Heaven is a wonderful place. Many of us are curious about the details, like where we will live, and who our neighbors will be. In the book Heaven and Hell, Swedenborg fills in gaps in a way that helps me visualize it, even though there are no photographs.

One of the chapters that engages me is where he compares heaven to the human body. I inhabit one of those, and have at least a working comprehension of its functions. Different organs apply their energy to a variety of tasks, like the circulation of blood, digestion, hearing, strength, and breathing. It is incredible how unified those efforts are. Somehow they are both completely distinct, in that the ears never step in to usurp the job of the bladder, and yet are seamlessly interwoven. The lungs can do what they do because they act in concert with the heart. There is not the merest hint of competition, grandiosity, or jealousy. This cooperative effort results in flexibility, movement, and vitality. 

The descriptions of angels portray them as influential. Each angel impacts all of the others. My knee jerk response to that is disbelief, because it is so foreign to how we humans set things up. It is easy to suppose that our sway is small. But when I consider the way the body behaves, it feels possible. Capillaries do communicate with every component of the human anatomy, the endocrine system is intimately involved in every aspect of growth. 

If only our earthly systems could be so harmonious.