Where the hell is heaven?

“Am I just an odd duck?” I ask myself, shifting uneasily in my seat at church.

Did no one else hear that? I look around at the room of mostly closed eyes and half bowed heads.

You said the last shall be first.

The meek and the poor in spirit shall inherit your Kingdom.

But what does an inheritance from a God who made both an atom and UY Scuti even look like?

I try to read between the lines of the bark in the tree, the dirt on my bathroom counter, the depressingly blocky skyline of modern day cities, and the gratitude in the eyes of a woman who is using an out house for the first time, rather than a tarp and shovel.

“I think I know you.” I tell myself, as I hold up your promises and the longing in a prayer about heaven.

You aren’t the guy with a pony tail at the front desk, wearing a red vest and gold plated name tag that says, “Jesus.”

I’m not checking into a five star hotel after I close my eyes and living, once and for all, like a freaking Kardashian.

King of kings,

Show me the truth of this world that you are redeeming.

It won’t be a mountain top with no gnats,

An endless Saturday morning with heaps of pancakes and green grass that never needs a trim.

You and your upside down nature that walks to the back of the line and washes the feet that stand single file keeps whispering, “Look, Beloved. Can’t you see it?”

“I CAN’T!” I cry, then bite my lip so hard it tastes like iron.

“Oh, but I feel it.”

Here it is; kneeling down to pick up a crumb between my thumb and pointer finger like my mother used to - the details.

There it goes; Smiling Bob, with his Hawaiian shirt, big rimmed glasses and walking stick,  offering to help me with my squeaky bike.

When you’re the one that digs the toilets for a person who has never had the dignity of a four walled facility with running water,

Somehow,

You run smack into the rear end of heaven.