Some of my best pals are agnostic

MANY of my dearest comrades and friends are agnostic and some occupy the spiritual site of atheism.

These hard-core materialists would regard heaven as a construct of the romantic optimist.

I do believe heaven is where God is and that his primary occupancy in one’s life of faith is a relational one.

Our discipleship should be marked by a sense of decency, the way in which we are kind and faithful, celebrants of love without judgment.

I do not believe in hell as a place where “we will burn in torment forever”. A loving God would not subject his creation to such endless terror.

Death, regardless of your ideological position on the life hereafter, must surely be traumatic. Especially so if one was an absolute agnostic. You might be clear that it all ends here on earth.

But you might find, after a little silence, that there is this sudden clarity of mind where everything makes sense.

You understand The National Question and why coloured people who speak Afrikaans are offended when addressed in that language and choose, aspris, to reply in English. And of course vice versa.

A sense of humour surely must help with the crossing over:

Fred Carneson, a one-time altar boy and later a member of the central committee of the Communist Party in the 1940s and a Treason Triallist, is reputed to have said on his deathbed, “I think Jesus wants me for a sunbeam.” He died soon afterwards.

It might just be your luck that on your day of entry into paradise it would be Miles Davis’s turn at the Welcome Desk and he might be playing, just for you, So What?

Or you might get choirs of angels in full chorus, bass and baritone accentuated, winging you over and into the eternal mystery, singing Johnny Clegg’s The Crossing (Osiyeza): Siyawela lapheshaya lulezontaba ezimnyama (we are crossing over those dark mountains) / Lapha sobheka phansi konke ukhulupheka (where we will lay down our troubles).

What a way to swagger in through heaven’s gates.

And we would be wrong about a lot of things. Jesus does not look like Brad Pitt.

You will smell cardamom infused coffee and incense. If you only know English then you will sukkel with all the tamaafs and uvaar’s you will hear.

Yes, Arabic, I understand is among the Top Ten heavenly languages along with Zulu and Venda.

If you have a working knowledge of Afrikaans you will get by and of course, Aramaic is the lingua franca in any part of heaven (which is bigger than the Karoo).

We will have eternity to learn a lot of new stuff.

Some might have to attend a kind of refresher course just to catch up on the neglected aspects of the pilgrim’s life. Catholics call it purgatory...

I am a shabby apologist for the Christian faith. I struggle to articulate that which I believe and know to be true.

But my friendships with my fellows and fellas (the feminine of “fellows”) of agnostic disposition have deepened over time.

I love them and know that I too am loved.

So when unshackled of this earthly coil should I tread the path to the realm of our ancestors and find myself a resident of that place of the saints – of the beautiful ones – only to discover these comrades of mine are not there, then heaven, for me at least, would be a poorer place.

In fact, it might not be heaven at all and I would have to take up the issue with God.

The Arch, Father Desmond, will surely back me up. I have alluded to an aspect of the issue of heaven’s citizens in conversation with him on occasion.

I once told our beloved episcopal I anticipate that on my arrival in heaven – assuming I gain entry – I will come across some legkotla where he would be engaging Jesus on the vexing question “Why are there so few white people in heaven...?