For new readers whom this meditation in honor of Dolly Parton’s passing has brought to this post, I’m Ken Sheetz, a Chicago real estate developer who walked away from it all to become a filmmaker of everything from PBS documentaries to meditation movies in Antarctica.
Now, imagine for a moment that heaven is real.
None of us really knows. That’s the point where faith and imagination come together. We humans have been imagining what might await us beyond this life for as long as we’ve been able to look at the stars and wonder.
So for the next few minutes, don’t worry about whether this vision is literally true.
Just imagine with me. Ready?
Take a slow deep cleansing breath. Hold it for a few seconds… Release.
Picture not the heaven of any one religion. Not clouds and pearly gates. Simply a place beyond this life where the human spirit continues and all the souls who passed before us can gather.
Currently, there are billions of them.
A heavenly audience stretching farther than sight. Every race. Every nation. Every century. Kings beside farmers. Soldiers beside peacemakers. People who once hated one another on Earth now sitting together, perhaps wondering what all the fighting was about. Being of other galaxies and dimensions who vibe with us in the quatum field that exists outside space time as we know it in the 3rd dimension.
A trumpet sounds.
One perfect note.
Then another.
Out of the brilliant light walks Louis Armstrong, trumpet in hand, that magnificent smile spreading across his face.
And he begins singing his famous greeting:
Hello Dolly!
Well, Hello Dolly!
It’s so nice to have you back where you belong
You’re still goin’ strong.
We feel the room swayin’
For the band’s playin’
One of your old fav’rite songs from ‘way back when
The multitude erupts as Dolly Parton laughs and puts a hand over her heart. Louis opens his arms and welcomes the newest member of this impossible company.
Then another voice joins the chorus.
Elvis Presley and Luciano Pavarotti join in.
You’re looking swell, Dolly,
We can tell, Dolly,
You’re still glowin’, you’re still crowin’
Their voice soar over billions of souls.
Dolly.
You’re lookin’ great, Luciano and Elvis
Lose some weight, Luciano and Elvis ?
Laughter ripples through the multitude.
Aretha Franklin. Prince. David Bowie. Tina Turner. John Lennon. George Harrison.
More and more of our departed greats join the welcome.
Then Robin Williams bounds through the chorus, takes Dolly by both hands and stares deeply into her eyes flirtaciouly.
“Hello, Dolly! You sexy little puddum!”
Dolly throws her head back laughing.
Robin doesn’t let go.
“Now, after our little show here—being broadcast across all time, space and all universes far and wide—I want you to do something, girl.”
Dolly raises an eyebrow.
“Robin, I just got here.”
“Exactly! You’re still carrying Earth dust. You’re our newest correspondent!”
The heavenly multitude laughs.
Then Robin turns serious.
“Tell them.”
Dolly’s smile softens.
“Tell them what?”
Robin gestures toward Earth, a tiny blue jewel hanging in the infinite darkness.
“Tell them what you can see from here.”
Before Dolly can answer, another woman steps from the multitude.
Whitney Houston.
Dolly sees her.
Whitney sees Dolly.
They embrace.
And together, the woman who wrote “I Will Always Love You” and the woman whose extraordinary voice carried it around the planet share their song again.
No competition.
No charts.
No record sales.
No awards.
Just two human souls joined by a song about love.
As they sing, imagine that love somehow crossing the boundary between their world and ours.
Into Ukraine.
Into Russia.
Into Israel.
Into Gaza.
Into America.
Into every home where someone has been taught to fear another human being because of politics, religion, nationality, race, gender or beliefs.
Then another familiar voice rolls across heaven.
Kenny Rogers.
Dolly’s eyes light up.
“Well, look what the cat dragged into eternity.”
Kenny smiles.
“Been waiting for you, partner.”
And once again, Kenny and Dolly become “Islands in the Stream.”
Only this time there are no cameras. No record executives. No charts. No aging. No final curtain.
When the song ends, they remain holding hands.
Dolly looks thoughtful.
“You know, Kenny, I sang that song all those years and I’m just now figuring something out.”
“What’s that?”
“The stream is love.”
Kenny smiles.
Dolly looks toward Earth.
“Love’s the stream running through everything. We’re all islands thinking we’re separate when the same water’s touching every one of us.”
She chuckles.
“And Lord knows we’re thirsty.”
Kenny kisses her forehead and steps back into the gathering.
Dolly remains alone.
She gazes down at Earth.
“Funny. I prayed to heaven all my life. Now that I’m here, I want to pray to Earth.”
She turns toward the billions gathered behind her.
“Will y’all join me?”
Heaven grows silent.
“’Cause there’s a lotta hate that’s been making Earth sick for too long.”
Dolly takes a breath.
“Heck, I lost more friends to MAGA than the cancer that brought me here.”
Many in the crowd and onstage nod sasly in agreement. She shakes her head.
“And it nearly broke my heart how COVID got used to divide us from one another.”
She looks directly toward the living.
“So you don’t believe in vaccines? Don’t take ’em. Somebody wants to wear a mask? Let ’em. Take care of each other. Quit turning every damn thing into a reason to hate your neighbor.”
She puts her hands on her hips.
“And LGBTQ folks? Leave them angels alone.”
A cheer erupts.
“They’re just born different. Like everybody’s born different. Don’t believe those lies that somebody different from you is coming to take your life away.”
Dolly points toward the endless gathering.
“We’ve got every kind of human being who ever lived standing right here, and somehow heaven hasn’t fallen apart yet.”
Robin calls from the crowd:
“We checked! Structurally sound!”
Heaven explodes with laughter.
Dolly wipes her eyes.
“That’s what hate does. Makes us afraid of people we’ve never even met.”
Then she looks around.
“Now, where’s Jesus?”
Silence.
“Come on, honey. Don’t get shy on me now.”
The crowd parts.
Jesus emerges.
But something has happened to him.
He’s built like a muscle man and dressed head to toe in ICE tactical gear. Body armor. Heavy boots. Dark glasses. ICE emblazoned across his chest.
He looks exhausted.
He climbs onto the heavenly stage to a smattering of uncertain applause.
Dolly stares at him.
Her eyes fill with tears.
“Oh, honey. Look what all that hate’s done to you.”
She opens her arms.
Jesus doesn’t move.
“You still love me?” he murmurs.
Dolly’s face crumples.
Jesus looks down at himself.
“After I abandoned my own commandments? Especially love thy neighbor as thyself?”
Robin races onto the stage.
“JESUS CHRIST ALMIGHTY! JESUS SEES THE LIGHT!”
The crowd laugh in relief as Robin circles Jesus, inspecting the tactical gear.
“Buddy, Trump’s been stealing your fans! Time to get back to doing you.”
Robin puts both hands over his heart.
“Love, baby. That’s you super power the greedy bastards stole from you.”
Dolly takes Jesus by the hand.
“Come on, sugar. We’ll sing you home.”
She turns toward the heavenly orchestra.
There is no sheet music.
No rehearsal.
Dolly simply begins.
Because she discovers one more gift God gave her:
In heaven, a song born completely from love arrives already knowing its melody.
Remember the heart beneath the armor.
Remember the hand you came to hold.
Remember no child was born your enemy.
Remember love before the world grew cold.
Whitney joins her.
Then Kenny.
Louis.
Pavarotti.
Elvis.
Soon billions of souls are singing.
But Jesus doesn’t change.
The ICE uniform remains.
The armor remains.
He reaches for the vest and tries to tear it away.
It won’t move.
“I can’t.”
Dolly stops.
“Can’t what, honey?”
Jesus whispers:
“I can’t… remember who I was.”
Silence across heaven.
Then—
CLICK.
A spotlight ignites.
A white-gloved hand appears from the darkness.
A foot slides impossibly backward.
Michael Jackson moonwalks onto the stage.
Robin shouts.
“Okay. Now we’re cooking! Ooh rah!”
Michael circles Jesus.
One glide.
A turn.
A snap.
Then he looks Jesus directly in the eyes.
“Do you remember?”
Jesus shakes his head.
Michael gestures toward humanity.
“Then remember them.”
A new rhythm begins.
Remember the hungry you sat beside.
Remember the stranger you welcomed inside.
Remember the broken you never condemned.
Remember the enemy you called a friend.
Jesus closes his eyes.
Remember the leper nobody would touch.
Remember the poor who never had much.
Remember the children you gathered near.
Remember you taught them love—not fear.
A crack appears in the ICE vest.
Dolly sees it.
“That’s it, Michael.”
Michael spins.
Remember the table with room for them all.
Remember forgiveness whenever we’d fall.
Remember the outcast. Remember the least.
Remember you came here to teach us peace.
Another crack.
Then another.
Light begins pouring through Jesus’ armor at the cracks.
The dark glasses fall away.
The tactical vest splits open.
