Did you know that earth looks like a crescent moon when you look back at it? I wondered whether or not any flat-earthers had managed to attain the Rapture. It did not seem likely, but such ignorant superstition is not totally incompatible with believing in Christ. Some superstitions are absolutely forbidden - astrology, for example, and Darwinism. But the flat-earth nonsense is nowhere forbidden that I know of. If there were any flat-earthers with us, how did they feel to look back and see that the earth was round as a tennis ball?

(Or would the Lord in His mercy let them perceive it as flat? Can mortal man ever understand the viewpoint of God?)

It seemed to take about two hours to reach the neighborhood of Heaven. I say 'seemed to' because it might have been any length of time; there was no human scale by which to judge. In the same vein, the total period of the Rapture seemed to me to be about two days... but I had reason later to believe that it may have been seven years - at least by some reckoning. Measures of time and space become very slippery when one lacks mundane clocks and' yardsticks.

As we approached the Holy City our guides had us slow down and then make a sightseeing sweep around it before going in through one of the gates.

This was no minor jaunt. New Jerusalem (Heaven, the Holy City, Jehovah's capital) is laid out foursquare like the District of Columbia, but it is enormously bigger, one thousand three hundred and twenty miles on a side, five thousand two hundred and eighty miles around it, and that gives an area of one million seven hundred and forty-two thousand four hundred square miles.

This makes cities like Los Angeles or New York look tiny.

In solemn truth the Holy City covers an area more than six times as big as all of Texas! At that, it's crowded. But are, expecting only a few more after us.

It's a walled city, of course, and the walls are two hundred and sixteen feet high, and the same wide. The tops of the wall are laid out in twelve traffic lanes - and no guard rails. Scary. There are twelve gates, three in each wall, the famous pearly gates (and they are); these normally stand open - will not be closed, we were told, until the Final Battle.

The wall itself is of iridescent jasper but it has a dozen footings in horizontal layers that are more dazzling than the wall itself: sapphire, chalcedony, emerald, sardonyx, chrysolite, beryl, topaz, amethyst - I may have missed some. New Jerusalem is so dazzling everywhere that it is hard for a human to grasp it - impossible to grasp it all at once.

When we finished the sweep around the Holy City, our cohort's flightmaster herded us, into a holding pattern like dirigibles at O'Hare and kept us there until he received a signal that one of the gates was free - and I was hoping to get at least a glimpse of Saint Peter, but no - his office is at the main gate, the Gate of Judah, whereas we went in by the opposite gate, named for Asher, where we were registered by angels deputized to act for Peter.

Even with all twelve gates in use and dozens of Peter deputized clerks at each gate and examination waived (since we all were caught up at the Rapture - guaranteed saved) we had to queue up quite a long time just to get registered in, receive temporary identifications, temporary bunking assignments, temporary eating assignments -

('Eating'?)

Yes, I thought so, too, and I asked the angel who booked me about it. He/she looked down at me. 'Refection is optional. It will do you no harm never to eat and not to drink. But many creatures and some angels 'enjoy eating, especially in company. Suit yourself.'

'Thank you. Now about this berthing assignment. It's a single. I want a double, for me and my wife. I want -'

'Your former wife, you mean. In Heaven there is no marriage or giving in marriage. I

'Huh? Does that mean we can't live together?'

'Not at all. But both of you must apply, together, at Berthing General. See the office of Exchange and Readjustments. Be sure, each of you, to fetch your berthing chit.'

'But that's the problem! I got separated from my wife. How do I find her?'

'Not part of my M.0.S. Ask at the information booth. In the meantime use your singles apartment in Gideon Barracks.'

'But -´

He (she?) sighed. 'Do you realize how many thousands of hours I have been sitting here? Can you guess how complex it is to provide for millions of creatures at once, some alive and never dead, others newly incarnate? This is the first time we have had to install plumbing for the use of fleshly creatures - do you even suspect how inconvenient that is? I say that, when you install plumbing, you are bound to get creatures who need plumbing - and there goes the neighborhood! But did they listen to me? Hunh! Pick up your papers, go through that door, draw a robe and a halo - harps are optional. Follow the green line to Gideon Barracks.'

'No!'

I saw his (her) lips move; she (he) may have been praying. 'Do you think it is proper to run around Heaven, looking the way you do? You are quite untidy. We aren't used to living-flesh creatures. Uh... Elijah is the last I recall, and I must say that you look almost as disreputable as he did. In addition to discarding those rags and putting on a decent white robe, if I were you I would do something about that dandruff.'

'Look,' I said tensely. 'Nobody knows the trouble I've Seen, nobody knows but Jesus. While you've been sitting around in a clean white robe and a halo in an immaculate City with streets of gold, I've been struggling with Satan himself. I know I don't look very neat but I didn't choose to come here looking this way. Uh - Where can I pick up some razor blades?'

'Some what?'

'Razor blades. Gillette double-edged blades, or that type. For this.' I took out my razor, showed it to her/him. 'Preferably stainless steel.'

'Here everything is stainless. But what in Heaven is that?'

'A safety razor. To take this untidy beard off my face.'

'Really? If the Lord in His wisdom had intended His male creations not to have hair on their faces, He would have created them with smooth features. Here, let me dispose of that.' He-she reached for my razor.

I snatched it back. 'Oh, no, you don't! Where's that information booth?'

'To your left. Six hundred and sixty miles. ' She-he sniffed.

I turned away, fuming. Bureaucrats. Even in Heaven. I didn't ask any more questions there because I spotted a veiled meaning. Six hundred and sixty miles is a figure I recalled from our sightseeing tour: the exact distance from a center gate (such as Asher Gate, where I was) to the center of Heaven, i.e., the Great White Throne of the Lord God Jehovah, God the Father. He (she) was telling me, none too gently, that if I did not like the way I was being treated, I could take my complaints to the Boss - i.e., 'Get lost!'

I picked up my papers and backed away, looked around for someone else in authority.

The one who organized this gymkhana, Gabriel or Michael or whoever, had anticipated that there would be lots of creatures milling around, each with problems that didn't quite fit the system. So scattered through the crowd were cherubs. Don't think of Michelangelo or Luca della Robbia; these were not bambinos with dimpled knees; these were people a foot and a half taller than we newcomers were like angels but with little cherub wings and each with a badge reading 'STAFF'.

Or maybe they were indeed angels; I never have been sure about the distinction between angels and cherubim and seraphim and such; the Book seems to take it for granted that you know such things without being told. The papists list nine different classes of angels! By whose authority? It's not in the Book!

I found only two distinct classes in Heaven: angels and humans. Angels consider themselves superior and do not hesitate to let you know it. And they are indeed superior in position and power and privilege. Saved souls are second-class citizens - The notion, one that runs all through Protestant Christianity and maybe among papists as well, that, a saved soul will practically sit in the lap of God well, it ain't so! So you're saved and you go to Heaven you find at once that you are the new boy on the block, junior to everybody else.