Lost Paradise Now Found

August 29, 2011

I was flying back to MA from AZ and listening to JJ Heller’s song Garden Variety. In that song are the following lyrics:

“Garden variety/ Generations of people seeking peace/
Garden variety/ Everyone’s falling/With restless hearts
and troubled minds we realize this fallen world doesn’t
seem quite right/Somewhere near the dawn of time we lost
our paradise/ We lost our paradise/Broken humanity/a shadow
of what we were meant to be/Broken humanity, everyone’s
falling… We lost our paradise.”

While I know what Heller is getting at, since I am flying back from a dear friend’s funeral, this had a different type of meaning for me.

Yes, in this world there are many people searching for peace. And yes, this fallen world doesn’t seem quite right. We see so much suffering, pain, natural disasters, babies born (as society would say) “not normal” or children diagnosed with terminal cancer. It just… doesn’t… seem … quite… right. Somewhere near the dawn of time, in the time of Adam and Eve, we lost our paradise. And yet, I feel Heller misses something in her song. She misses the glimpses of Heavenly Paradise God gives us in this world. For example, one of these “glimpses” is a person whom so many of my friends, as well as myself, miss terribly. He passed away one week ago.

While God does give a taste of His Heavenly Paradise mostly through the sacraments, especially the Eucharist, there are other ways we can experience it also. I personally experienced it through my little buddy (who I also felt was a big brother) Thor Swenson. I think I have bragged about Thor way too much since I met him 3 years ago, but he deserved it. If I have ever met anyone who emulated Christ most, it was him and he did it without trying. I experienced paradise through Thor because I experienced healing, love, joy, peace and felt Christ’s presence the more I spent time with him. The more I saw Thor, the more I longed to stay with him. And the more I longed to spend time with Thor, the more I longed to spend time with Christ. At times, I felt I was spending time with Jesus. (I’m not being heretical calling Thor “Christ.” What I am saying is I felt Christ’s presence through Him in an extraordinary way.)

Thor, my down syndrome friend, my never-failing buddy, who was always there for me and never judged me for who I was, said, did, etc. always listened, loved and cared. He loved till the very end. He carried his cross always with no complaints (except for bath time). He was part of my paradise that I found.

God gives us glimpses of His Heavenly Paradise. Some ask, “Why should I look forward to heaven? Isn’t it going to be boring just being up there and worshiping God all the time?” People should look for these glimpses of heavenly paradise that He gives and then, along with the grace of the sacraments, will some of those people understand the greatness of what He has in store for them.