The armor crashes onto the heavenly stage.
And there stands Jesus.
Naked.
No uniform.
No armor.
No flag.
No political party.
No weapon.
Nothing separating one human being from another.
Just Jesus, restored, standing before billions of souls exactly as God made him.
Heaven falls silent.
Robin Williams looks him up and down.
A beat.
“Jesus! Get some clothes on!”
Heaven erupts.
Jesus laughs.
Dolly laughs.
Michael doubles over.
Louis nearly loses his trumpet.
Billions of souls laugh until they cry.
Dolly steps forward carrying a fresh white robe.
“Come here, honey.”
She gently wraps it around Jesus’ shoulders.
She straightens the robe, brushes his hair from his eyes and looks into the face of the man beneath everything humanity had piled upon him.
“There. Now you look like yourself again.”
Jesus looks down at the shattered ICE armor at his bare feet.
Then at Dolly.
Michael.
Robin.
The billions of souls surrounding him.
And he begins to cry.
Not delicate tears.
Two thousand years of grief pour out of him.
Grief for every war fought in his name. Every person condemned in his name. Every child frightened in his name. Every stranger turned away. Every family divided. Every act of hatred somehow dressed up as love.
But something else is in those tears.
Relief.
Dolly holds him.
Michael puts a hand on his shoulder.
And Robin Williams rises behind them in full cosmic Genie form—blue, enormous, shimmering across galaxies, his arms stretching halfway around heaven.
He looks tenderly down at Jesus.
“Tears of grief and relief, bro.”
Jesus looks up.
Robin smiles.
“Love always wins.”
And something miraculous happens.
The laughter and tears of heaven mingle.
Billions upon billions of tears—tears of sorrow, forgiveness, laughter, reunion and release—begin falling from heaven.
Down through the stars.
Toward the little blue planet below.
CUT TO EARTH.
Rain.
Across cities.
Across deserts.
Across battlefields.
Across farms and forests.
Rain on churches, mosques, synagogues and temples.
Rain on red states and blue states.
Rain on mansions and tents.
Rain on soldiers.
Rain on refugees.
Rain on people marching beneath different flags.
Rain on two neighbors who haven’t spoken to each other in years.
Children turn their faces toward the sky.
People step out of doorways.
Umbrellas slowly lower.
No one on Earth knows where this rain came from.
But for reasons they cannot explain, some are laughing.
Some are crying.
Some are doing both.
And somewhere, someone who hasn’t spoken to a brother, a daughter, a mother, an old friend or a neighbor because politics came between them reaches for a phone.
Back in heaven, Dolly watches the rain fall upon Earth.
She takes Jesus’ hand.
“Look, honey.”
Jesus smiles through his tears.
“They’re getting it.”
Robin floats above them in the stars.
“Took ’em long enough.”
More heavenly laughter.
More heavenly tears.
More rain.
Dolly looks toward Earth.
“But most of that hate down there ain’t real. It’s being manufactured by evil rich men turning folk against one another.”
She looks across the gathering.
Every color.
Every culture.
Every century.
“Nobody’s asking who you voted for up here.”
Laughter ripples across heaven.
“Don’t let anybody make money or gain power by teaching you to hate your neighbor.”
She pauses.
“We’re one race.”
Billions of voices answer:
“THE HUMAN RACE!”
Louis raises his trumpet.
Whitney takes Dolly’s hand.
Pavarotti draws an enormous breath.
Elvis grins.
Michael begins to dance.
Kenny smiles at his old friend.
Jesus stands restored in his simple white robe.
And Robin Williams throws his enormous Genie arms around the whole impossible gathering.
The music rises.
Not Christian music.
Not Jewish music.
Not Muslim music.
Not left music.
Not right music.
Human music.
Imagine it surrounding our little planet.
Passing through borders as though borders don’t exist.
Through red states and blue states.
Mosques, churches, synagogues and temples.
Palaces and prisons.
Mansions and tents.
Imagine eight billion living human beings remembering, even if only for one heartbeat:
We belong to one another.
Take another slow breath.
Send that thought outward.
To your family.
To someone you love.
And, hardest of all, to someone you disagree with.
One planet.
One human family.
One race.
The human race.
Love always wins.
Dolly waves to the multitude.
“Now, if you good folks don’t mind. I gotta find my hubby, Carl!”
Alright. If you’ve been meditating as you read, take a deep cleansing breath. Namaste.
Please share this meditation with a Dolly Parton fan in your life!
— Ken Sheetz
