Heaven

[awediot]

(This insisted upon itself...)

Heaven, paradise, nirvana, utopia or the ocean of All, is perhaps an even harder a topic than hell, as it is so selfishly rewarding in nature, and glorifies the frivolous escapism that threatens to distract us from the hard work ahead. It is a thought of luxury we feel we have no right to indulge while so many can think of nothing other than food or relief. It can be enjoyed later...

(Later...)

Heaven is also, ideally, what you are trying to feed and ease and teach people into. What does your success look like? Both in a practical, humanhood of sharing, caring and Loving sense, and the Cosmic, cloudy, deathless and purified sense? And how alike are the two? Bluntly, climactically, what do you want?

[Lydia]

I have a tougher time hammering out my theology of heaven. I'm pretty sure there won't be any white robes or harps, but other than that I'm stumped.

I hope that - assuming there is a Heaven - it would include some sort of reunion with deceased loved ones. But I really can't say.

What do you think?

*edited becaused I wanted to ask you what you thought, not what you "thin".

[Jennifer5]

I say yes, but not the way other people think of it

[awediot]

Heaven is the lucid dream that sticks, waking us from this surreal slumber. We would dissolve with unworthiness if we knew what we were soon to become.. Angels are honored to serve us...

be ready to have your mind read...

[Dash]

Gosh...been thinking about this for several days, and to echo the sentiments of others, this is harder.

(actually there are a number of very difficult polls in play these days)

As I have mentioned in the "hell" thread, I see these concepts as literary developments (Never actually got through Dante's Paradisio, btw...). I don't think either one of them are particularly well developed in the Bible, and most of our modern conceptions are the result of later literature.

Which is fine....

Christ spoke of the "Kingdom of Heaven," which to me is a completely different concept than our traditional "Heaven." His "Kingdom of Heaven" is something (as I see it) that we can seek now, and even participate in now, as we come to understand what Christ was "about." It is very near to us. It's about how we relate to our sisters and brothers, it's about how we connect with the spiritual, and it's about how we personally become the peace that Christ offers the world.

The "Heaven" beyond death, for me, would be a continuation...a further development...an evolution of our current state. The difference between a caterpillar and a butterfly....the difference between looking in at the Divine through a window and walking in out of the cold...

When I was a wee lad...

...One darkening twilight, my older brother dashed away toward the farmhouse, leaving me alone near the edge of the open fields. I was scared out there and wanted nothing more than to follow, but my path led between the old empty granary on my right and the monstrous, sagging "green shed" on the left. The black squares of their windows gaped at me like sockets hungry for a child's eyes. So, I stood stock still...I'd swear my brain was screaming signals to every muscle, "RUN!" Yet nothing moved. (Do you know the power an abandoned shed has over a small boy?) As the vast night of the fields crept up behind me I was still not quite brave enough to pass the black horrors of great-grandpa's ruins.

Heaven...not so far away in a bright house beyond my fears...

I moved the same moment I yelled... With "MOM" as my battlecry, I fled mad olympic strides past who knows what ghastly, groping fingers, and leathery grins till I wrapped my fist around God's sweet door handle of grace.

And then inside...

...and a good solid door between me and the beasties.

So...I guess this is a yes (if this is a yes) but not so much a place, as an aspect of awareness...an unfurling of our true nature after long waiting.

[pnggrad79]

My beliefs about heaven are much the same as they are about hell. I believe there are both. Simply because Jesus made references to both. Again His audience was primarily Jewish people. And again I don't know if it is different from pre-New Covenant heaven or not. I know there is a throne of God,and I know that the book of Hebrews teaches that the kingdom of God is in our hearts. So...

I guess we shall see. It was interesting though that more people believe in heaven than believe in hell in the poll. Hmmm....