2012-08-11              John W                    John W's previous articles

A (new?) way of understanding "Gone home to Heaven"  

When someone dies, people often say that the person has "gone home to heaven"

"The Swag" magazine, of the National Council of Priests (Australia),
uses the phrase "Returned to the Father" when listing recently deceased priests

But how can we "return" or "go home" to a place where we've never been?

The usual way of explaining that Heaven is our home is along these lines:

When I see fish from the ocean in an aquarium, I enjoy watching them, but feel as if something’s wrong. They don’t belong there. It’s not their home. The fish weren’t made for that little glass box; they were made for a great ocean. I suppose the fish don’t know any better, but I wonder if their instincts tell them that their true home is elsewhere. I know our instincts tell us that this fallen world isn’t our home—we were made for someplace better. (Randy Alcorn)

But recently I came across another way of understanding "gone home to Heaven".  In her book To Heaven and Back, US orthopaedic surgeon Dr Mary Neal writes

I believe very young children clearly remember where they came from
and are still quite connected to God's world. I believe they easily recall the images, knowledge and the love of the world they inhabited before their birth. I believe children may still be able to see angels, and many other people have written about this phenomenon. As young children become more engaged with the world, their memories fade and they begin their personal journey, often filled with detours and dead-ends, of finding their way back to God
(To Heaven and Back, Chapter 24)

Dr Mary is saying "we came from God, and are going back to God"

Which raises the question: what came from God?!

In traditional language we can say: our souls.
Our souls came from God, from Heaven

And when we die, we are meant to go back to God, home to Heaven!

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My book review of To Heaven and Back