It is my belief that when we flicker open our bleary eyes in the afterlife, we will be surrounded by angels. The welcoming committee will not pepper us with questions, nor check off our qualifications for eternal bliss. Rather, the angels will smile, harmonize, and reassure us that we are wanted.
Recently I joined
the group who likes to serenade friends whose time on earth is ticking toward a close. We converged in cars and on foot, and crowded into the corners of the bedroom. The guest of honor had his eyes closed, but I believe he was listening. His wife of sixty years was holding his hand... the one with translucent skin.
Someone gave a pitch and we began to sing.
For most of us, the liturgies in our hands were just placeholders for
which verse goes when, since the repetitions of belting these hymns out in church goes back to when we were wiggly preschoolers. It amuses me, that for a group of oldsters who routinely forget why they went into the kitchen, or what their cousin's daughters name is, the string of lyrics slides off our tongues. Even if we have not sung it since the last administration.
The altos and sopranos in the choir included those whose own partners, and mothers have passed
on already. The same group sang to some of them. I can imagine that we here on earth begin the concert, and those friends and fathers on the other side who are so eagerly awaiting them will take up where we left off.
"And the wonder of it was, although there were very many angels they all nevertheless thought and spoke as one, and in so doing represented as one. They did so because nobody wished to do anything by himself,
let alone direct the rest and so lead the choir. Anyone who does this is of himself instantly severed from the choir. But all did allow themselves to be led by one another, and so they were all, individually and collectively, led by the Lord. Into such harmonious relationships all good persons are introduced who enter the next life." Heavenly Secrets 3350, Emanuel Swedenborg
