Appreciating My Home

Throughout my life, I have lived in a relatively small community in western Pennsylvania, and as such I have always been accustomed to being in and around nature. There are acres upon acres of forest behind my house, and in this area, we see every kind of weather. We have some very hot summer days, rainy months in spring, the changing leaves and brisk wind of fall, and some harsh winters, some worse than others. What we don’t have is a whole lot going on, but I never really minded that. I love it here, though it might seem a bit boring to some people, and I never realized how much I love it here until I saw the other side of things, life in the big city.

I have lacked any variation in my living situation in lifetime. I have lived in a smallish, somewhat rural area for my entire life. Some might find it a bit boring, what with no crowded streets full of shops and markets and people buzzing about everywhere. My hometown is almost always quiet, and any kind of major event is somewhat rare. Being that nothing ever happens in my hometown, I was very excited when I decided to go on a week long filed trip to New York City with my high school journalism class. I wanted to experience the hustle and bustle in the big city, where there are different, interesting people everywhere, street vendors on every corner, and anything anyone could ever want available to purchase within walking distance. I wanted to see a Broadway show, tour the Statue of Liberty, walk down Wall Street, and experience all the fame and historical prowess of the greatest city on earth. Who wouldn’t be excited about such a wonderful opportunity? I finally got a chance to expand my perspective on what makes a good hometown.

I had very little experience with the city life before this trip. I have been to Pittsburgh countless times, but never for more than a day. Usually my trips there are to see a sporting event or spend a day at my cousins’ house just outside of the city. I had seen the city, but I never lived in the city, and the two are entirely different. Living in the big cities with pavement and buildings as far as the eye can see is entirely different from just seeing it. I was in New York for only a week, and in that time I toured the Statue of Liberty, perused the markets of Little Italy, Chinatown, and East Village, saw a hockey game at Madison Square Garden, strolled through Times Square, attended the musical Spamalot, visited the Coney Island Aquarium and Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs, took three classes at Columbia University, stood atop the Rockefeller Building to see the whole city before me, and meandered through Central Park. I have never had more fun and excitement in a week of my life. Yet, there’s so much more to do in New York that we couldn’t get to. Just think of all the thrills to be had.

Living in the city is just as glamorous as it seems, but I have to admit that after one week of being right in the middle of all of it, I was utterly exhausted. I just can’t live like that. I have a definite limit to the exhilaration I can handle in a day. They say that the city never sleeps, and they aren’t kidding. It is a nonstop flow of noise and excitement, and quite frankly it seems as if no one ever takes a second to relax. I find it hard to make it through a day without a few minutes of relaxation. I need just a few brief moments to stop whatever I’m doing and take in the scenery. That’s what I was missing in New York, and it’s what comes so easy at home.

At my home, I can detect the scent of pine trees and blossoming flowers wafting from the forest behind my house. I can stand in my backyard and feel the blades of grass bending under my feet, hear the birds calling to one another, and snatch a wild onion from the soil to savor its sweetness later on. In the city, all I could smell was polluted air as I walked across the cold, hard pavement, trying to ignore the countless beeps and bangs and bellows of the people and machines around me. Granted, I was distracted from the lack of these things by all the action and anticipation of what was next on our full agenda, I still noticed quite easily the difference. Sure, the city may have countless people, shows, events, and opportunities, but I’d rather go without those things because what I want more is to be able to walk outside and see beauty in everything around me. I want to be able to slow down. Even after all those things, by far the biggest difference is that when I walk through the woods, I can’t help but get an unexplainable warm feeling inside me, knowing that everything around me is living. The grass I tread across, the trees that shade me from the sun, and the gorgeous ferns that line my path, are all very much alive. The people that pass me in the city, upon further examination, are cold, mechanical, ugly, simply trying to hurry on to wherever they’re going. The woods are beautiful, calm, content, me.

My home is nature, and I can’t get enough of it. It contains countless wonders, and sometimes one has to leave them to appreciate how much they really mean to them. Sure, I need some excitement in my life every now and then to keep me on my toes, but I only want it in small doses. I learned that well on my trip to New York, and should I ever feel that I’ve lost my sense of appreciation for the home I love, I’ll know exactly where to go to regain it.

