Holding Hands and singing a song of perfect harmony.

A while back I knew a very nice young man. He was deeply religious.
So of course I took it upon myself to corrupt him a bit. Surprisingly he was one of those rare things, a man who actually believed in what he said. So in respect for him ( yes mark I can have respect for fellow human beings.) I stopped my attempts to lure him toward the dark side. We would have break together and hang out and have nice little chats. It took a while for me to understand that he was trying to lure me away from the dark side.
One night as we were talking I asked him, "So what do expect to happen when Jesus comes back?"
He smiled a little and said, "It'll be heaven on Earth. Literally."
I thought about it for a moment and finally made a face like I tasted something bad.
" You mean everyone gets along?" He nodded. " No conflict?" He nodded again. "Like we all hold hands and sing a song of perfect harmony about friendship and love?"
He looked at me as if trying to figure out if I was mocking him, but eventually nodded once more.
" Nope ", I said with conviction. "I wouldn't want to be there."
His eyes went wide a bit. "But why Tom? Isn't that what everyone wants?"
I thought about it a little more and said, "Well I can't speak for everyone else but I sure wouldn't. I need conflict. I need struggle. What would be the point if everything was perfect. Why even get up in the morning?"
He was shocked when he found out I sincerely meant it.
I wouldn't want to live in a perfect world. I'm not cut out for it. I wouldn't want to live in a world without pain or without mistakes. I really hate to quote James T. Kirk but as he said once, "I need my pain. It makes me who I am." And it does.
I used to envy friends whom I thought ( usually mistakenly) had happy well adjusted homes. But around the age of 17 or so I understood that I could never live in one. It would drive me insane. ( no comments mark)
Even in my own hectic family there were periods of quiet. And usually I would find myself trying to find a way to stir up a hornets nest. I would be working quietly to find some way to get Rose or Geno in trouble. And the beautiful thing was Geno , Rose, and John would be doing the same to me or one of the others in our family.
Hell, even our Dad would wind up doing something to keep himself from getting bored. Of course Dad's answer was usually very unpleasant for the whole family.
I don't believe I'm alone. I'm sure that most people really wouldn't want to live in a world that was perfect. I mean for one what would you do? Can you imagine what books, music, and movies would be like? I couldn't sit though a two hour movie about happy people being happy.
I believe humanity needs strive. I believe God made us to struggle. We do our best work in bad situations. To quote Orson Wells , ...remember what the fellow said. In Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance.

In Switzerland they had brotherly love. They had five hundred years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce?

The cuckoo clock.
I think the Vikings of old understood it better then anyone. Their idea of heaven was a place where they would fight each other all day, then at night they'd party like there was no tomorrow.
My religious friend asked me what I thought heaven would be like. I thought about it and said, "My heaven would be easy. Let me live Hugh Hefner's life."
It saddened me very much when I found out my friend had no idea of whom I spoke.