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Wondrous autobiography about heaven
‘Our Father who art in heaven,’. So reads the first line of the ‘Our Father’, a Christian prayer addressed to God. The prayer is recited every Sunday in church services. Heaven, touched on in this Paternoster, is a deeply thoughtful phenomenon. Those who believe take comfort in the awareness of a place that transcends death and provides space for reunion with deceased loved ones.
For those for whom this notion of reunion in a heaven wavers, James Bryan Smith, professor of theology and author of the autobiographical novel ‘Heaven’s Dream’, can help. In it, he describes his vision of a journey past deceased lovers in a heaven. While Smith sleeps, they come across his path in a ‘waking dream’. This wondrous adventure introduces Smith with an illuminating introduction. The loss of three lovers in succession in a short period of time caused a life crisis that forced him to slow down. The space created brought him the successive chapters of the waking dream. Visually and convincingly, Smith unfolds a view of the here-now in heaven. He does this using a lifeline that draws his personal family history. For instance, he describes an encounter with his great-grandmother whom he did not know himself. She tells him her motivations for killing herself, leaving her disabled child an orphan. Smith manages to bring her suicide out of the taboo of family history and into a loving and expanding perspective. Despair, caused by depression, can be deadly. For the dead person who was ill, the door of heaven is open. A wealth of wise words also unfolds in the encounter with his mother (158):
[…] Grief is a good thing. Deep mourning cleanses the wound and helps it heal. But you have grieved enough. […] Loving people as often and as intensely as you can, that’s what it’s all about. Indulge in loving and don’t waste energy worrying about your looks, your bank account or what people think of you.
Such “engraving” words echo the great commandment Jesus utters in Matthew 22: 39: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.
In the context of this autobiography, nothing gets bogged down in patheticness. Smith intersperses profound conversations with moments of humour and mirth. Playful light-hearted events and convincingly profound encounters with deceased loved ones alternate. Subtly and personally, he approaches us readers and shares with us his fresh, timeless and decisive testimony of an existing heaven.
Room of Marvels: A Story About Heaven that Heals the Heart
James Bryan Smith
Publisher Medema, Heerenveen, 2012
Translated by Linda Schouwstra
Nashville: B&Publishing, 2007
Review by Cora Westerink, Tilburg, 2012
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Cora Westerink (1965), alumna Tilburg University and Arts Academy
