IMAGINE YOU FOUND HEAVEN!
;-(
AND NO ONE WOULD FOLLOW.
YET.
That's how it is with me. So much to do. So much at stake. So little time.
HELLISH
Well, what is your answer to yourself - What do you do?
TASKS are "me" and "mine" oriented for Pleasure; prostituting ourselves and teaching our children to do the same.
MISSION is "we" and "thine" oriented for JOY.
How many of us will come out of this "Matrix" when we know of the choice? How many of us will choose to be "Saved?" FRODO DID NOT.
Dickens saw the same problem. I suspect he wrote "A Christmas Carrol" entirely to try to show us, and bring us out. The "Ignorance" Dickens speaks of I am sure is our Blissful Blindness to, Divine Divorce from the "Want" of others:
`Look here.'
From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.
`Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed the Ghost.
They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.
Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.
`Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more.
`They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. `And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. `Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And abide the end.'
`Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge.
`Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. `Are there no workhouses.' The bell struck twelve.
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.
Imagine the "PROPERTY RIGHTS" among the following folks:
THE "PROPERTY RIGHTS" AMONG THOSE LIVING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH:
THE LAWS AMONG THOSE LIVING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH:
INDIVIDUALLY AND SUPREMELY -
COLLECTIVELY AND SUBORDINATE TO THE ABOVE -
Dietrich Bonhoeffer captured it divinely: “Who stands fast? Only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom, or his virtue, but who is ready to sacrifice all this when he is called to obedient and responsible action in faith and in exclusive allegiance to God – the responsible man, who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and call of God.”
Imagine the "INFRASTRUCTURE" among the following folks:
THE INFRASTRUCTURE AMONG THOSE LIVING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH:
THE GEOGRAPHICAL BOUNDARIES AMONG THOSE LIVING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH:
Imagine the "TIME HORIZON / FOCUS" among the following folks:
THE TIME HORIZON / FOCUS AMONG THOSE LIVING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH: WATCH OUT - THIS ONE IS TRICKY. THE FOLKS ABOVE ARE ACTING OUT OF LOVE - LOVE IS TRUTH AND WISDOM!!!
THE RESOURCE EXTRACTION BEHAVIOR AMONG THOSE LIVING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH:
THE ACTIVITIES AMONG THOSE LIVING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH:
WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE AMONG THOSE LIVING FOR HEAVEN ON EARTH:
CHRISTIANITY:
Any overlap of Christianity with JESUS WAY (Jesus Word, and His word alone) is arbitrary, random, capricious, incidental, variable, hypocritical, noncommittal and rare.
I CHOOSE JESUS' WAY.
I REJECT AND DENOUNCE AS COUNTER TO TRUTH / LOVE / LIFE
CHRISTIANITY AND EVERY OTHER ORGANIZED / INSTITUTIONALIZED / FOSSILIZED RELIGION TO THE EXTENT THAT IT DISPLACES
THE SOLE AND ENTIRE PURSUITE OF TOTAL LOVE / MILITANT BROTHERLINESS / "WORLD FAMILY" / "WE."
PROBABLY EVERY "RELIGION" CAN BE USED TO ACHIEVE A LIFE OF TOTAL LOVE / LIFE / TRUTH AND THE DEGREE TO WHICH THE INDIVIDUAL USES IT IN THIS WAY - WONDERFUL. THIS IS THE POSITION OF GANDHI AND TERESA ALSO.