It seems like every time I look up this summer, the sky has been filled with beauty. One day it is the rosy peach sunset, the next white puffy clouds, rainbows and even lightning storms have enchanted me and captured my attention. The night sky spreads constellations over our heads in the darkness drawing us toward a sense of the eternal.

It says that God separated the vast waters to create the heavens in Genesis. In the New Testament, we hear that Jesus is going ahead to prepare a place for us. So much has been written about heaven especially by those who have been close to death and survived. As a child, I was not nurtured in churches where the teaching oriented one toward heaven as our ultimate goal. My practice of faith has emphasized the here and now.

When I do stop to ponder life after death and our entry into heaven, I think about being totally encompassed with the immense love of God. I imagine a joyous reunion of perfect love with our Creator. And today, I looked up into a clear blue sky with few puffy clouds and the earth around me glowing, even in the midst of illness, hunger, struggle and conflict, the heavens hover over our lives, and the immense love of God surrounds us. There is nothing we can do to have God love us more and nowhere we can go to get more love than right here under this canopy of light.