ON REFLECTION

THE cousins were playing in the back garden, laughing and squealing the way children do when they think no adult is watching.

Of course, leaving them unattended would be a recipe for tears.

Subtle grandparental supervision aims to catch the accidents before they happen – and sometimes it catches something altogether more beautiful.

Ten-year-old Elias was playing with a ball on a length of elastic.

Three-year-old Oran decided to empty a paddling pool with a spade!

But there was a problem. Gently, he scooped a creature from the pool and walked to his older cousin. “It’s a bee,” Elias said. “Is it dead?” Oran asked. “It’s gone to heaven.” What either of them understood by “heaven”, I can only wonder.

I know theologians who aren’t sure what it means.

Those who believe in the Resurrection – a time when all the dead will rise and face judgement before going to heaven or hell – can find references to it.

Those who think we die and are instantly transported to a heavenly realm can point to Jesus’s promise to the thief on the cross – “Today shalt thou be with me in Paradise.”

I doubt my grandsons could have provided a definitive answer, either.

But I watched what they did next and it made me think.

“What shall we do with it?” Oran asked.

Elias looked around and saw his gran’s garden.

“Bees like flowers,” he said. “Perhaps we should put it to rest over there.”

“Papa showed me a bee sleeping in a flower once,” Oran said. “The bee could sleep a long time in there.”

“It would be just like heaven,” Elias confirmed.

Softly, and with care, they tipped the blue plastic toward the jasmine, clematis and honeysuckle.

The bee slipped in something akin to a burial at sea, but with petals instead of waves and pollen instead of sea salt.

The boys shared a respectful second or two of silence, smiled, then went back to their games.

In trying to find a perfect rest for a bee, they had created a little moment of heaven on Earth.

And that to me is where the reality of the notion lies.

What happens after we die is all speculation.

It will be what it will be; nothing we say or believe will change that.

All we can change is the here and now.

We could take that line from the Lord’s Prayer seriously.

“Thy will be done on Earth, as it is in heaven.”

Can you imagine if we each played our part in God’s will being done on Earth as it is in heaven?

A bee asleep in a flower is a great metaphor for the world that might result.

We would need to lay aside our flawed human nature and approach the idea like Oran and Elias – like innocent children.