when the mystery gets to close, it is like I believe but am afraid to hope too much.  To hope that a place will be found for all of us that is truly home, were we will not have to look so hard for a place of rest,  and we will not have to take so many wrong turns in truly seeking out heats true treasure.  Where we can love totally and where communication will not be difficult or even impossible to attain, where we will all be known.   The easy way out would be for me not to believe to just stop hoping, I guess that would bring a certain peace to me…….but I will continue to believe and hope for not only my true home but that all of mankind will also find their hearts treasure.

Peace

Mitch