This one is for all you downers out there. A good exercise for me when I'm all sad and mopy is to think about how I would want things to be if I could make them exactly perfectly the way I wanted (regardless of the time/space continum, gravity, or any other limitations that might otherwise get in my way). It is times like those that I will write a story called "The Best Day Ever" or "If I Could Do Anything for 1 Month" or something of that nature. It always puts me in a much better disposition. This post is one such story (written awhile ago- don't worry, I'm not all sad today). And now, for your viewing entertainment (if you promise not to make fun of me) I present...
If I Could Create My Own Heaven
If I could create my own heaven, this is how it would be…
To start with, the weather would be like Seattle rainy one day and San Diego sunny the next. It would just change randomly between the two. It would be in a big city like San Francisco or Seattle , but safe of course and when you turn certain corners you could just walk right into the wilderness. Around the corner on Pine St. for example, you could walk a few feet and step onto a beach and around the corner on Broadway Rd , you would end up in a grassy meadow by a lake. But for the most part, I would reside in the city. I would probably venture to the more natural parts on the sunny San Diego days. During the rest of the time, I would dance-walk all around the city while listening to my “sky” ipod. That means that it would work just like an ipod (I can choose the songs, and only I can hear it- unless I want others to), except there would be no actual ipod, the music would just come from the sky like on a movie soundtrack. I could skip around to the music and no one would think I was weird. And it would never break and I would always have the songs on there that I wanted in the perfect playlists.
I would read tons of books and they would always be the best books ever and I would never get impatient about reading- I would savor every minute of it. I would curl up on my cozy pillow chair by my window overlooking the city, with the grassy meadow and rolling hills in the distance and read while it was raining outside in the afternoon. When it started to clear up, I would get dressed in a flowy, swirly skirt and skip-dance to my sky ipod over to the beautiful flower coffee shop to meet one of my friends. We would stay and laugh and talk about books and music for hours. And then Jesus would pop by and sit with us for awhile, answering all our questions about those darned "grey areas" in life and about philosophical issues that went over our heads during life, but that we can now understand with flawless precision (I do realize that only putting Jesus into a couple of hours of my Heaven makes me quite unspiritual, I know all of you would write stories about how you worshipped him for hours on end until your vocal chords got swollen shut and then you would continue to worship him through your fasting ritual until your stomaches shrivelled up- yes, you are all more holy than I am).
Then we would go over to another friend's house and decorate cupcakes with the window open, listening to the rain. We would have a funny girly movie on that we would run in to watch at our favorite parts. When the cupcakes were done, we would take some canvases down to the very green park along with our yellow and pink umbrellas and we would paint the tiny birds that hopped along the grass by our feet. After that we would go back to my friend's house and fall asleep just listening to the rain. After waking up from my nap, I would then skip along home with my sky music and take a hot bath.
Scottie would then return home from his day of fishing at the creek with his best friend and we would get ready to go over to the pizza stand for dinner. Along the way, we would start laughing so hard that I would have to sit down in the middle of the sidewalk just to try and breathe. We would take forever to get where we were going because we would keep getting distracted by places we wanted to go and people to talk to along the way. We would finally get our dinner and go to the top of a grassy, rolling hill that is just around the corner from Main Street where, we would watch the sunset.
To end the day, we’d walk back into town and go to a dance party with all of our friends in a garden on top of a 10 story building in the city. We’d break from dancing only to take pictures, sip our smoothies, or play with our friend’s monkey, Charlie. Then we’d go right back to dancing to the music from our sky ipod that everyone could now hear.
So why do I need to pay $1,000 per class or so at seminary when I can get all the learnin' I need from cable TV?! This morning I watched a highly educational show while I was getting ready for work called "Reefer Madness". Ever seen it? It is a movie that was originally made in 1936 by a church group (excellent production quality for a Christian flick I might add) to warn people against the dangers of smoking marijuana. Some guy found it and turned it into an exploitative film by adding a few more scandalous scenes so it would rake in more money and in the 70's some other guy bought it and turned into a college classic comedy.
