«
»

heaven is here- as a pattern in language

heaven is here- as a pattern in language

Jesus ascending to heaven

Jesus ascending to heaven (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Discovery and Exploration of Heaven

I do not mean spaceships, folks. Heaven is discovery and exploration. Hell is shame, and condemnation, and struggle.

Odd as it may seem, even the discovery and exploration of Hell is also Heaven. This reminds me of the saying that one’s fundamental nature can be found anywhere, even in the so-called lower realms of shame, condemnation, and struggle.

So, if one is discovering and exploring something- anything- that’s Heaven. That’s quite accessible, huh?

But maybe it’s just too simple. What about rigidly adhering to religious traditions like the ten amendments or tithing?

Perhaps it would be of some interest to review an ancient teaching on just that subject. I’ll identify the specific source at the end.

10“Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

13“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

14“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

15People were also bringing babies to Jesus to have him touch them. When the disciples saw this, they rebuked them. 16But Jesus called the children to him and said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 17I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”

That is from the New Testament of the Christian Bible, from the book of Luke, Chapter 18, verses 10-17. For more on the subject of rigid or dogmatic adherence to religious traditions, I invite you to discover and explore Mark 7:7, in which Jesus quotes Isaiah.

However, the basic idea is that discovery and exploration is the natural state of children and perhaps even all creatures of any age. Children are innocent and humble not because they never cause any damage or harm. Any parent can tell you that little kids are quite capable of breaking and destroying things, aren’t they?

Christmas: a holiday recognizing children’s universal love of tearing paper to shreds

For instance, my mom told me that when I was little she often found me surrounded by a pile of little pieces of something I had shredded which she had left accessible to me. I did not seem to especially discriminate between valuable legal documents or expensive artwork or blank pieces of paper. I just had some kind of ripping fetish. So, if you show me a three year-old then I will show you someone who is willing to improve a treasured work of fine art with a few extra layers of crayon markings.

By the way, even more alarming for my mom was when she found me with half a caterpillar in my hand. Apparently, I had eaten the other half.

It’s not that children are innocent of causing any trouble. Their innocence is that they do not blame anyone or themselves. That is, they have no shame or condemnation, no ill will against others or themselves, no hatred of any of life and thus no struggle against God.

As to the distinction of innocence in contrast to shaming, I could reference the famous story of the Garden of Eden or the many references to forgiveness in various ancient and modern revered teachings. For now, I’ll just repeat these two short comments of Jesus: “I did not come to judge the world” and “Condemn not.”

I’m not even going to share a lot about how we make life hell with our language and our linguistic beliefs or dogmas. You can discover and explore that yourself.

I’ll give one personal example though. Would you like that?

Alright then, but before I give it to you, it is important to me that you are clear why I am giving you this example. I am giving you this example because you should be more like me.

No, seriously, however you are is a problem for me. I need you to change immediately, and if you refuse, then I will punish you… like eternally. Further, if you do change in the way that I dictate you should, then, I will reward you with eternal bliss, but not yet.

After you die, only then would that eternity begin. What? You didn’t expect eternity to be around forever, did you?

Anyway, as I was saying, I forbid you to be how you are. Stop that. Hey, I mean right now. Look, are you going to make me come over there and… listen, what exactly is your problem, anyway?

Actually, nevermind, I’m not going to give a personal exmaple to someone like you. You just don’t deserve it.

By the way, I’m only withholding from you because I love you. Yeah, the reason you are so disappointing to me is that I love you so much. Wow: and this is how you reward me? Amazing!

Until now, I simply did not really realize how much you have ruined my life. In fact, you have made life hell not just for me, but for everyone and yes I do I mean eternally.

Like, even the part of my life that already happened before I met you, you ruined that part too by not properly respecting it. You definitely should be more proud of me, obviously! You really should have devoted more of your time to glorifying me personally. I’m a victim of your lack of worship of my ego.

So, what are you going to do about this? Did I just hear you say that you’re going to forgive me? Forgive me for what? Oh my freaking God: where the hell do you get that crap? I’m not talking to you ever again.

Did you hear me? Answer me, you idiot! I said I’m never talking to you again. Hello???

Okay, fine, I’ll give you a personal example if you just sincerely apologize for being so much like how you are. Oh, come on, Jesus flipping Christ, don’t go back to your old act that you don’t know what I mean! In that case, just forget it. Now, I don’t even remember the god damning story I used to believe in.

Related articles
Related articles

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

This entry was posted on April 20, 2012 at 11:46 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “heaven is here- as a pattern in language”

  1. Multiplication of the Loaves « Inspirations Says:
    April 21, 2012 at 5:19 am | Reply

    [...] heaven is here- as a pattern in language  (jrfibonacci.wordpress.com) [...]

  2. The Fear of Hell « Confessions Of A YEC Says:
    April 24, 2012 at 8:36 am | Reply

    [...] heaven is here- as a pattern in language (jrfibonacci.wordpress.com) Like this:LikeBe the first to like this post. [...]

  3. therooflesschurch Says:
    June 17, 2012 at 11:33 am | Reply

    I love reading new and personal interpretations of scripture. Your mind is very creative and I bet you get a lot of people thinking. I enjoyed what you wrote.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.

Join 224 other followers

%d bloggers like this: