Advice For God On How To Prepare My Place In Heaven

By David Metcalfe

January 2, 2018

Dear God,

It’s been a while, how are you? Oh yeah, I forgot you don’t respond to me ever. I would pray way more often if you talked back to me, you know. People say you speak through the scriptures but I feel like co-authoring a book 2000 years ago is not enough for me to feel like I’m actually speaking with you. And honestly, the book is decent but you really should have mentioned that slavery, racism and torture are bad; would’ve saved a lot of grief in the world. But hey, saying that loving others is the central goal of virtue was so good and revolutionary that I guess you did well, all things considered.

Anyway, the reason I am praying today is that I figured I may end up going to heaven and apparently you prepare places in advance for people (John 14:2). I know it might be optimistic to assume I’m going there, but there are a lot of Christian versions of theology that would grant me entrance so let’s be positive and assume one of those ones are correct. But there are no Christian versions of theology I’ve come across that have a heaven that suits me well, so I figured I would suggest my own. And John the disciple seems to think that Jesus is the one who prepares the place so if you are the same being as him no worries, but if you are separate beings then make sure to pass on the message to him.

Ok so let’s establish first that I do not want any of the common “heaven” type things. I don’t want a mansion, I don’t want gold paved streets, I don’t want to be on a cloud, and I certainly don’t want to be worshipping you all the time. Yes, I will show up to heaven church once a week (if that’s a thing), but the rest of the week is my time.

The worst thing about all of the concepts of heaven is that you seem to be very intent on separating people based on religious belief. Like, if only Mormons are allowed in celestial kingdom, I would rather be in terrestrial. I like some of the Mormons fine, of course, but if you think I’m going to spend eternity with only them you are sadly mistaken. Except then if I go to terrestrial I won’t see anyone from celestial, and I want to still be able to hang out with some of the Mormons here and there.

Here’s how we are going to do it: all of the people I want to hang out with are allowed to visit me whenever they want. That includes all of my various friends, whether Protestant, Mormon, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist, etc. And for crying out sakes, do not send any of them to hell. If I find out that even one of my friends went to hell I will be raging. And in addition to my actual friends, I want to hang out with all of my favorite celebrities: Malcolm Gladwell, Bill Maher, John Mulaney, Barack Obama, Sarah Silverman…God, are you writing these down? Ok also awesome people from history, like Bertrand Russell, Thomas Paine, Henry David Thoreau, St. Thomas Aquinas, Gandhi, Michel Foucault, Socrates…I have more but we’ll do with that list for now.

For living arrangements, like I said, I don’t need a mansion. I would be content with a tent outside or a bedroom in someone’s house and sleeping on a hammock or a good couch, honestly. I want to be able to attend concerts of Coldplay, The Beach Boys, Elvis Presley, Imagine Dragons, Andrea Bocelli, and some random amateur nights that have a combination of terrible, kind of good, and really good performers. I want to play in the HBA (heaven basketball association), so just give me about the skill level of Kobe Bryant so that I’m better than most people but I still have to try hard.

Another really important thing I want is purpose. Don’t make everything too perfect because then it will be super boring. I want to lose basketball games, have arguments with my friends, say jokes that don’t get laughs, feel a range of emotions; I need some opposition. I don’t want some bullshit vacation where everything is perfect forever. Winning a basketball game is only valuable when you have the potential to lose, getting along with friends is only valuable when you have the potential to argue, saying jokes that get laughs is only valuable when they have the potential to fall flat, feeling happy is only valuable when you have the potential to feel sad; don’t rob me of that.

In many ways, earth is fine. But we have disease, death, poverty, pain, depression, anxiety, etc. So really, if you could remove that from earth, then things would be really good. Lots of Christians believe in a new heaven and new earth after the apocalypse, so maybe just leave me down here and that way the weirdos who want to live in mansions and constantly worship you can do that crap up in heaven and then other people like myself can just live regular life but without the bad stuff (but we still get to visit each other). And living forever seems good but is maybe a bit too long. Like, after 10 trillion years I am going to be ready to die, for sure. But earth life is way too short, so let’s do a compromise…let’s say a billion years? And then towards the end of my time just give me a lot of feelings of contentedness and allow me to cease existence peacefully.

To summarize: friends, celebrities, bedroom in a house with a couch or camping in a tent, concerts, basketball, and a reasonable amount of opposition so I have purpose. Oh and, of course, none of the really bad stuff that earth has.

You don’t seem to do anything when I ask for things like healing, job opportunities, new friendships, etc., you never respond to anything I say, and prayer just seems like an overall useless task, so don’t expect to hear from me soon. But I will keep reading your book, because the New Testament is probably my favourite book, overall. So start getting the place ready for me cuz even though I’m only 23 you never know when I’ll be showing up, and it would be awkward if I get there and it’s not ready.

Amen.