Heaven

            My mental paradigm of heaven is surreal. It's a beautiful and loving world where communion is shared among all. Bliss and happiness are the rewards of this land of paradise. There is no disease or sickness, no pain or sadness. The metaphysical and spiritual feeling one has, reminds me why I adore this world from that of my own. When I quickly return to consciousness, almost immediately I want to return. Almost everyone, at some time in their life has envisioned what heaven could be like. In biblical times heaven was believed to be located in the sky where God and angels dwell (Gen 28:12). For Christians heaven represents the transformed reality by the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The semantics of the word heaven is referred as annotatively, connotatively, and denonatatively. Heaven can be symbolic in our culture through art, film, and music.
             Heaven is defined as the following: 1.) Heaven is a place or condition of supreme happiness and peace where good people are believed to go after death, and, especially in Christianity, the dwelling place of God and the angels. 2.) Blissful experience. 3.) Power of God. 4.) Expressing astonishment. (Encarta Word English Dictionary 2004) In everyday language people use the word heaven in reference to various things. The word heaven may be used connotatively. For example, "good heavens Gary Sheffield hit three home runs in today's game." It is an implied additional meaning or a suggested phrase of a word. "For heavens sake", "heaven knows", and "only heaven knows" are other examples. Annotatively, one may provide a personal commentary or meaning to the word heaven. It may be from ones own perspective of heaven as well as ones subjective meaning. Heaven may be an explanation of their beliefs of what heaven is from biblical reading or teachings. "Heaven is a place of happiness." The most specific meaning or literal meaning of a word is denotation.