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Wisdom Quotes
The principles now planted in thy bosom will grow, and one day reach maturity; and in that maturity thou wilt find thy heaven or thy hell.
*David Thomas
Love seeketh not itself to please,
Nor for itself hath any care,
But for another gives its ease,
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair.
*William Blake (1757 - 1827)
Today's Scriptures
2 My heart is filled with bitter sorrow and unending grief 3 for my people, my Jewish brothers and sisters. I would be willing to be forever cursed—cut off from Christ!—if that would save them.
*Romans 9.2-4, CEV
For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
*John 3.26, NLV
Wisdom Story
Once upon a time a man died and ended up in Hell. As he was brought before the Guardian of Hell, he pleaded with the Guardian, saying, "I'm asking your Majesty to be merciful, for I always believed in Jesus Christ and sought to serve Him."
"Can you give me a description of any good deed that you had done on Earth?" asked the Guardian. "If you can, I'll be more than willing to let you go to Heaven instead of staying here." The man thought for a long time and said, "I saved the life of a spider. A bird flew into my garden and destroyed a spider web, and I chased it away."
"OK, I'll ask my Officers to verify this," said the Guardian. So, he sent two Hell Officers to look for the spider whom the wicked man claimed to have saved. The Officers found her in the Heavenly Garden, serving as the Angel of Silk.
"Yes, it's true that he saved my life," the Angel of Silk told the Officers. "I'm very grateful for this, and I'm willing to help him get out of Hell." "How would you do it?" asked the Officers. "I will spin a long, fine piece of silk and drop it from Heaven to Hell. He can hold on to it. And I will lift him to Heaven. There is one condition: My silk appears thin, but it's very strong. He must have faith in it before he can be lifted to Heaven."
The Officers and, then, the Guardian approved the plan. A long, thin piece of silk was produced by the Angel and dropped all the way from Heaven to Hell. The man in Hell held on to the silk, and the Angel started lifting him out. Everything seemed to work well until ....
As the Angel was lifting the man out of Hell, he looked down and saw many Hell residents holding on to the thin piece of silk. The weight of all the persons was stretching the silk tremendously. Suddenly, a thought came to the man, "Can I trust this silk to hold so many? If I cut the other Hell residents loose, this silk need not bear so much weight, and I'm sure that I can get lifted up to Heaven safely!"
He remembered that he had a knife in his pocket. He tried to reach his pocket to find it, but as he took his hand off the silk, he fell back into the darkness of Hell.
So, while the other residents reached Heaven safely, he was unable to get out. The Angel of Silk sighed and told the two Hell Officers, "Well, my silk is very strong but elastic. It would not break no matter how many Hell residents hold on to it. He did not have faith in it and did not long to bring anybody else to get to Heaven. There is nothing else that I can do to bring him out."
Comments
Hell is the ultimate of separation from Divine Love. Hell is being closed in on oneself, cut off from Divine Love and other creatures.
Of course, Heaven is the opposite of the separation of Hell. Heaven is the ultimate of union. Here, one experiences the bliss of Divine Love and compassionate openness and dialogue with other creatures.
Absolutely, Heaven is God, and God is Heaven. John speaks of this Love as reaching to all, offering to all Life by means of offering Itself as the Word.
Paul is living in Christ, and this relationship in Love leads him to yearn for all his kins people to know the freedom and joy of Divine Love. He posits his willingness to accept Hell, or this total separation from his beloved Christ, if it would mean their enjoying Heaven.
Heaven is not an individual way. The way is personal, for each person endures Hell or enjoys Heaven himself or herself. Still, Hell and Heaven are not individual. For example, I by myself do not get to one or the other by trying to get there as a self separate from others. For when I separate myself from others in my search for God and Heaven, as surely as in any other way I find myself apart from both God and others, enclosed in on myself. I cannot find God alone; I cannot enjoy Life apart from a will for others to enjoy it with me, and without efforts in that very direction. Rather, I am by this act of seeking for myself, which is another form of self-seeking ~ though dressed in religious or spiritual garb ~ creating the isolation that itself is Hell.
Compassion is heart-openness to others. In Mahayana Buddhism a Bodhisattva is an enlightened being who himself or herself has experienced Nirvana (or release from spiritual suffering) and chooses from loving compassion to stay within earthly existence until all sentient beings are freed into eternal joy. Contrast the idea of the Bodhisattva with the stress in much religion and spirituality on "my" salvation, enlightenment, or relationship with God. The contrast is clear, is it not? There is no release from the suffering of the self enclosed on itself by that same self seeking salvation focused on itself, even if the self claims to be seeking God to save itself ~ such would violate the very nature of Love, Who is God.
Like John speaks of God, the Love that frees us to experience Heaven and now within us, as a spiritual state of heart-mind, is the Love that reaches out in open compassion unguarding the heart-mind, to be a means of Grace to all.
No, likely none of us can enjoy Heaven or Hell now as absolute states in full degree. Still, we now are experiencing Heaven or Hell in partialness, and we do this by the choices we make. And those choices are hellish even when we enclose ourselves inward in the name of religion, spirituality, nationalism, moralism, or God. Any enclosing in on the self in self-seeking is Hell, be that Hell religious or otherwise, and be it linked with the idea of God or not.
Do you want more of Heaven and less of Hell? Open your heart-mind just a little more to the world around you.
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*The Wisdom story is an adaptation of a Buddhist tale.
Brian will respond to requests pertaining to seeking a Spiritual Mentor. He offers retreats, workshops, and classes in such subjects as Contemplative Prayer (he trains in Visualized Praying, Centering Prayer, Christian Meditation, The Jesus Prayer, ...); Contemplative Living; A Spiritual Understanding of the Lord's Prayer; Philippians and Spiritual Community; Spiritual Growth From Matter to Spirit; Spiritual Use of the Scripture.
See any major on-line bookseller for his book An Ache for Union.
For replies and biographical information, and submission to "The Light Shines" daily devotionals ~ a ministry of Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL, see next page:
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