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Tuesday, Nov 24, 2009
In this strange, quasi-secular view of the universe, life turns out to be an equation that adds up perfectly, even if we don't figure it out ourselves until after the end. What life isn't is something with an irreducible meaning all its own, just as "The Five People You Meet in Heaven" has no real value beyond the inspirational messages it contains. As life-affirming as Albom's book is meant to be, its effect is the opposite, at least from a humanist point of view, which holds that life and art are ends in themselves. Their sums are more than the total of all their explanations. What perturbs some readers about this kind of book is not just snobbery, but the betrayal of that principle and the creepy emptiness at the heart of such enterprises.
No doubt that opinion would get me stopped at the celestial security checkpoint imagined by Anthony DeStefano in "A Travel Guide to Heaven." His book begins with a kittenish "Special Preboarding Announcement" asking "that you check the following items at the gate before boarding: gloominess, stuffiness, cynicism, pessimism, intellectual snobbery, closed-mindedness, self-righteousness and prejudice against God or religion." I beg to differ; that kind of baggage -- otherwise known as healthy skepticism -- is exactly what you need to fully appreciate what's on offer in this consumer-age paean to the hereafter. I'd no more consider leaving my cynicism behind than DeStefano would contemplate surrendering his italics or -- heaven forfend! -- his exclamation points.
DeStefano, a Roman Catholic, worries that his fellow Christians fail to appreciate the fact that "God himself is outrageous." They might even harbor suspicions that heaven is "boring." DeStefano isn't the first to voice this concern. Mark Twain wrote on more than one occasion that the popular conception of heaven lacked allure. He found the wings, the robes, the harps and the singing a decidedly unappealing package. In "Letters From Earth" (purportedly missives sent by an exiled Satan to the angels back home), he derides man for creating an imaginary heaven of little charm: "I give you my word, it has not a single feature in it that he actually values. It consists -- utterly and entirely -- of diversions which he cares next to nothing about, here in the earth, yet is quite sure he will like them in heaven." In Twain's last published work, "Captain Stormfield's Visit to Heaven," new arrivals get issued the expected paraphernalia because that's what they expect; most jettison the stuff after a couple of weeks.
Clearly, heaven needs a makeover, and here comes DeStefano to the rescue. Instead of picturing endless cloud banks and angelic choruses, we should understand that "God is the king of all travel agents and heaven is his five-star resort." Furthermore, heaven is an actual, material place, not an altered state of being, and its human inhabitants will occupy physical bodies -- the same ones they had while alive, only much, much better. And yet, the same.
Many lapsed Catholics will recognize in this an entrée into the Scholastic arguments with church doctrine that preceded their departure from the faith. The doctrine is a vast Rube Goldberg device in which primitive beliefs (the resurrected-body thing, for example) have become the occasion for elaborate theological work-arounds. For every sharp-witted question a kid ever posed to a nun, they've got answers. They've had 2,000 years to come up with this stuff.
So, according to DeStefano, who claims Scripture and the writings of such theologians as St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas as his sources, you get your body back, only it's young, healthy and slender. Even if you were born suffering from severe disabilities, you'll be as robust as an "Olympic athlete." This body will not be subject to the usual vulnerabilities, cravings, flaws and other limitations. It will be "indestructible," "totally subservient to our wills" and able to transcend time and space. In other words, it'll resemble our earthly bodies only it won't be like them in any imaginable aspect, since it won't have the same appearance, properties or capabilities. If you're having trouble wrapping your brain around that one, picture being the "superheroes with their incredible superpowers" in comic books.
Despite having worked out this particular issue in great detail, and devoting an entire chapter on the question of whether our pets get to join us in our great reward, DeStefano suddenly goes vague on a matter of particular interest to Twain: Is there sex in heaven? Twain's Satan marvels that man "has imagined a heaven, and has left entirely out of it the supremest of all his delights, the one ecstasy that stands first and foremost in the heart of every individual of his race -- and of ours -- sexual intercourse!" According to DeStefano, "No one is really sure of the answer to that question ... God certainly wouldn't want to trivialize the gift of sex by allowing it to be used by random partners, indiscriminately," even though in heaven he will let us eat whatever we want without getting fat.
Apparently, although "God is a sensualist" who plans to make our afterlives "a feast for the senses," there are limits to his "outrageousness." Anything that has been "classified as sinful and ungodly" is dead out, and that means marijuana, you depraved potheads! On the subject of alcohol and caffeine, though, DeStefano remains curiously silent. Can you smoke? Are only illegal drugs banned from heaven? What if a drug is legal in some states, or maybe just decriminalized? Can we go over the part where unbaptized babies get sent to Limbo again?
Where all this really falls apart, though, is in the continuing-education division of DeStefano's heaven: "How would you like to go fishing with Ernest Hemingway? Or play catch with Joe DiMaggio? How would you like to discuss literature with Jane Austen, or have Albert Einstein personally explain to you the workings of the universe?" A lot, maybe. But, more importantly, how would Jane Austen like to discuss literature with any and every nitwit who comes knocking on her door? If she's like most very smart writers who don't suffer fools gladly, my guess is not much. For Pete's sake, even a $10 hooker gets to take a night off now and then. The heaven of a million ardent book-group members could easily become one writer's hell.
But why should Jane Austen worry about that, when she can look forward to frolicking through "the vacation that never ends," where she can witness "friendly lions and monkeys playing with brontosaurs and stegosaurs" and "walk through the streets of old Paris, or Renaissance Florence, or the China of the Ming Dynasty," noshing on curly fries with nary a thought for her waistline? The more you read about DeStefano's heaven -- the angelic "tour guides," the unending array of activities and attractions, the sanitary absence of anything difficult or unpleasant, and the perpetual company of one's immediate family -- the more familiar it all starts to sound. To savor these delights for all eternity, DeStefano recommends that we exercise all the admirable practices of true Christianity. But if you hanker after the quick fix -- as Americans do, and who but an American would conceive of this sort of heaven? -- there's an easier way: It starts with a ticket to Orlando.
