A box marked "Heaven"

When our Greenbelt wristbands arrived this year, with them was a small flatpacked white cardboard box, the beginning of an art exhibition to which we were all invited to contribute. Our brief was to create our own glimpse of "Heaven in a box" - and all the boxes that arrived at the Festival (a goodly number, though not the 20,000 that would have represented each paying person on site) became a delightful and quirky peep into our deepest joys and longings.

In our family, the artistic/creative people are on the whole also the chaotic last minuters- so we didn't actually realise we could have been doing something glorious until the moment had passed. I've been thinking about it, though, and
here's my box after the event...

The contents may not be terribly obvious but include

• a minature kaleidoscope - making beauty out of tiny fragments of brokenness...
• a shell to represent all that the sea means to me...childhood, eternity and so much else in between
  
• the names of my children and some others to represent the myriad people who show me heaven...
• a tiny scroll (one that I've used in alt worship with the youth group), there both to represent all the wonderful words that have opened my eyes to God in different ways at different times and the shiney young people themselves who are clearly a sign of heaven
• some notes of music - the surest route to heaven I know
• a tea light - so many wonderful acts of worship in more contexts than I can recall, small reflections of the light that shines in the darkness
• a square of fair trade chocolate - for itself and for all those who work tirelessly to make the kingdom come on earth as in heaven

So - that's my box full, at least for today.
I'd love to know what you'd use to represent "heaven in a box" though...Do add a comment to share your glimpses