Heaven, Ice Cream & Mark Twain

My sister and I were discussing church yesterday. She was trying to talk me into going to her church. I said, I'm too liberal for a church; and I look for fights. I believe what I believe. Not to get all political or religious, but if you did a checklist of the democratic party, I'd probably agree with most of it...though most of the little ticks on the democracy side is, well, considered immoral by 99% of churches. (You know, hate the sin but not the sinner, which sorta drives me crazy since I still think you're not really loving the sinner at all. You're kinda being...self-righteous and better-than-thou towards someone you think you're better than. I call it conditional love. They'd love you for real if you were sinning like a big fat sinner you are.)

Anyway, so was our discussion. And my sister says: "Well, it doesn't matter. There won't be any sex in Heaven."

This is not news to me. 18 years as a Deacon's daughter, I'm well aware of all the fun things Heaven is without. To which my sibling added: "Well, it's better to spend eternity in a pleasant climate than in a fiery hell." I asked her if she was sure, since we were going to be without sex and all. I mean, ETERNITY is a long time to go without something. That's like getting to Heaven and there's no ice cream. "But you won't be hungry," they explain patiently; and frankly I have to think: "That's really not the point of ice cream, is it?" How often do we eat ice cream because it's a health food to help along as we're hungry? Exactly.

You don't eat ice cream because you're hungry. You eat it because it tastes good.

So it's really not the point that in Heaven we won't need sex because we won't need to procreate; and we'll all be brothers and sisters (and therefore it's all sorta incestuous anyway)--and well, you think it was bad now when you're in the middle of sex and you realize, "Hey, Jesus is watching." (Hey, it's happened.) I mean, in Heaven, he's really watching. We all are.

Frankly I want to be wherever Mark Twain is. He has us nailed.

...the human being, like the immortals, natually places sexual intercourse far and away above all other joys--yet he has left it out of his heaven! The very thought of it excites him; opportunity sets him wild; in this state he will risk life, reputation, everything--even his queer heaven itself--to make good that opportunity and ride it to the overwhelming climax. From youth to middle age all men and all women prize copulation above all other pleasures combined, yet it actually as I have said: it is not in their heaven; prayer takes its place.
- Letters from the Earth

Prayer. I don't know about you, but that does not sound like a pleasant way to pass an eternity. What would we have to pray about? We're already in heaven; everyone else is in heaven--if they didn't make it, we've been told prayers won't help them at this point. So now we're left with praise prayer, which I'm not saying God's not deserving, but I think he has a bit more to do with his time than say 'Thank you' a billion times a day as we continue to praise him. I mean, that's gotta be boring after a while...and he's a humble guy, so he's only going to tolerate that so long, I would think.

Still.

Clearly I can't hope for Heaven making up for the dearth of hanky-panky I have going on down here. So I guess I'll just have to catch up so when I'm in Heaven, I don't miss it so much. I should probably go ahead and eat all the ice cream I'm going to want as well.

I don't know about you but I'm going to my local Ben & Jerry's.