In a conversation about what heaven might look like, I once suggested a person might choose to walk halfway across the globe to visit a friend. And why not? You won’t run out of time in an eternal body on a restored planet.
But this is a very hard thing for most of us – perhaps Americans in particular – to imagine.
After helping someone in need a few weeks ago, I learned that I’d been exposed to COVID. A couple days later, I started feeling unusual fatigue, so I quarantined myself over the weekend and went to get tested the following Monday.
Thankfully the test was negative, but we can all agree that no one likes being sick. Furthermore, while under the weather we often feel like we should be doing this or that instead of resting to recover. Deadlines at work aren’t being met. Pressure mounts while lounging on the couch instead of taking advantage of nice weather to finish yard work before it snows, pressure caused by a limited amount of time in the only reality we know. Living on a deteriorating Earth in failing bodies.
So even tasks such as a long – or very long – walk we might otherwise enjoy or find therapeutic can become frustrating or stressful. If we weren’t limited by time, weren’t staring down death every day, wouldn’t we find it joyful to meander through creation, taking the time to stop and smell the roses as it were? All of this, regardless of the length of the trip, without any nagging deadlines in the back of our head?
After working in a nearby park recently, I could have jumped right back into the car and rushed back to other responsibilities. Instead, I took just a few minutes to stroll and observe my surroundings, discovering these blaze orange berries hiding in the dry autumn grasses.
Untitled landscape, 2017. Nihonga.
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