In going about our normal routine, we pass many prominent churches with ancient cemeteries. The sprawling one at the 250-year-old Old Tennent Church near Freehold caught Kenny's eye and he asked what cemeteries are for. I explained the custom of burial. He wanted to know why cemeteries were located close to churches and I said that when Jesus comes again, he's going to come for those believers whether they are in church or in the ground. I asked him whether he believed that Jesus is coming again and he said that he believed it but he didn't understand it. And I said that's ok, he can't understand it unless he believes it. So he asked me what Heaven is like and I said it's being with God and probably family and friends ('though I'm not convinced on that point myself) but I was clear about Heaven not being located or locatable - that is, Heaven is not a place such that we could discover it by flying above the clouds or deep into space. And Hell is not a place such that we could dig down into the earth and find it. But Heaven is being with God and Hell is being without God. More than that, I couldn't say. So that night, I read to the boys at their request a children's book called Our Father, the Prayer that Jesus Taught. I usually just read the Scripture snippets out of that book to them and on the "Thy kingdom come" line there's a quotation from Revelation 21:1-4 which I read as dramatically as I can for it is one of my favorites and Kenny said at the end of the reading, "Mom, that's Heaven." And I said that it certainly is. No more death, no more pain, no more crying and God is there.

Then yesterday Kenny said that it would be scary to live near a cemetery. So I told him that I grew up with a cemetery practically in my backyard and I walked through it on my way to church and I thought it was a neat place to play. But I get that attitude from my mother; the only places in Brooklyn with grass and trees in her day were the cemeteries, so she played in them with her cousins whose fathers ran the funeral parlor.