I'm not a fan.
It's equal parts happy and sad for me.
Actually, it's probably more happy, but the sad part is like biting into a surprise onion in your cheese pizza.
You didn't ask for onion, you don't like onion, but you got a little piece anyway.
Sure, you can spit it out, but the taste lingers and even makes you not really want to take another bite in case there is another onion hiding somewhere. If an onion is really transparent and small, it can be tricky to dig out from the cheese without destroying the good part of the pizza. Seems weird to compare Mother's Day to hidden onions in pizza, but I'm a picky fat girl, so that's what comes to mind.
Thinking about the happy and the sad intertwined made me think of the parable of the wheat. Not the parable of the sower. The wheat. You know, the one where the wheat and the tares grow together but the farmer can't pull up the tares without destroying the wheat? Then at the harvest, the tares get burned and the wheat is gathered into the barn? You can read it for yourself here.
So the parable starts out "The kingdom of heaven is like"....I kind of always thought of "the kingdom of heaven" as the longer and more proper version of "heaven". Like, "The United States of America", versus "America".
So what IS the kingdom of heaven like?
My brain starts to think of things like, who will be my mansion neighbor?
Or, I wonder if the line to talk to God will be super long? Like, should I go ahead and stand in line as soon as I get there, or just wait til it goes down some? And if my mansion neighbor is someone I don't really like, can I move to another block? I'm kidding. Sort of.
My grasp of heaven is less seeing in a mirror, dimly, and more squinting at one of those paintings that everyone else sees as a face, but I only see dots.
But back to the parable of the wheat. While the overarching meaning is clear, I think it can also be seen as a parable about the heart. Joy and pain grow together sometimes and you can't just yank up the pain and throw it out without destroying the joy in the process. Someday, that pain will be destroyed and only the joy will remain. But not while you're still in the growing phase.
So maybe my mansion will have a barn out back full of wheat.
I guess nobody in heaven will be gluten free, right?
If that's true, does that mean the definition of hell is to be gluten free? That's a post for another day.
May we be able to enjoy non-cauliflower crust pizza with no onions in glory someday.
Also, I did have special, full of gluten, Mother's Day pancakes this morning, so maybe this is heaven on earth. Pancakes, combined with living in WV, are probably as close as I will get to heaven this side of death. Country roads, take me home.
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| Pancakes courtesy of Superfrydad. Glass of milk by Superfrykid. |
