heaven

"My kingdom is not of this world." John 18:36.

Lately, I have been disturbed by the tendency in many major religious camps to make of the Universal Source an earthly and temporal kingdom, nation, or state. They think to make God or Allah or the Divine Poodle rule their world through laws and courts, hijabs and wars. To be perfectly clear, I am tarring nearly every nation today, every religion, with the same brush because I feel they are, sometimes unconsciously, acting as if they, through human design and acts, can construct the Kingdom of God on earth. They presume to enforce what they regard as the laws of God or Allah (or the Divine Poodle) and designate themselves to be the sole interpreters of God's will, the only ones to act under His/Her authority. And by doing so they dare to put themselves above God!

And yet, all the time, within and around us is The Invisible World. When you are born into this world, it's as if you have arrived at the threshold between the visible and invisible. Everything you experience seems to happen in some specific place and at some definite time. But you know your real life is happening in your thoughts, in the way you experience your world through the perceptions of your mind, the way your mind interprets the input of your senses. You start to wonder about the nature of things, the reality hidden deep within them, inaccessible to your senses. You realize you often touch on Reality with only your heart and your mind. Therein lies the tension of human existence, the desire to know what is invisible, the dissatisfaction with the concrete world of our senses. Thus, the longing of the human heart for The Kingdom of God is perhaps an expression of our desire to bridge the tension we feel between the visible and the invisible, to experience Heaven on earth.

I often wonder if prior civilizations, spiritual adepts, mystics and great sages were more easily able to bridge that gap. That is perhaps why the following story delighted me so much. It comes from my friend, Dr. Arvid, so I'll let him tell the story:

I need to tell you a short story that pastor Turneh Woldeselassie shared in the
surmon on Sabbath in Addis Abeba. He just finished 4 weeks of meetings and 23
people were baptized. They have started to translate the surmons into English
because there are so many members from other African countries that need it.
Pastor Turneh felt it a little difficult to av an 'interruptor' as they
somethime call a interpreter. So he told the following story. 'In olden days
many missionaries came from abroad to preach the gospel in Ethiopia. (Now they
need missionaries from us in Europe and America, he said) But one time there was
an American missionary. The Ethiopian translator was not so very well versed in
English and struggled some. After a while the missionary started to preach about
stars. And when he mentioned gallaxies and stuff, the translator got lost. So he
said to the congregation: Now the missionary has gone to heaven, but if you just
sit quietly and patiently and wait, I will tell you what he has said when he
returns to earth.' We all had a good laugh.

It is the naiveté, the childlike innocence of the remark that makes us laugh. But don't be fooled, for Jesus said, "of such is the kingdom of God."

We tend to believe that our age, our society, our science and our wisdom is very great, and we arrogantly and foolishly depreciate the understanding and wisdom of other cultures, past and present. We tend to have a poverty of a deeply felt connection between our spiritual values and the natural world. What we depreciate in those we call "primitive" or "pagan" cultures, is often that close relationship of their spiritual life with their lived presence in close contact to the natural world.

Most of us live in cities so flooded with light-pollution at night that we have never experienced the night sky so brilliant with stars it feels as if one could reach out and touch them! To us, how empty of richness are the words of God to Job when He asked: "Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Peiades, or loose the bands of Orion?" We are unable to perceive the invisible in the mountains and forests around us, living as we do quite divorced from the natural world, literally and spiritually. And we, in our misguided pride, think to impose our impoverished spiritual understanding on the world around us! Heaven forbid!

Perhaps our spiritual lives would be juicier and more joyful if we could frankly appreciate and believe that our preacher has momentarily gone to heaven and will return to us if we sit quietly and patiently and wait!

I think we should just shut up, sit quietly and wait!