Heaven is an inside job

"By standing firm, you will gain life."

Luke 21:19

"If God is for us, who can be against us?"

Romans 8:31

"I am convinced that neither death nor life,

neither angels nor demons,

neither the present nor the future,

nor any powers,

neither height nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us

from the love of God

that is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8: 38-39

"Peace I leave with you;

my peace I give you.

I do not give to you as the world gives.

Do not let your hearts be troubled

and do not be afraid."

John 14:27

There will be peace in our homes, streets, neighborhoods, countries and world when there is peace in our hearts.  The last battle is always fought in the human heart and mind. It is there where Martin Luther said the battle between heaven and hell was ultimately fought. The archetypal battle is the struggle between truth and falsehood, between the mortal human ego and the immortal divine human spirit. The world is simply the playground (or battleground) for the human heart.  It is Shakepeare's stage.  If there is ever going to be peace here, it has to begin inside your mind. 

The scripture from the Gospel of John, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you."  John 14:27 is my greatest hope for the world and my greatest joy.  It lives, seated on the throne of my heart, filling me with pure life and light.  That peace comes in the wake of the storm between the ego and the deeper, indwelling spirit.  It is the victory song of the soul.  It is the gift, the prize, won after we have finally let go of all our efforts to control, manipulate, cry, whine and self pity, play the victim and all the many other things we humans do to attempt to win at the game of life.  Like spoiled children, we throw temper tantrums, which tragically leads to and includes throwing bombs at each other.

I have come to realize that by trying, we lose.  By letting go, surrendering to God, and opting out of the game entirely, we win.  And, what we win, in the end, is peace.  This peace is not a cease fire.  It is not a truce.  It is not simply the absence, the void, the silence, after the weapons have all stopped firing, or the shouting stops, or the gang members go home to sleep off the drugs.  It is not passive, this peace.  It is dynamic, creative, powerful, alive with joy, with song, perhaps dancing.  It is the birds singing in the rain, the greening of the Earth after the dry summer heat has turned cooler and wetter.  It is the rebirth of the spirit in the dry desert of the dead man spiritually, like Jeremiah's dry bones. 

As we humans have always sought peace, we have also sought war.  We are a terribly scary being.  If I were a visitor from another planetary system, I would be terrified of us.  I would get back in my space craft and beam back home.  We are frightened, we are cunning, we are devious, we are weak.  Yet, we have within us the garden of Eden, the paradise of heaven, Nirvana.  We have so much potential and power of creation, yet we stalk this planet, killing each other in wars, raping women and young girls in central Africa, exploiting the weak and poor and exploit the Earth itself.  WHY? 

Oh, man, you already know the answer.  We do these terrible things because we are afraid.  We have lost our way home to heaven within us, and tremble at the fear of another winter without food, or somewhere in our collective memory we remember - depending in which ethnic origin your family tree is rooted - some kind of terror, buried in our genetic memory somewhere, that whispers through our DNA to be careful, to be watchful, someone is going to storm our home in the night, rip us out of bed, beat and torture us, lead us off to death camps.  The history of the human race is worse than a horror story.  It is THE ultimate horror story. 

And, yet, our Lord promises to give us His peace, heaven's peace.

And, year after year, every Christmas we pray for His peace.  We welcome Him into our hearts and homes and again commit ourselves to living lives of peace. And, year, after year, we fail again and again and again.  Then, we wholesale give up and await the Second Coming, as if maybe the next time around we'll get the message.

I am not going to say that there is no malevolent non creative force out there that can and does deceive and control us.  We all know there is.  No progressive person, despite how "liberal" he or she may be, can say there is no "satan" or evil empire (which is NOT the USA, but which may coexist in any free society). 

We are all challenged to make a choice and live in conscious awareness, choosing between God and materiality. We all have a choice every moment of our lives between God and the sights, sounds and temptations of this material world in which we all live.  Which gets top billing in your mind, in your heart, in your life?  Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and others, about which I'm not as well informed, all state unequivocally to honor God first, before all things.  Jesus says you cannot worship both.  You cannot worship God and this material reality, this third dimension lowest of all conscious forms of matter (how's that for new age metaphysicalese?) 

It's true and it's always been true, we've just always framed it in different language.  The bottom line is always the same.  God must come first and then goodness flows into our lives like an abundant river of peace.  Maybe some think that that abundant river of peace might just bring you wealth, I do not think that.  I don't think God negotiates in our currency.  Peace, in my book, is the greatest gift we can ever receive.  Joy, love, holy wisdom and abundant and eternal life are all I live for. 

When you simply choose to put God first, love God, even if you don't even really know what you're choosing or loving, but if you know at least that God is love and God is creator, giver and lover of life, and you choose to love, that's a real good first step.  You will have taken a quantum leap away from the malevolent power paradigm of the world, away from those "demons " Paul talks about in Romans.  You take a stand, a firm stand, and you WILL find your (real) life because you will have turned away from what is not real, not eternal and obviously not life-giving, nor peace-making/keeping. 

My prayer for our world this morning, as Palestine and Israel sit down together as brothers to embrace each other as human brothers and sisters, honoring the dignity of each, is that they both look into their sacred writings and into their hearts from where those writings first came and out of which were carved, and make that firm stand.  Both believe in the SAME GOD, for heaven's sake.  I know they can do this.  I know we can all do this.  No one ever said it was easy, but do we have a choice, anymore?