“We get whooshed up at a sports arena, at a political rally, or even at magical moments while woodworking or walking through nature. Dreyfus and Kelly say that we should have the courage not to look for some unitary, totalistic explanation for the universe. Instead, we should live perceptively at the surface, receptive to the moments of transcendent whooshes that we can feel, in, say, a concert crowd, or while engaging in meaningful activity, like making a perfect cup of coffee with a well-crafted pot and cup.”

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”

“The sense that we will live forever somewhere has shaped every civilization in human history. Australian Aborigenes pictured Heaven as a distant island beyond the western horizon. The early Finns thought it was an island in the faraway east. Mexicans, Peruvians, and Polynesians believed that they went to the sun or the moon after death. Native Americans believed that in the afterlife their spirits would hunt the spirits of the buffalo. In the pyramids of Egypt, the embalmed bodies had maps placed beside them as guides to the future world. The Romans believed that the righteous would picnic in the Elysian fields while their horses grazed nearby. Anthropological evidence suggests that every culture has a God-given, innate sense of the eternal – that this world is not all there is.”

“The critical question for our generation—and for every generation—is this: If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or any natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ was not there?”

“I can’t wait to be clothed in righteousness without a trace of sin. Yes, it will be wonderful to stand, stretch, and reach to the sky, but it will be more wonderful to offer praise that is pure. I won’t be crippled by distractions, disabled by insincerity, or handicapped by a ho-hum half-heartedness. No, my joy will join with yours and we will bubble over with effervescent adoration finally able fully to worship with the father and the Son. For me this is the best part of Heaven.”