Imagine

Picked up a little book of prayers at the Greenbelt meetings on Monday written by my friend Martin Wroe. He's a good man and he prays well. Here's what I mean...

'So i'm just thinking to myself, right...
I'm thinking that John Lennon said,
"Imagine there's no heaven..."
But I'm thinking, "Get lost John - think I
might imagine there is..."

A place where the buses run on time,
and women walk safe after dark.
Where eating chocolate reduces cholesterol,
smoking is relaxing but doesn't cause cancer,
and you can't get headaches or hangovers.

I'm thinking of a place where nurses earn as
much as company chairmen,
policemen are liked but not necessary
and teachers don't want to be anything else.
Where children run multinationals for fun
and grown-ups are sent to bed every time
they're rude.

A place where you can be busy
if you want to be,
but you can buy extra time when you need it
(from an extra time shop).

A place where you can go to sleep
when you're tired,
deep, deep sleep so you wake up feeling like
you've had a life transfusion
like your life has been heated up.

I'm thinking of a place where nobody notices
their nakedness
and species aren't endangered.
Where you've got all shapes and sizes...
but no one great or small.
Where people meet you
and don't even notice your bone structure
or your colour
because they're so stuck in your soul.
Where they hear your spirit not your accent
and everyone knows that everyone's only a
mere immortal.

Of course
this heaven is not just a religious place.
I mean there'll be no Jehovah's Witnesses at
your door (who needs a witness when Jehovah's
down the road?)
and God won't be a rumour because he'll have
a front door.

You won't have to pray because you can talk.
There is no need for churches,
mosques or temples.
No one tells you how to live your life
because no one needs to.
There'll be no streets of gold
or pearly gates or harps,
no big dad god and little boy god
on matching thrones.
No regrets
but a place where every time you bump into a
'why'
you can feel a 'because'.

There will still be bad language.
Words like 'bomb' and 'bullet' and 'rape'.
There will even be the odd four-letter word
...'hate',
for example.
But some words will not be abl to be spelled
at all
...fear,
poverty,
pain,
death,
because these words will come from
an ancient language
no longer understood
occasionally studied but never spoken.

I'm imagining a place called heaven.
A place where you can eat chocolate
and fight heart disease,
take a long, slow drag on a fag
to cure someone of cancer,
climb through the air on wings like eagles,
run but never get tired.

(Taken from 'When You Haven't Got a Prayer: A journalist talks to God' by Martin Wroe, Lion Publishing 1997)