Paradise is His Glory

I never saw it coming. I was walking home from a quick run to the corner store when my world was filled with noise: the roar of an engine, the squeal of tires, the crash of metal. Looking at the aftermath, I realized that I never had a chance.

From the moment I awoke I was filled with Divine Purpose. I arose from the ground, casting off my earthly shell, as a tree hatches from its seedling; reaching immediately for the sky without a look back towards the casing that conveyed it to that point. As my wings unfurled behind me, and I cast new eyes upon the carnage left in the wake of my transcendental moment.

The car that killed me was steaming furiously from several gashes. I strode with knowing purpose over to it and looked inside. The souls in the car needed protection. I guided them where they needed to go, as if I had the knowledge of things beyond the vale all my life, and stood watch over the child in the backseat till human help arrived. I carried no animosity towards these people for ending my life so abruptly; it simply never occurred to me.

I don’t know how much time I spent on Earth, shepherding souls to their final destinations, and watching over those in their time of need. Time does not bind the angels as it so does man; I cannot explain how the transition from time-bound mortal to timeless eternal occurs, it just does, with the smoothness of a precision Swiss watch. Some souls awake to their afterlife with no idea of what to do next; I would guide them along to the next part of their lives, often in the shining light of our one true Lord and Savior. Some souls are angry and bitter even in death, these are the ones I cannot help. Do not ask me where they go. Often my time is spent comforting those who suffer, staying with them and showing them mercy where no mortal can.

Over this uncountable span of time, I have learned many things. Things that no simple man can ever know, ever understand, ever even conceive. I have come to understand that God loves all of His children, He weeps for all them, every day, as they move through the world that they made for themselves. The truth is, that He is powerless to help his children, or to intervene in the affairs of fur; for their lives are what they make of them - that is His Greatest Gift to His beloved: self-determination.

But your Lord is unhearing or uncaring, so when one of His Children die, as I did, in a completely random, senseless way, He makes them Advocates of His race, as He did me, bound by Divine Order to protect and watch over His Children in their own world. And I have served Our Lord fearlessly in this capacity for as long as I can remember.

On one especially memorable occasion, I was witness to something new: a scene of senseless, violent crime. A fur had camped himself on a rooftop with a scope, and was targeting innocent souls on the street below. For the first time since I was reborn to my afterlife, I was to stand witness to the birth of an Advocate. The Advocate rose from the shell of her former life, and assumed her True Form, her wings unfurling behind her, bathed in a Holy Light that defies description, and she moved with the surety of Divine Purpose to guide and protect those souls caught in the lunatic’s sights. And I found myself falling away from the Earth.

My Precious Lord God was waiting for me, His arms open to embrace me, and relive me from my time of servitude to His Will. My Joy was overwhelming, my heart bursting with Love and Adoration to finally lay my eyes upon His Blessed Countenance; to be enveloped in His unending Love; and to be ushered into His Kingdom. I was as nothing in his Greatness, and at the same instant, the Most prized and cherished of all His Souls. The time had come for me to reap my ultimate reward; to be bathed in His Glorious and Infinite Love; to take my place in his Heavenly Army as a Beloved Son and Child of His Magnificence; and be given my final home, here, in His Paradise.

Praised be His Name.

Amen.