ONE STEP

Not gonna lie.

Almost an entire year went by before I could even consider cracking open my grandmother’s notebooks again.

Truth be told, I may never have gone back to them if it hadn’t been for one thing — I ate a chocolate chip cookie.

You were expecting something big, weren’t you, like a death or an illness.

Nope.

A chocolate chip cookie.

See, shortly before Granny died, I had made a fairly significant decision and hopped aboard the Gluten Free Express.

Looking back I cringe at how gullible and desperate I was, but at the time I thought it was the silver bullet that would put an end to my many and varied intestinal ailments.

I didn’t do anything by halves and I dumped any and everything that even looked like it had been in the same grocery store as wheat and other grains.

So how did I get from there to the cookie?

Fair question.

I had gone to my friend’s house to babysit for her and her husband.

Jack and Kathryn had the sweetest, cutest, most huggable little girl named Millie who called me ‘Sissy.’

Not entirely sure why, but it was her name for me and I loved it.

Anyway, just as my friend and her husband were walking out the door, their little girl announced, “Sissy and I, we gonn make tookies.”

Kathryn stopped and came back to kneel in front of her daughter.

“You remember what we said about that, honey.  Mommy and Daddy will make them with you tomorrow, okay?”

“No, Sissy!”  She actually stamped her adorable little foot.

Just as Kathryn put on her stern face, I said, “No, it’s okay.  Really.  I don’t mind at all.”

Millie looked up at me in pure bliss.

I mean, seriously, how could I refuse that face?

After several assurances that I wasn’t just being nice, Jack and Kathryn finally got out the door, leaving me to begin the cookie making process.

“What kind of cookies do you want to make?”

“Tocket tip!  Tocket tip!”

Tocket tip it was.

I had forgotten how much I loved baking.

The mouth-watering aroma of vanilla, the satisfying crack of the eggs, the way the flour just melted into the butter mixture.

We ended up with three batches and I’m not sure how I managed it, but I persuaded Millie to wait until all were baked before she tried one.

Within a second of the last batch being out of the oven, she grabbed one that had already cooled down and crammed the entire thing into her mouth.

I honestly didn’t think a little mouth could hold that much.

She squealed with joy and then proceeded to stuff one into my mouth.

I froze.

I couldn’t chew let alone swallow.

What could I do?

How do you explain ‘gluten intolerance’ to a four year-old?

Then I heard a confused “mmm?” and my heart shattered.

I looked into her big, luminous eyes and chewed like her heart depended on it.

The confusion was replaced with delight.

And in that moment, a thousand memories flooded my brain.

The smell of my Granny’s kitchen that time she baked me chocolate chip cookies the day when my mother had dropped me off at her house without a word.

The look in her eyes when she handed me a piping hot, gooey cookie fresh out of the oven.

The hug she gave me after I’d gulped it down, doing my best to pretend that the cookie really did make everything better.

Oh Granny…

I’m not sure how I managed to hold it together the rest of that night.

Decades of disallowing my emotions to disrupt my life, I guess.

I didn’t tear right into the notebooks the second I got home.

It still took a few weeks for me to soften up enough, but eventually I couldn’t help myself.

Even if what Granny had written was about a God I didn’t have a hope of understanding, they were still written by my chocolate chip cookie baking Granny, and I did want to understand her better.

I felt a wee bit gun shy about just picking up where I left off, so I dug through the box and grabbed one towards the bottom.

Cup of spearmint tea in hand, I sat on the couch and opened the notebook.

Closing my eyes, I tried to picture my Granny’s face.

Her smile was still dancing in my head as I opened my eyes and began reading.

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People take way too much for granted.

If a pastor or other teacher says it, it must be true, right?

(We used to say a guy knew his stuff because he went to seminary.

But these days it’s much more in vogue to boast about being uneducated.

Pastors and teachers are simply ‘led by the Spirit’.

Which for some seems to be code for ‘I couldn’t be bothered to actually study the Bible — I just let my feelings guide me.’)

But as my guy MWS so aptly and accurately sang, we live in a world wired for sound where we are happy to be spoon-fed and never feel the need to research or study anything ourselves.

Preach!

I’ve been around the block a few times, you know?

I know how easy it is to read it or listen to it and walk away thinking you’ve heard all truth.

Done that for most of my life.

We do indeed get fed just enough to get by.

To think we really know God.

Personally, I blame the news.

A lot.

I gotta dig up that article.

What was it called?

Something like “News Is Bad For You” or some such.

As I recall, the argument was not against journalism.

It was against news as it’s presented to us in these modern times.

Factoids.

Bits and pieces.

Ideas someone else has chewed up and regurgitated directly into our brains.

The author made a grand case for news messing with us every which way.

Don’t remember everything but the words “toxic” and “drug-like” stuck in my brain.

And something about making us passive non-thinkers.

Now I really need to find it.

But I guess that’s why I thought of the article in the first place.

