Today I witnessed a short conversation between two people under 30. One asked the other about their religious convictions, or something like that. The other replied that they were Roman Catholic, but didn't paticipate anymore, or since the age of 5. I asked why he bothered to continue to identify himself with something he left behind so long ago. He replied that he agreed with certain tenets, such as "love thy neighbor" and the golden rule (neither of which are originally Roman Catholic, or even Christian maxims, but I didn't bother being contentious).  I didn't ask about the parts he disagreed with, but he volunteered one anyway - tithing. He said "I'm not giving my priest ten percent of my money to buy  my way into heaven."

After the initial thought that his sentiment was pretty much missing the point of the christian doctrine of generosity, I found myself arrested by another idea: what if we could buy our way into heaven? I was tempted to counter his anti-establishment stump speech with this question: how much would you pay to be given permanent access to a place where our wildest dreams are extinguished by the tamest reality of that far country?  Imagine a place where every blade of grass is as captivating as a Monet, and where every stone dropped into a pond resounds a symphony surpassing Mozart's. Wouldn't ten percent be a bargain? Imagine the joy of putting a tenth of your hard earned cash in the plate on Sunday, knowing that the sum total of every weekly installment would amount to less than a drop in the ocean of your life's future value. It would be a bit like being asked to give a dollar a day in order to have the contents of the Louvre reside in your house, mutatis mutandis. 

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mutatis+mutandis

No, I relented. Not becasue I didn't not think the conversation worthy, but because I had just met the individual and felt that the comment would sound trite sans relationship. However, I felt at once the insight that people say such things without really thinking them through. What he really meant is that he doesn't believe such a place exists, or at least that if it does then some ordinary priest surely is not the gatekeeper. I suppose then he is likely to object to an outspoken fisherman at the gate also. The lamentable picture here is that perhaps this young man would gladly pay a tenth if he was given something more to sink his imagination into than the priest could offer. If heaven is not the most beautiful reality in existence then it is no place at all; yet the church and the media have equally turned that place into an eternal waiting room for people in bath robes eating cream cheese and playing harps. The only evidence required to prove that the soul of Western culture is starved for beauty is that our imaginations have failed. Ten paltry percent for something greater than the Bible's Eden? A mere tithe for C.S. Lewis's description of Paradise in the Great Divorce ? Forget wall street. Sign me up for a little pie in the sky, by and by. Or as the New Testament's book of Revelation describes it, a state of infinite worth come down to Earth.

Of course I am not suggesting that anyone can buy their way into heaven, whether its location turns out to be in the stars or on the ground. Rather, God (the prototypical Jew) has a sense of humor infused with irony. It just wouldn't befit a place of inestimable value if we could buy our way in. Heaven is, in this sense, priceless. Our entrance is free, but our ability to breath its air requries that we have given up thinking about our own self-interest. The air of heaven is gratitude towards the architect. The Christian idea, not unlike, though different from the Buddhist one in important respects,  is that 'I' has no importance in heaven, only 'you' does. Grammar matters.

All caveats aside, I am convinced that everyone would pay 10% if we thought that heaven was more interesting than earth, and - bonus! - free from the effects of climate change and excessive taxation. In Canada we pay close to 50% when all is said and done to call ourselves citizens. And we are willing to shell out a month's wages for a week or two on vacation, usually feeling like we never left by the first Wednesday back. My lament is that our civilization is on the verge of losing touch with the emotion that comes from a really captivating story; stories that ring true, but like good art also pierce the heart with beauty, arousing desire at the deepest level of our being.

Let's face it. We're bored.