Sunday Celebrations

 I am reading various excerpts from female ministers in a book called, “There’s a Woman In the Pulpit.” The women come from traditional Christian churches; they are a mix of ages, practices, and sexual orientation. Each excerpt is a reflective writing of a personal incident that has happened to them as a female minister. The one that intrigues me at the moment is a reflection of “home” and “homelessness” and how a minister might talk about Heaven to one who is without a home.

From a traditional viewpoint, Heaven is a destination. It is a place to look forward to in the afterlife. It is a place that if you “behave” and do good works in this life, you will have a spot there in the afterlife. It is a reward system. However, she contemplates, what does that mean to a person who is homeless and what does it mean to them individually when something in this life is not working which has precipitated the reason that they are homeless. One example is of a First Nation individual who was so traumatized by the Christian run schools that beat out of him his language and his customs. Why would he trust this white Christian lady with words of a Heaven far, far away when it was her kind that led the beatings as a child stripping him of his culture and identity? Why would a First Nation person want to go to a white heaven anyway? Her second reflection told of a woman who was severely beaten from her own mother in her primary years. What good does it do to tell her to know in heart that “heaven awaits.” How does that help her in the here and now?

She concludes with, “Next time people talk about their home in heaven, I think I might ask them what they are doing to bring that heavenly home to earth.” [Gillian Hoyer]

I reflect on our Unity teachings, the interpretation that we have come to understand, that Heaven is not an “out there” experience, but rather one that is reachable at any moment “within.” Heaven is not a destination. It is a level of consciousness that exists in this very moment, or it can, if you allow it to be so. For those who have suffered childhood traumatic events, would the concept of Heaven be almost impossible to grasp? Maybe it would be a strong hold – if I can get through this, I can do anything. Or maybe it would be thought of as such an unobtainable goal that it would not even be a goal. How could someone like me be worthy of Heaven? For those of us raised in traditional Christian churches, Heaven is an outside event. If I do this, then maybe…heaven will be for me.

If we change our thinking – if we interrupt those childhood patterns and come back to the place of unconditional LOVE – but stop! How can we believe in an unconditional anything when we have experienced the opposite? When we have lived the very opposite? We must first be open to the possibility of a new definition, a new experience, a new understanding or exhausted by everything we have known up to this point. What has been, no longer works for us. There is a desire that there has to be more. 

Freddie Mercury sang:

There must be more to life than this
How do we cope in a world without love
Mending all those broken hearts
And tending to those crying faces
There must be more to life than living
There must be more than meets the eye

We have to dig deeper. Have you paused and reflected on moments that you might call Heaven? It can start with something small: the purr of a kitten, the laughter of a baby, the sound of the ice cream truck, the phone call of grandma, the song of the birds calling at daybreak, the sun softly setting at nightfall. What is it for you?

Immerse yourself in the feeling of this moment, this heavenly moment. Be in the sensations that surround you when you feel at peace like for a moment, everything is ok in the world, that is a glimpse of Heaven. It is recognizing the Good that is already here. We don’t have to create it. We just have to be open to experience it. We must open our awareness to what already is. Pause long enough to think, what is heaven to you? The painting you worked on came out better than you imagined; the whoosh in the trees whispering above your head; the miracle of life birthed with those puppies; the diagnosis – “cancer free.” What is heaven to you?  

How do we sustain Heaven? It takes a conscious effort to recognize Heaven in and all around us. It is the Good that we are receptive too, that allows us to feel at peace. No one and no thing can give that to you. It is an inside job, one that we recognize within. My perception of heaven may be different from yours. My peace may be different from yours. My harmony with all that is, may be different from yours. There is no magical formula, but there is a formula. It is the one you design.

It is like what Kahlil Gibran says of children:

They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.

I can share my thoughts of Heaven with you, but you will have your own thoughts. I can share my experience of Heaven, but you will have your own experience of Heaven. Your state of mind and my state of mind will be on their own level of consciousness. Our job is to raise that level of consciousness so that we may experience Heaven on Earth for ourselves.

Beholding the Sacred You,

Rev. Tracey