Whatever you're facing...
Heaven Can Begin Now

Eternal Form shall still divide
Eternal Soul from all beside
And I shall know him when we meet.
                 Alfred Lord Tennyson
                 in Memoriam,
                 on the death of his closest friend

The catechism, that distillation of Christian belief, includes in the tenets of the faith this common inheritance of hope. In that passage which describes the "new existence," heaven is where we will not only know God in his infinite fullness, but will "fully know and love each other." To know each other again, and better than before-what a promise of fulfillment to come!

Nor will the fellowship of heaven be limited to those we've known in this life. In that realm where space and time cease to matter, the catechism continues, we will be "united with all the people of God." All the people we've wished we could know! What a wish list each of us could draw up. On Len LeSourd's list, St. Paul. On mine, Grandmother Schindler.

Who else is on my list? To start with, those I almost got to know here on earth. Like C. S. Lewis ... It was 1963 when John and I arrived for an interview with him at The Kilns, his modest brick home in Headington, just outside Oxford, England. We parked out front, reminded the children that they'd promised exemplary behavior, and went down the front walk to the door. "By all means bring your children," Lewis had written. "I have a big garden."

The door was opened by a tall gray-haired woman - housekeeper, secretary, nurse, relative - we never knew. ''I'm so dreadfully sorry," she said when we'd identified ourselves. "Dr. Lewis is not well. He's had no address where he could reach you."