Heaven In Your Boots

Folks have a habit of treating the Kingdom of God like a piece of real estate in the next county, something you need a surveyor’s chain and a long-distance ticket to find. They’ve spent centuries squinting through telescopes and tinkering with "ghastly devices," trying to figure out if Heaven is five hundred miles up or five thousand—as if the Almighty were hiding behind a cloud like a shy debtor.

I’ll admit, I used to be just as thick-headed. I figured Heaven was a big blue bowl sitting just atop the stars, and I felt about as significant as a tick on a stray dog looking up at it. I got to thinking about how the world is a tangled mess of good and evil—how the same dirt that grows a rose also grows a nettle—and I fell into a "deep melancholy" that was lower than a snake’s belly in a wagon  ...