God and the Afterlife

When trying to think of a person and place that seem to be completely intertwined, one of the first things that came to mind was God and Heaven. These two holy entities are of major importance to the entire world of religious people. The relationship between God and Heaven is as dependent a relationship as you will find, because one simply cannot work without the other.

First off, the existence of both God and Heaven cannot really be proven in any respectable manner, so I guess if one doesn’t believe in them at all, most of this doesn't even matter. However, being that no one can be sure of God’s existence, I say why not believe in God? At least it gives one the hope that if he lives a good life he can reach paradise in the afterlife. I would not call myself an overly religious person, but I believe that there is a God and Heaven, mostly because I don't see any good reason not too. If there is no God or Heaven, then why bother living a decent life, what purpose is there for my life? The answer would be none, and I can't live like that. So, I choose to believe that there is a God and heaven, and I strive to be a better person for that reason. Now, to most people, the fact that I believe in God and Heaven would mean I am a Christian, because that religion is known for the traditional God and Heaven relationship. However, in the Islam there is the belief of one almighty god, Allah, and a paradise that Muslims go to in afterlife with him, called jannah, so my argument here could apply to Islam just as easily. I, along with all Christians and Muslims, hold the belief that there is one almighty God and that if a person believes in God and is obedient to Him, they will go to heaven with Him when they die. Therefore, the idea of God pretty much embodies the idea of heaven with it. The two ideas are clearly intertwined.

The dependence of the two upon one another is clearly evidenced by the fact that there is no major religion or faith that has one without the other. Christianity has God and heaven and Islam has Allah and jannah. Followers of Judaism believe in god, but their views on the afterlife are a bit more complicated. They believe that when the physical body dies the soul lives on and does one of three things. Either it goes straight to Gan Eden, which is like paradise, or it goes to Gehinom, which is like purgatory. Then, in Gehinom the soul is cleansed for up to twelve months before makng it to Gan Eden, or if the soul is truly wicked it is destroyed entirely. Although it isn't exactly like heaven, there is a paradise to be reached eventually. In Buddhism, there is no belief of an almighty being at all or a place that Buddhists go to after they achieve nirvana. Buddhists believe that after they die they are reborn into another life that, depending on how they lived their previous life, will be of higher or lower quality. They can be reborn as an animal, a lowly ghost, a human, or, when one reaches enlightenment, a Buddha, which is the highest level where they are either some type of deity or a spirit. However, it is not told where they live and there is no mention of a place of paradise. In Hinduism, they don’t believe in one god but rather many gods, and they, like the Buddhists, believe in reincarnation on the earth rather than a paradise in the afterlife. No one almighty god means no heaven.

All of this makes perfect sense when analyzed logically, because God simply cannot exist without heaven. If one believes in God, then they need a motivation to obey Him. The answer to that is simple. It’s heaven. People wouldn’t bother to obey God if they weren’t going to be rewarded in some way for their service, so he gives them the promise of an afterlife in paradise as opposed to an eternity in hell. In Islam, much like in Christianity, there are sins that can condemn a person to hell, but should one avoid these acts and live in the way of Allah, they will go to jannah when they die. God would not be believed in without his reward of heaven. Otherwise God would have no purpose. He would provide a reason for why things happen, but none of it matters without some consequences to those events and actions.

On the flip side, heaven could not exist without God. No one would believe in a blissful afterlife awaiting us unless there was some set of rules to govern who gets in. Everybody can’t go there for their afterlife, because that just isn’t fair. Otherwise people would do whatever they want and the world would be enveloped with chaos. It wouldn’t make sense, and that’s where God comes in. His almighty judgment is the deciding factor that controls the gates of Heaven. Heaven seems entirely implausible without God to decide who is allowed to go there after death.

The relationship between God and heaven is absolutely dependent. If you believe in one almighty being, you must also believe in an afterlife in paradise, because there wouldn’t be a reason to believe in God otherwise, and vice versa. The two are undeniably intertwined.