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COLUMNS
Imagine the possibilities:
Striving for a heavenly upgrade
May 20, 2010 | The Catholic Sun
My kids, like most children their age, have tireless imaginations.
I have to add five minutes to our morning walk to church in order to accommodate my 8-year-old’s tendency to collect “treasures” (which to the untrained eye appear only to be rocks, broken plastic and bottle caps). Nary a cardboard box enters our home without being multi-purposed into a dwelling for stuffed animals, a trap for the unlikely but nonetheless duped wild bear, or a like contraption for the kids themselves.
But this spring, after years of building cardboard forts and contriving their own blueprints for a super-treehouse-castle-secret-spy-camp-fort that they were sure would manifest itself one day, my children and their cousins got a real, live castle.
My dad, who retires about as well as Brett Favre, found himself with a few extra hours in his week to indulge his penchant for tools and the smell of wood. By the time he was finished with a load of plywood and his straightedge, his grandchildren’s dream of an uberfort was made manifest. Now in my brother’s backyard stands a multi-level castle with turrets, archery openings, and a table inside fit for knightly meetings open only to those bearing the proper coat of arms.
They dreamed in cardboard boxes, and now they have plywood defenses. That’s what I call an upgrade. I asked my son if the fort was all he imagined it would be and he assured me it was “even better.”
Of course this didn’t stop the children from still confiscating cardboard in attempts to dream some more. With each new structure, they come closer to the amazing castle that now feeds their imagination. And of course, striving for beauty is the great gift of imagining.
Perfect union
Last week my oldest received her first holy Communion and was confirmed into the Church. It was a day I have to admit that I have imagined since she was baptized. Not because I am so holy that I measure my life by my children’s reception of sacraments, but because at her baptism, the deacon stated that it would “not be long until she is at this altar or another like it to receive her first Eucharist and be confirmed.” So ever since, my mind has drawn up images of the event.
But as she tried on her first Communion gown for the first time a month before her big day, I have to admit, it wasn’t what I imagined. She looked too tall for the dress and a bit awkward as she fussed with the veil. But there was one detail I hadn’t imagined: on her face was a smile that stretched the entire width of her head. She was beaming. I only saw its match on the day of the sacrament itself. I am certain I have never seen her so beautiful or happy, and I don’t believe I will see on her a comparable smile until her wedding day. She was Christ’s bride that day, and it seemed she had waited a lifetime to be wed to Him. The whole thing was indeed “even better” than she or I had imagined.
The experience reminded me of the great responsibility I have in helping her and the rest of our family get to the great wedding feast in Heaven. Because as necessary and wonderful as the sacraments are as conduits of grace, they just whet our appetite for perfect union with Christ in heaven, where grace will be as pervasive as the air we breathe. That’s an upgrade sure to be better than what we can even imagine.
Knowing that heaven is a perfect union doesn’t stop us from imitating it imperfectly here. There, with those who have gone before us, we will surely stand in awe of the beautiful mansions prepared for us. Perhaps we will even smile at the lesser cardboard images we contrived in our imaginations. Nonetheless, this striving is a great gift of our imagination.
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