Heaven Can Wait

In this chapter the focus moves to the empty chair, a symbol of death and of the departed. The author’s opinion is that there is no link to be found between waiting and the perception of the beyond, the afterlife, the transcendental, or even God, let alone the empty chair. Waiting, waiting for God, as it’s understood by some of the thinkers of this chapter, is little more than a situation, a handy idea, an idealized process, a mere symbol. Symbols are anyone’s business. Symbols can lead as readily to pornography as to the afterlife. In all of this the empty chair has been forgotten.