I can explain why heaven makes no sense, why the most logical response to the human condition is despair, why the future that lies ahead of us is only chaotic and dark, why we—as individuals, as a species, as a planet—in fact have no future at all. I can explain why belief in heaven as afterlife or belief in heaven on earth is equally impossible, equally absurd. But eventually, and often when I least expect it, something in me rises up and declares: Nevertheless. Is it the Risen Christ? That’s what I would say. For when it comes, so does heaven—a glimpse of it, anyway, a chink in the wall, an echo in the ear. And hope becomes possible again, a hope as lovely and startling as the sight of Earth rising above the barren landscape of the moon.

From “When Heaven Happens” by Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, in Heaven, edited by Roger Ferlo. A Seabury Book from Church Publishing. Copyright © 2007. Used by permission of Church Publishing Incorporated, New York, NY. www.churchpublishing.org