Heaven - Stumbling Block to Salvation

I used to watch Big Love, a story about polygamist Mormons. It began with a sequence that included the family united in eternity. It is a Mormon view of Heaven that promises that we will be united with our families forever in the afterlife. It is a very comforting thought, but then I ask, at what point in our lives are we together in this Heaven? The time at which we die and are joined by others from that point in time? If so my mother might be dead and I would kind of like to see her, but is she my 90 year old mother or the 40 year old version? How crowded must this heaven be? I like my children, but if I am also a child for my parents?

This of course isn't my traditional view of heaven, but it does point out the flaws of most Heavenly visions. We no longer have a body so why be hung up on the body. The Apostle Paul talks of this in several places, but still suggests some sort of body, an immortal one, at the resurrection. How crowded that resurrection will be, How will we ever find those relatives? (Fine if you want to hide I suppose.)

Perhaps the question really is Why would you want to find them anyway? If being dead to this world is to be alive in the presence of God, why would we expect to be corporeal? Dante presents a picture of heaven with all the saints enjoined in a heavenly choir out of which comes Beatrice to give a tour. What if heaven is really being a part of this incorporeal choir with no physicality at all? This would make us one with God, but not God. For myself this seems to be ultimately comfortable with the best part having lost the worries of self and all of the garbage that comes with self.

This of course worries good Christians because it does not seem to bring any condemnation or eternal punishment for the "bad" people. The souls of the unjust mixing with the just just doesn't seem fair. But if there is no body in the afterlife and salvation is being eternally in the presence of God, what do we care if retribution is not enacted? What would it gain us?

But that isn't very Christian! Exactly.