SPIRITUALITY Heaven and its imagery

People's images of heaven often reflect their experiences of nature or God.
SCRIPPS HOWARD
Heaven is that place up there, out there, way beyond the blue. It looks like ... something.
From pulpits to bookshelves, movie screens to artists' canvases, visions of heaven have been a source of faith and comfort for the devout and of artistic inspiration even for the theologically indifferent.
Alice Sebold's novel "The Lovely Bones," narrated from heaven by a 14-year-old girl who was brutally murdered, has spent 38 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, including several months at No. 1.
Heaven "includes all my simplest desires but also the most humble and grand," the character says. "So there are cakes and pillows and colors galore, but underneath this more obvious patchwork quilt are places like a quiet room where you can go and hold someone's hand and not have to say anything."
The book has inspired many to consider the definition of heaven.
For some, heaven has a specific tie to earthly experiences.
Others' views
"It's just a beach, and all you do all day is look out at the ocean. Your memory only lasts an hour, so every hour is different and it never gets old," said Richard Nichols, 22, of Denver. "My sister, Amanda, died three years ago, and my best memory of her was when we went to the Cayman Islands and sat on the beach, and she said that was her idea of heaven."
Lori Little's vision of heaven involves her mother.
"I picture her sitting on a cloud looking down on our family, taking care of us," said Little, 39. "She has her angel wings on and her halo."
Her tablemate during an outdoor lunch in downtown Denver, Katie Sterling, 29, envisions a heaven of everlasting friendship and tranquility.
During times of turmoil such as the war in Iraq, people may have a tendency to think more about such topics as heaven, according to Robert Vitaletti, a Denver psychologist in private practice.
"Especially when the real world makes less and less sense, people try to think of a place that makes more sense, where there is more good and less bad," said Vitaletti, whose specialties include counseling the grieving.
"When people feel more threatened and danger, they tend to have a much more elaborate belief in the afterlife."
Generalizations in film
The heaven of the movies is typically nonspecific and furnished with wispy clouds, although the 1998 Robin Williams film "What Dreams May Come" made heaven a scenic wonderland splashed with brilliant colors.
"Since it's perfection, it's hard to picture it like they do in the movies," said Jacob Carvalho, a freshman at Holy Family High School in Broomfield, Colo. "I don't think it's anything physical. It's more like a state of mind. ... It's like you enter God."
He was among a dozen Holy Family students who sat around a table recently and spoke thoughtfully about their visions of heaven.
"When I'm in the mountains by myself and see all the beauty around me, I kind of get this feeling like I would feel in heaven," said Crystal Lutton, a junior.
Teddy Ariniello, a senior, envisions a heaven in which "we're detached from our physical bodies. ... It's harmony and perfection and union in God. I think we're going to be able to recognize our families, but I'm not sure we're going to be able to remember what happened on Earth."
Presence of God
Doug Groothuis, associate professor of philosophy at Denver Seminary, noted that "a lot of popular American depictions have very little to do with honoring and praising God, and something's wrong there."
He added: "Heaven is being in the unmediated presence of God. That's what makes it heaven. The furniture and the landscape is all very secondary."
People create visions of heaven, he said, because human beings know they're mortal.
Heaven is an alluring topic for writers and other artists.
"I think we live in two worlds, the physical world and the spiritual world. It's the spiritual world that teases us, that we constantly catch glimpses of," said Mark Irwin, an Englewood, Colo., poet.
"My vision of heaven would have to be of something being created, not something static. For me, writing is a form of heaven," said Irwin.
Ruth Cook tells her grandchildren that their grandfather "is probably in a cloud." Her husband of 48 years, Tom Cook, a professor of broadcasting at Metropolitan State College of Denver, died last September.
"I don't really think of heaven as any particular place," Cook said while working as a volunteer at a senior center. "I don't visualize it. I do think we'll be with each other in a much more peaceful scenario. We carry on the good things we did in life.
"I think we're going to change forms somehow. I onl y knew him in the physical sense. I know he's safe now."