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My title here, I think I should tell you, is a reference to the refrain of one of my favorite Stephen Foster songs. Maybe one of yours, too? Not the song about a banjo on my knee. If that’s not a sufficient hint, please continue reading and then come back to this paragraph when you’ve finished.
Last Sunday morning I received a text on my cellphone, from someone who had heard about last week’s Words of the Week but had not necessarily read it herself. She invited me to read a certain New York Times best seller, which would, she assured me, tell me “more about the ‘better place’” mentioned in my remembrance of my late father and my nearly as late brother Bruce. She further told me she had given a copy of the book to someone here in the town in which I live, and she thought that I could probably borrow it from him. She added, “I have lots of books on near death experiences. I’ll share if you’re interested.”
On Sunday afternoon I sent a text to my neighbor, saying, “[Your sister] tells me you have a book about Heaven that I should perhaps borrow. I plan to interview you on theological matters.” As of this date, a week later, I have exchanged several texts with that neighbor, about other matters, but have not received a reply about the book. If my neighbor does agree to discuss religion with me, I am pretty sure it will be the first such conversation we have had in the many decades in which he and I have been conversing. The topics of theology and a Better Place have somehow never come up until now. I could be mistaken, but if I’m right, I might ask him what else we have not been discussing. Football, probably, and what else?
Yesterday, Saturday, I decided maybe I would just order the book on Amazon. I found that it is offered, new, 352 pages in paperback, for $11.55. I noticed that Amazon has received 7,335 ratings and reviews: 5 stars 86%, 4 stars 8%, 3 stars 3%, 2 stars 1%, 1 star 1%. Boy, I thought, that’s a really good rate of satisfaction. I read a few reviews, good and bad. Then I asked Amazon to sift the reviews down to just the one-star ratings, and I looked at all of those. When I finished, I smiled and imagined what it might be like if all those disappointed readers, those, that is, who arrive one day in Heaven, head directly to the library there to find out how that book turns out in its ultimate edition.
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