Passive non-thinkers.

That’s what I’ve seen encouraged in the church these days.

Truncated ideas.

Scripture mini-bites.

The Bible chewed up and regurgitated into our brains.

Don’t question.

Don’t challenge.

Just accept.

I suppose that attitude is what leads to so many being mislead.

Take what Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 4 for example.

An entire doctrine built on one mistranslated and misunderstood verse.

So few trace the words of Paul back to their foundation in the Hebrew Bible.

So few understand the metaphorical and stunning picture Paul was painting.

So few comprehend the full counsel of God.

It is such a hotly contested doctrine, people falling on one side or another.

Ready to defend their point of view to the death.

Sometimes I gotta wonder.

Would Paul have changed anything?

If he’d known what a twisted pretzel we’d make of his words, what would he have done?

Chosen different words?

Used different metaphors?

Not used metaphors at all?

All he wanted to do was comfort the people in Thessalonica.

That was his desire.

He wasn’t trying to create a theological treatise on where people are after death.

He wasn’t trying to explain in painstaking detail what would happen when Jesus returned.

He was trying to comfort people who had lost those they loved dearly.

He was trying to say, “God’s got this.

He’s got them.

Someday, He’ll have all of us.

We’ll be together and nothing will ever tear us apart again.”

Yet somehow from those words of comfort, we came up with something entirely different.

Don’t even get me started on heaven.

Okay, too late.

I’m already started.

This is not about semantics.

Certain words and concepts are simply not interchangeable.

Not according to the Bible, anyway.

Heaven is where God dwells.

Heaven is not our final destination.

[Total bunny trail — is there a sort of waypoint after we die?

Not sure.

The Bible says that God stationed the cheruvim and the fiery ever-turning sword east of Eden.

That was to bar the way to the Tree of Life.

So what happened to Eden?

Here’s a wild and crazy thought.

Did Eden get removed to another dimension?

Did God maybe make it part of heaven or just put it in a different dimension?

Did Eden become Paradise?

Is that where people hang out until the Final Resurrection?

Jesus did tell the criminal that he would be with Him in Paradise.

And Paul took a trip to Paradise.

Were they all in Eden…???]

I’m not sure why people got stuck on thinking that we are going to end up in heaven.

Because it’s not in the Bible anywhere.

What’s in store for us is not disembodied or even bodied existence in heaven.

The truth is far, far, far, far, far more grand and glorious!

Creation as it was meant to be.

And whoah nilly, if this is Creation subjected to futility now, can you IMAGINE…?!?

Takes my breath away.

We will be in for the ultimate adventure!

Full of action, drama, romance —

Who knows, maybe even a little mystery.

We’ll be able to explore to our heart’s content.

We’ll be able to allow our creativity to soar to heights unknown.

We’ll be able to take pleasure in everything without worrying about it descending into ugliness.

We’ll tell each other endless stories.

We’ll sing loudly and often.

If we do need to sleep, our dreams will be filled with beauty and amazement.

Eating will be about enjoyment and delight with no fear of being shamed.

One thing I do wonder, though — how will we travel?

Will we teleport?

Will we simply have to think a location and we’ll be translocated?

Tantalizing hints about that in both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament.

(1 Kings 18:12; Acts 8:39-40)

Whatever happens, this much I know — it will be LIFE in its truest sense.

LIFE as it was meant to be lived.

And it’ll be off the charts magnificent and beyond our craziest imaginings!

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Confused ideas galloped through my brain.

Her last sentence floated on the air in an almost tangible way.

Off the charts magnificent???

Craziest imaginings???

Something she’d written in her letter to me leapt into my conscious mind, something about my grand imagination.

I remember thinking at the time that I had no idea what my imagination had to do with God or anything religious.

But is this why she mentioned it?

Did she want me to imagine something about…what comes after?

Or was it something else?

I opened the notebook again and re-read her thoughts.

This time a different phrase jumped out at me.

Life as it was meant to be lived.

That phrase.

It sounded so familiar.

Why did it sound so familiar?

I spent a few days ruminating on that phrase and trying with every ounce of my brain to remember where I’d heard that phrase or something similar.

Then it finally hit me.

I dug out Granny’s letter from the bottom of the notebook box (where I’d admittedly buried it almost a year earlier) and almost tore the envelope in my eagerness to recall her words.

“Life as it was always intended to be.”

That was it.

Is that what you wanted me to imagine, Granny?

Life.

As it was intended and meant to be lived.

But intended and meant by whom?

God?

Jesus?

Some guy in the pulpit?

Well, I don’t know God or Jesus, and I don’t care to listen to Joe Schmo Preacher Dude, but I did know you, Granny…or, I should say I didn’t know you all that well but now I really want to, and if reading your notebooks is the only way I can do that, I suppose I’ve got some serious reading to do; and, if getting to know you means hearing more about God, then I guess I’m up for that, too.

Show me life, Granny.