To illustrate the Gospel reading from Sunday, Nov 10, 2013, here is a poem by Gerhard Frost.

She held her father’s hand

as they boarded the west-flying plane.

Skipping along the carpeted ramp,

her feet hardly touching the floor.

“Where are we going?”

he asked her affectionately.

“To Grandma’s!” was her instant reply.

She did not say:

“To Bozeman or Billings or Portland.” 

She saw a face, not a place.

… “Father,” Jesus said.

He too saw a Face.

In dying, he found his way home:

“Into your hands—your future, your presence—I commit my spirit.”

Perhaps heaven isn’t a place, but a Face.