Picture 79 million people, from Manhattan to Monterey, all with the same basic question on their minds—what’s coming? They’re the baby boomers, and according to Penguin Books Editor and Vice President Mitch Horowitz, this is a red-hot question for them.
I was in New York visiting Horowitz and noticed on his desk a copy of Dr. Eben Alexander’s best-seller “Proof of Heaven.” I asked him what he thought of the book. He said the subject matter’s soaring popularity wasn’t at all surprising to him. “Why?” I asked. “Boomers,” he said. “They all want to know what the afterlife is like.”
Being a boomer myself, I get it. As the years go by, who isn’t at least a little curious? But maybe we don’t have to figure all this out on our own.
A couple of summers ago, my grandchildren may have stumbled upon something that at least hints at a useful lesson in Disneyland, of all places. My youngest grandson will tell you that the Splash Mountain ride, with its water-soaking high-speed drop, was sheer heaven. He’d be happy to live on the darn thing. My granddaughter, on the other hand, thought the drop was…well, that other place.
It’s tempting to dismiss all that as simply a day of fun at the amusement park. Heaven, after all, is a faraway place, right?
That depends on the conclusion you reach when you hear heaven described by those who speak with some degree of insight and experience on the matter. Dr. Alexander describes it as light, joy, beauty, absence of fear – sheer love. He’s witnessed this in his lifetime. Jesus compared it to a small but mighty grain of mustard seed and as a pearl of great price. He also said it is “at hand.”
These descriptions take on even greater meaning when one considers the impact such insights have had on people’s lives.
A flash of “heaven” has not only been a life-changing and health-producing private experience but also propelled ordinary people into the public arena in a big way. They can’t help wanting to share their profound experience and lessons with the whole world. They’re truth-tellers who want to enlighten their fellow beings. Best-sellers have been written, lecture circuits packed, and worldwide movements launched following a blink-of-an-eye encounter with this indescribable light and love.
Summing up her own life-changing epiphany, religious leader and publisher Mary Baker Eddy commented: “That short experience included a glimpse of the great fact that I have since tried to make plain to others, namely, Life in and of Spirit; this Life being the sole reality of existence.”
In our amazement at people’s accounts, what shouldn’t be forgotten is that these heavenly glimpses occurred here. Instead of wondering what’s coming in an afterlife, somewhere else, boomers should be asking: What’s here, now?
Indeed, that may be what many are asking. Wade Clark, professor of “Religion and Society” at UC Santa Barbara, surveyed the experiences of boomers in his book ‘A Generation of Seekers,’ and he sees an ache for enlightenment. That parallels what NBC News found among that generation of seekers, reporting: “What was a mid-life crisis for previous generations has turned into a mid-life quest by boomers.”
Leave it to the activist boomers to shun a wait-and-see attitude about the future and commit themselves to something they see as important right now, pursuing a spiritual path lined with meaning, health, and happiness.
Perhaps in the quieter, reflective moments of that spiritual journey, they’ll realize they’ve discovered – rediscovered – that the state of mind they describe as heaven is not only attainable but has been here all along.
Russ and his wife moved back home to Laguna Beach after he worked as the media manager for the Christian Science church in Boston. With a background in publishing, he spends most of his time writing, reading, volunteering, and grandparenting.
