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Blog 533 – 01.23.2017
Life Is What We Make It

Tempted as we may be to blame the condition of our life on others, fate, God, or some imagined evil counterpart, I think in the end we must accept responsibility. We may not actively choose everything that comes into our life but we do choose how we react to circumstances and often we choose to put ourselves in situations that expose us to all manner of things. Someone gets angry at being in an automobile accident and tries to blame it all on the other driver, the road conditions, the traffic but they chose to be in that vehicle traveling on that road, in that direction, at that time. I remember a scary “altar call song” back in my religious days when I believed in an angry and vengeful god who burned his misbehaving children that said of one of the many who ended up in hell that they would have to admit that they had chosen to be there. I said it was scary. I no longer believe in an angry vengeful god or in fear and guilt based religions. You are entitled to believe whatever you choose, as I am I, but neither of us has to pretend to endorse what we think wrong, harmful, or that just does not make sense to us any more.

I watched a recently released movie over the weekend called “Live By Night.” It was a thoughtful movie staring and directed by Ben Affleck. There are a lot of interesting things in the movie but twice in the movie the line occurs – “Heaven is here.” I carry a large polished rock in my pocked that has “Imagine” written on it. Everytime I touch it I try to imagine my life in the highest and best terms. That my friends is Heaven. No hell below me and above me only sky. Another great heaven quote is in the movie “Field of Dreams” with Kevin Cosner whose dad loved baseball and gets to play again after death on a field Kevin built in his cornfield because he heard a voice saying, “If you build it he will come.” A younger version of his dad than Kevin ever knew asks him, “Is this heaven?” Kevin replies, “No, this is Iowa.” But after some consideration he later remarks, “Maybe this is heaven.”

Imagine you were born to create heaven here on earth. Imagine with John Lennon’s song by the same name that there was no heaven without you in it. Imagine that none of us gets to go Home till we all go Home. You see that is the rub I always have had with the popular take on heaven with a relatively few, by some counts only one hundred forty-four thousand people making the cut – how could anyone enjoy heaven knowing that so many they loved not only did not make it but that they were suffering forever. To me it all smells of ego and not of a loving Universe. Jesus once said, “The kingdom of heaven is within you.” He also said to the religious folk of his day, that the harlots and the tax collectors would enter the kingdom of heaven ahead of them. He did not say instead of them or in place of them but ahead of them. I believe all dogs go to heaven and all people too. I believe heaven and home are synonymous. Like the line repeated twice in the movie I believe heaven is here, within you, within me. We have it in us to make this world a heaven.

Your friend and fellow citizen of heaven,
David White