What's Heaven like?

Scripture says "eye has not seen" -- that with physical eyes we have never witnessed the landscape of eternity.

But we do get glimpses from parts of the Bible such as Ezekiel and Revelation and from those who have come so close to death that they often have been pronounced clinically deceased (yet never lost awareness; in fact were more aware than ever).

Fascinating it is how in recent years so many of these cases have involved doctors themselves, even surgeons who have slipped past the threshold of life (at least as defined medically).

No heart beat. No blood pressure. No respiration. Crucially, no brainwave activity.

They should not have been able to return. They certainly should not be able to recollect anything.

Yet, time and again, they do. In just the last year, there have been two New York Times bestsellers by doctors who reported near-death visions, one the Harvard neurosurgeon, Dr. Eben Alexander, who penned the bestseller, Proof of Heaven, and the other an orthopedic spine surgeon, Dr. Mary G. Neal, who wrote “To Heaven and Back.” As a news outlet notes, Dr. Neal recounts the story of her trip in 1999 to the Los Rios region of southern Chile where she drowned in a kayak accident. While cascading down a waterfall, her kayak became pinned at the bottom and she was immediately and completely submerged. Despite the rescue efforts of her companions, she was underwater for too long, and as a result, died.

Neal describes being in the presence of angels and Jesus as more of a feeling than actually seeing images of their faces. “They were exploding with an absolute love,’’ said Dr. Neal about angels she encountered. “They looked like compassion, even though that’s not an adjective. I’m embarrassed to say it now, and I wish I took notes, but I didn’t really note what they looked like or what I looked like because it didn’t matter. I wanted to get to this entrance to God’s kingdom.” She believes Jesus helped guide her through the near-death situation before rescue workers were able to revive her. “I feel very presumptuous saying that, but I believe that Jesus was holding me when I was still in my boat and reassuring me and comforting me,’’ she added. “He didn’t look like the image in my Sunday school books. I would say that I didn’t look at him critically in terms of saying, ‘What color is that hair?’ I looked at Him and what I saw was infinite kindness and compassion.’’

“I’m not going to pretend like I don’t wish He were here, but I’ll see Him at some point,’’ she told NBC News, speaking of Jesus. “I know that there is life after death, and I absolutely know that the promises of God are true. Almost everyone I’ve talked to who’s had a near-death experience does not want to return. I felt absolutely like I was home. Not just at peace – I had returned to God’s kingdom and I was home.’’

The landscape?

What she saw was a "giant, giant field... that was beautiful but was all colors and the sense of beauty was very intense and there was this large dome and it doesn't sound quite right when I describe it but it was brilliant -- shimmering, and really beautiful and exploding with love, and we're all given a final opportunity to choose God or turn away for eternity." She also described a large hall where she was evaluated (and told to return; that she had more to do).

Time and again, similar depictions:

Beauty that goes beyond human words, colors unlike earth, tremendous soothing healing music, living waters (seas of fountains).

The consistency of such descriptions is overwhelming.

Years back, a woman named Rebecca Springer (in Within Heaven's Gates) spoke of the same supernal beauty: "The streets were all very broad and smooth and paved with marble and precious stones of every kind. Though they were thronged with people intent on various duties, not a speck of debris or even dust was visible anywhere."

Rebecca, who hailed from Canada, said she saw a gentle slope and on it "a temple whose vast dome, massive pillars, and solid walls were of flawless pearl. Through the great windows of the temple shone a white radiance that swallowed up the golden glow of the heavenly light and made it its own" -- a dome as Dr. Neal saw a dome!

Incredible to describe? How does one verbalize a place where -- in the words of a Church-approved seer from the apparition site of Kibeho in Rwanda, who was "taken" there during a "coma" (accompanied by the Blessed Mother) -- colors "sound" like music and music seems like colors, where one can breathe "water" and "drink" light?

Intriguingly, the seer, Anathalie Mukamazimpaka, described a high place in Heaven (which she was told was "Isangano," the "place of communion") where seven handsome men in pure white cloaks were in a circle creating gorgeous music but with no instruments, "each note filled with a different sensation of contentment and joy," in the words of one writer. There was also a place where the Blessed Mother showed her "millions of people dressed in white." They were not quite as radiant and blissful as the seven but still "overwhelmingly happy"; this was "Isenderezwa z'ibyishimo" or the "place of the cherished of God."

"A sacredness enfolds it, and curious eyes should not look upon it," said Rebecca. "Suffice it to say that no joy we know on earth, however rare, however sacred, can be more than the faintest shadow of the joy we find there."

[resources: Proof of Heaven, and Struck By Lightning] 

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