Heaven’s Gate



Journey led me to a crossroads, in a sandstorm
Empty-handed, looking skyward for an angel
Dust cloud settled, I was saddled with a riddle
Is what we do the way we are?

My dreams got swallowed up by cheap desire
Long with my innocence and faith
I walked on water and through cold, blue fire
On the road to heaven’s gate
The road to heaven’s gate

Started walking toward a light on the horizon
Second nightfall I descended on a city
Children playing, preachers praying, lovers swaying
To mandolin and two guitars
Out on a crimson boulevard

My dreams got swallowed up…

And when I get there, there will be church bells ringing
And when I get there, there will be angels singing

Journey’s ending is a lot like the beginning
Drifter standing, not quite losing, not quite winning
On the outskirts of a town where he”s still living
Nursing wounds and healing scars
Beneath a sea of shining stars

My dreams got swallowed up…

Maybe…

We are playing a video game of our own creation. It’s the most spectacularly vivid and compelling video game ever made. The game is called “How Long?”

How long can ego keep us believing it is something when, really, it’s nothing?

The game has more levels than Dante’s Hell and trillions of characters and “experiences” to choose from. You can win the Nobel Peace Prize or be an Army general; take first place on American Idol or marry your High School sweetheart and raise a family in Duluth.  

As we become more and more immersed, we forget we are playing a game and believe the virtual reality is true reality. Eventually, though, we all get to a series of “incarnations” in which little shards of truth slice through. At some point, the shards join to form a beautiful stained-glass walkway called forgiveness (or remembering, or undoing, or Love).

Finally, finding firm footing here, the game becomes less and less compelling, the images and information less and less vivid until, at last, “poof,” it ends.

And we realize the trillions of seemingly separate beings in the landscape of the game were really just a single player who smiles, slightly amazed by such a bizarre and real-feeling game which he has already forgotten as his headset touches the carpeted basement floor.

The walls dissolve back into pure, infinite light, and he resumes weeping and laughing and dancing with joy, enveloped in the embrace of his loving creator.

Merry Christmas.

Archives