HEAVEN KNOWS - A Short Story (Fast Food & Less)

It turns out that Heaven is less attractive than some people expected when they first arrived.

I think it has a lot to do with food, and what foods are available here.

When people arrive here, especially those from Earth, they come with as many expectations as the Bible lists for them to get here. Lots of those expectations were such ideas as:

"The food will be heavenly."

"All my favorites will be readily available., any time, day, night, or whatever."" (We haven't quite become familiar with whatever that "whatever" can be, perhaps twilight?)

"Lots of time for BBQ at the mansion, for sure!"

"I know my Mom and Grandmother will have made it, and boy can they cook!"

"We might have to have fish every Friday, but that'll be okay."

Well that first expectation is literally true. Here the food is Heavenly, but that takes some explaining.

You see, here in Heaven we live eternally, and everything is geared to that eternal perspective with eternal consequences, even for the consumption of foods.

Foods and foods prepared in such a way that they are dangerous, i.e. hazardous to your health, are not to be consumed. Frankly we can't have doctors who are here going around performing miracles all the time, just because someone sinfully indulges in the bad habits of Earth.

That means that carcinogens and mutagens are forbidden. (Oh, yes, we have rules here, too.)

So, Red Dye #4 is forbidden. Though not exactly a food, tobacco in all its forms is forbidden (which means detox sessions for those who arrive with that and similar addictions.)

The fried hamburgers are out because of the mutagens which can turn into carcinogens; and while Earth sources touted the virtues of wine and dark chocolate, here consumption of such food items is limited to that amount which is demonstrably good, and the line is drawn where an adverse influence on health has been determined to exist. Food items are much less sugary here, too, and stevia is the preferred sweetener, probably because the Sugar Lobby has much less influence at this level of existence.

Mothers and Grandmothers are quite often the wonderful cooks that their family members remember, but not all want to "slave away" in a hot kitchen when there are so many more enjoyable activities available, including teaching the rest of the family to do their own cooking and dishes.

Fish is not compulsory, but is limited to "Fry-days" partly because there are so few fishermen to meet the needs of the Heavenly host; perhaps that might be because so many of Earth's fishermen were known to occasionally take the Lord's name in vain, and to tell terrible lies in their "fish stories" about such things as "the big one that got away". That coupled with the number of those fishermen who said their observance of the Sabbath was best done where they could enjoy religion "hook, line, and sinker!"

Yes, Heavenly food does take some adjustments, pork for example.

The food restrictions are made up for by golf, and by all debts being forgiven, so that betting here, and what on Earth could have been an addiction to gambling, is overcome by treating everyone's prayers equally. The result is that there are no "winners and losers," only the very few who prevailed with enough good fortune to arrive at this destination.

"Football?" Well I think that by now you can probably answer that question for yourself.

(c) 2012 Demas W. Jasper All rights reserved.

Note: This is just one in the series of "Heaven Knows" short stories you can enjoy here on HubPages, here is a link to another one of them: