Heaven for Us

What Annandale has taught me

February 12, 2024, Annandale, SW Scotland

'When good Americans die, they go to Paris', wrote the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde in 1894.

(And the rest of us Americans, where do we go when we die?) 

('They stay in America,' says Wilde). 

The other night, I watched a webinar interview with one of my all-time academic crushes, Professor Timothy 'Tim' Morton. Zooming from his home office in the U.S., Tim discussed Jesus picking grapes, ecology, and Samsara. He mentioned a quote from Matthew 3:2: '[H]eaven is at hand.' Tim clarified:

'Not that "Judgment day is here.” It means, probably, that Heaven is like change in your pocket; it's “handy."  

Often, I have the sense of reaching, as if for loose change, but finding a hole in my pocket. Something in me, I suspect my soul, keeps expecting abundance.

I remember the look a baby once gave me when I was nannying after she hit her face on the floor. She looked up with such confusion; she looked at me to make sense of the experience of pain.  

I still remember that confusion, my own confusion. Children, I think (I remember), are ready to feel wonderful. And deep down, good sensations are not confusing. Delight can be surprising, but the child in me, my soul (I use such words gently, perhaps interchangeably; I have no better words), welcomes delight, rests like an open palm—not hoping, but waiting for it to come again. Perhaps it is the body itself that waits. When good things come, deep down, the body says, 'Of course'. 

The sensation of pain, empty cupboards, and unfairness, however, is confusing. It shocks me. It baffles as well as stings. Despite relentless evidence that these are hard times, despite the hardening of my heart, when new evidence comes, my childish soul takes on the same expression as that baby girl, asking: 'What is happening?'

But is anything in the world more constant than hard times? I was born in 1998 and grew up wearing American-coloured glasses. My first awareness of international relations was the U.S. War on Terror. I was seven during Hurricane Katrina, fourteen when Sandy Hook happened. Same-sex marriage was not nationally legalized until I was seventeen. My first election as a voter was Hilary losing. In America, injustice and scarcity are the pillars of the world. (Not until I read Garret Hardin's poorly constructed essay in undergrad did I finally recognize these as the pillars of capitalism and not necessarily natural law). Nevertheless, the bone-chilling fear that 'there's not enough' remains. It has stuck with me through many abundances. I cannot remember a time before being afraid of precious things—my energy, the good cheese, luck, my parents' bandwidths—running out.

The official lesson on life is that it's unfair. I keep up with the headlines. I say to myself, 'I know, I know.' It is how I tell my childlike soul, 'Stop reaching towards life expecting abundance.' 

The best understanding of Hell I have comes from Rabbi Haim of Romshishok:

Hell is a kitchen table. Everyone is sitting around it. Instead of arms, they have enormous forks, spoons, and knives growing out of their shoulders. The table is full of food, but they cannot bring a bite to their mouths with their huge utensil arms. They sit, starving. 

Heaven is the same situation, except that here, the people use their long utensil arms to feed each other across the table. 

Americans, where is our Heaven? I feel around in my pockets. I walk in pockets of place, in Vermont, in New York, in Dumfriesshire, in London—even in Paris—looking for instances of this kind of human decency, this miraculous orientation towards one another. My harebrained soul feels around blindly because its faith is that goodness is at hand. It should be at hand. 

At the Annan harbour on Tuesday, we drive slowly. We are scoping out future places to walk the dog. A man with white hair runs towards us and stops at the driver's side door. 

'You've got shit hanging on the car,' he says, jabbing a thumb at the bag of dog poo we hung on the back windshield wiper.

G, ever dignified, explains, 'We're bringing it home, couldn't find a bin.'

'Would you like me to take them for yous?' this stranger asks, already moving.

'No, no!' We clamour, 'It just stinks, so we didn't want it in the car.'

'Oh right, thought it might have been kids!' he laughs.

'No, we—' 

'I'll toss it in a bin,' he says, prying the bag off the back wiper. 

'You're a saint / Oh, there’s a bin, is there?' G and I say at the same time. 

He's already carrying them to a bin at the road's edge. 

G drives away slowly, and I feel we should stop the car and go after him. I must shake this man's hand. I feel around in my coat pockets for, I don't know what, homemade candy, maybe, like the older women at Choir bring. They pass it around in a small, surreptitious Tupperware so our director doesn't think we're distracted. I have nothing to hand, no symbol of thanks, no way to reciprocate. We are already turning onto the main road, but the man doesn't look around, anyway, and doesn't make any show of being put out. 

Annan was recently shortlisted as one of the ten ‘most soul-destroying places to live in the U.K.' But something should be said about moments—about people—like this. 

Heaven happens here, not infrequently. On Wednesday, a librarian spends an hour helping me prepare my forms for the U.S. embassy. She prints them from her personal computer—15 pages in colour—and waves away my offer to pay. ('Wouldn't know how to begin; we can't even take cash!' she tells me.) There are dairy farmers in the region exploring a model of farming based on kindness. The calves are raised by their mothers (most commercial dairy farming separates them within hours of birth). Factors like cow contentment, calmness, and confidence are part of assessing the farm's ‘success’ each year. (The experiment has found the model to be financially viable).

Maybe I am, in some ways, confused about goodness. After so many years of avoiding eye contact with strangers and preparing myself to be ripped off, it is surprising to be given gifts without strings attached. But my body, which has been touching the world, looking for Heaven the way the dog sniffs in the garden—with no memory of pain—says to me, ‘Of course.’

I hope others, you, keep feeling around blindly for Heaven, even though we are usually left shortchanged. Forget Paris. If, in this life—and maybe the next too—we're to be what we are, where we are, then we will have to make our own Heaven at hand. I have found no other version of heaven to be as real and good. I want to say thank you, Annandale, for being so kind to me. For showing me how I might be the good hands others expect to find—me and my huge fork and knife hands.