Heaven…..Look Around

Have you ever had the time of your life and not even know it?
Is Heaven a place where you go or is it something you carry within you? Can you be in Heaven every single second of your life if you’d just take the time and recognize that you’re already experiencing it if you’d only stop for a minute? By doing so, does it make the difference between a living Hell, where, in my experiences, I was always behind, always unhappy, and always unfulfilled — always a step behind on my writing, my relationships with my family, with my friends, and with my kid, and a living Heaven, where even if I had wanted more out of life, all I had to do was stop and look.
I guess what I’m saying is that I believe in Heaven on Earth, and I believe it’s found anywhere you seek it.
Here’s where I found it:

I found Heaven on being able to drop my daughter, many years ago, off at school. I remember stopping for breakfast, sometimes, and having that time, just the two of us, to chat about her world and mine, to introduce her to music, and to make up music with her, to talk about values as well as about nonsense. It was just as much fun picking her up and I wish I did it more often.

And I found Heaven with many of my friendships that began with fellow Xavier High School classmates that have now stood the test of time. There’s not a lot you can hide from someone who knows you since you’re 13 years old! Fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, lemme tell you. Those are big years. Everybody always thinks of it as a time of adolescence—just getting through to the real part of your life—but it’s more than that. Sometimes your whole life happens in those years, and the rest of your life it’s just the same story playing out with different characters. I could die tomorrow and have lived the main ups and downs of life experienced with those guys. Pain. Loss. Love. Gratitude. And what we all so fondly refer to as wisdom. That’s Heaven.

I found Heaven with some of the Jesuit teachers I had. The teachers of my life saved my life and sent me out prepared for whatever life I was meant to lead. Like everyone else, I had some bad ones and mediocre ones, but I never had one that I thought was holding me back because of idleness or thoughtlessness. They spent their lives with the likes of me. They lit a path for me and one that I followed with joy.

I found Heaven in finding my voice. What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? Find you voice and you will find Heaven’s justice.

I found Heaven with the family that I was raised in. My family taught me that, sometimes, the manner of what they gave me was worth more than the actual gifts received. So Heaven, to me, was found in bungalows in Rockaway, tenements in Manhattan or the Bronx or Sandy Hook, NJ.

I found Heaven in learning to be humble. One of the great challenges of growing up has been trying to get over myself–to become humble. My, once proud, streak of independence only persisted because I thought that everything I had become and everything I had accomplished was because of my own effort. I did it all by myself. I did it as if there were, well, no parents, aunts, uncles or cousins. I guess that’s normal in adolescent life. But, in my adult life and in my life now, I see over and over again that this is simply not true. Everything that I have I’ve been given. I’ve never done it alone. I’ve never been lacking. I’ve always had everything I need and I am profoundly privileged. God has graced my life, and called me to seek gratitude and humility in response. Maturity now or middle age, calls me forth to go further still–beyond humility and into generosity. My parents, grandfather, aunts and uncles, have lived their lives for me and in turn I seek to honor them by trying to be there, as best as I now can, by helping and being kind to others So, thank you, Mom, Dad, Nagh, Sissy, John, Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Dottie, Elsie, Georgie, Mary and Jack, Raymie and Liz.

I found Heaven in watching the little girl that I used to take to breakfast before kindergarten, graduate with honors from Boston College and finish her MBA from UCONN ranked number 1.

I found Heaven, over the course of a career, that allowed me to get many friends jobs and I’ve seen Heaven experiencing laughter with many former and current colleagues.

I found Heaven with the recognition that the only real fun of working in a profession so closely associated with the law is to stop people from pushing others around. I’ve also found Heaven, on one occasion, seeing an opposing lawyer sanctioned for his crime of, simply, being an arrogant jerk.

Lastly, I found Heaven in trying to be bolder with my talents and more forgiving of my weaknesses.
So acceptance, and sadness — well, I believe they can coexist. Sadness is inevitable — we’re only human, and trying too hard to rise above it only hurts more. But I do accept. I accept that all life is finite, and I accept that all of our times will come soon. And I accept that Heaven is here. All I’m saying is that you don’t have to look too hard for something that’s already here.