There are two generally understood concepts of heaven. Concept #1 focuses on material-world stuff…pleasure, happiness, fulfillment, great sex, neck rubs, bags of money, great Italian food. Concept #2 is about a bullshit fairy tale after-realm that religious leaders have been selling to their parishioners for centuries, as in “be good and go to heaven.”
I’ve always said that if there’s a heaven, it certainly doesn’t work on a merit or virtuous behavior system. Upon dying everyone becomes Keir Dullea‘s space fetus at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey, or nobody does.
At the very end of Field of Dreams, a conversation between Ray Kinsella (Kevin Costner) and the ghost of his dad, John (Dwier Brown), skirts both realms. And what John says is self-contradictory. Here’s how the scene plays:
Ray: “You played a good game.
Dad: “Thank you. (beat, beat) It’s so beautiful here. For me…for me, it’s like a dream come true. (beat) Can I ask you something?”
Slightly agog, Ray nods.
Dad: “Is this…is this heaven?”
Ray: “It’s Iowa.”
Dad: “Iowa?”
Ray: “Yeah.
Dad: “Coulda sworn it was heaven.”
Dad picks up catcher’s glove, Ray walks over…
Ray: “Is there a heaven?”
Dad: “Oh, yeah. It’s the place dreams come true.”
So let’s break this down, shall we?
John is an emissary from some kind of mystical, post-mortal realm (i.e., the same in which 2001‘s Dave Bowman resides, so to speak), and so he asks his son if the cornfield baseball diamond upon which they’re standing is heaven. Because the joy of playing baseball has so lifted and purified his spirits, John is suddenly wondering if this blissful feeling of cosmic radiance is a renewable thing on some level. John believes that Ray’s baseball diamond might be the ultimate OHM place to be.
Ray quietly tells him no, it’s not — that they’re just in Iowa. In response to which John, obviously uncertain which realm is up, replies that he “coulda sworn it was heaven.” In other words, for a dead guy John doesn’t know very much. He has an idea that Ray’s baseball diamond might be the epicenter of God’s perfect universe, but he’s not sure. He was just passing along a thought, a notion.
And then Ray, having been told in so many words that John isn’t exactly a fountain of all-knowing mystical knowledge of the wonders of the universe, and having just heard that John is as fascinated and mystified about where he is (not to mention who or what he is) as anyone else…knowing all this Ray asks John for some very basic dead-guy info: “Is there a heaven?”
And then John immediately switches gears. He is suddenly no longer the uncertain and questioning ghost, no longer the mystical dream-dweller. And so he tells Ray, “Oh, yeah”….as in “oh, son, relax your weary head because of course there’s a heaven…trust me, there is!”
And then he steps down off the cosmic pedestal and reverts to concept #1 as described above — heaven is not only real, he assures, but “the place [where] dreams come true.”
Repeating for clarity: Ghost John doesn’t have clue #1 about what heaven is or even what it might be, and so he asks his mortal son, an agnostic who only knows for certain what the material realm is, if he’s somehow arrived at the perfect cosmic place. But when Ray asks John if heaven is something pulsing and genuine, John does a 180 and tells Ray that, being a dead guy and all, that he’s absolutely certain that heaven is something with definable conditions and perimeters.
And yet John defines it as a place of earthly dimensions and conditions, a place where dreams come true, a state of pure and unwavering spiritual peace, but according to the rules of the third stone from the sun. Because who gives a shit about mortal dreams (I want to play for a major-league baseball team, I want to reconnect with my dead dad, I want to pay off my student loan, I want to own a brand-new black Beemer, I want to re-experience the kind of erections that I had when I was 19) once you’re dead? There are no dreams or joys or hungers or laments when you’ve passed into the realm of The Big Sleep. Death is eternal sleep from which there’s no waking, but aside from that John doesn’t want to fill in the details.
Ray: Is there a heaven?
John: I…I really wish I could tell you.
Ray: But you just asked me if this baseball diamond, upon which we’re both standing right now, is heaven.
John: Yeah.
Ray: But what could I possibly know? You’re dead and you don’t know the basic picture?
John: Okay…Ray?
Ray: You were alive once. You know what it’s like. Nobody really knows anything.
John: I don’t think we need to argue about this…do we, Ray? I’m just happy to be here. Let’s leave it at that. I love you and I’ve missed you. Being with you right now is a blessing.
Ray: Dad, you just asked me if this is heaven. In other words, since you died you’ve been somewhere else, so to speak. A place that didn’t feel like heaven. What was that place? Tell me a thing or two…c’mon.
John: Wow, we’re arguing.
Ray: I love you too, Dad, but would you please answer me?
John: I don’t know what happened when I died, Ray. Honestly, I don’t remember anything. I do know that all of a sudden I was in a baseball uniform and I had my old beat-up catcher’s mitt. It was wonderful, and then I walked through the cornfield.
Ray: Yeah?
John: And here we are.
Ray: This isn’t heaven, dad. It’s a beautiful place but it’s not. You just asked me a straight question and I gave you a straight answer. But you won’t reciprocate. You’re not going to answer my question because ghosts are too heavy-cat to address earthly concerns.
John: I can’t tell you what you want to know.
Ray: You won’t tell me, you mean.
John: I can’t.
Ray: Could you do something else?
John: Sure, Ray. What?
Ray: Try and fix things in heaven so I don’t have to make mortgage payments any more.
John: (eye roll) Ray…