What If Heaven Is Not That Place We Imagine?

What if heaven is not that place we imagine? What if it’s reserved for the persecuted, abused, and dispossessed members of every society?

And, what if it also welcomes the countless others who tried to help them?

What about the faithful who remain faithless? That is, those who instead of being faithful to their innate holiness, devote themselves to ungodly institutions and ideas that seek to impose harsh judgments and punishments on others.

Are those who applaud such judgments and find comfort in them held to account? Or are all forgiven and handed a free pass?

What about Christians who believe the only necessary pre-qualification to enter heaven is believing in Jesus. "Believe, and you shall be saved!"

Picture a gang member, the back of his skull tattooed with a large cross. Or a drug lord, that heavy gold cross dangling around his neck. They prayed. The priest took their confession…and maybe a fat roll of one hundred dollar bills. But do they really believe they’re favored? Does the priest? I don’t know.

I don’t believe there’s any pecking order based on the amount of one’s hail Mary’s, or donations, or one’s eminent standing in any house of worship. Good works, apparently, don’t really cut it either, unless such work is firmly rooted in love—but love and judgment are like oil and water. They just don’t mix.

Two months ago, Nory, a Los Angeles honor student, and her mother, Estella, were unceremoniously deported to Guatemala during a routine immigration appointment. For ten years they followed all the rules as asylum seekers who had escaped gang violence at home. Returning was not an option. They knew gangs would track them down.

Adding insult to injury, Estella also had her blood pressure medication taken away while in ICE detention. Why would any responsible human being do that? Her pills were never returned to her, and in Quetzaltenango, the village she returned to, her specific prescription could not be filled.

Both Nory and Estella were judged and dispossessed—booted out by a rigid, self-proclaimed Christian, white-nationalist order that, in its fervor to cleanse the blood of our nation, praises the Lord with every new deportation.

Estella passed away on September 8, perhaps due to lack of medication or broken heart syndrome or both. Her daughter, Nory, isolated in a village so foreign and unfamiliar to her American upbringing, now struggles alone without any friends, still believing God will help her. It’s the only thing that can.

From her lips to God’s ears. That's my wish.