heaven v. hell

It's been a while since I've waxed philosophically here. Mostly I haven't been thinking philosophically much - not sure why.

Let's just say that I'm emerging from a long, dry spell.

I've been thinking about heaven and hell.

It's something that I've written about before and something that I've definitely continued to think about. I guess it all started with the Brian McLaren and his writings - Generous Orthodoxy and the "A New Kind of Christian" series in particular. Then there's Rob Bell too.

At Watershed lately, they've been talking about the questions that some of the peeps there have had. It was part of the "Quandary" series. So it's been back in my mind.

We've got this dichotomous view of heaven and hell. Black and White. Or, we'd like to think it's black and white. We also have this view that heaven and hell is a "something to come later" concern. All this combines and results in a group of people that try to convince people that they're wrong and need to "turn or burn."

Here's what I've been thinking.

First: Heaven and Hell are present realities. They happen in various amounts and through various means every day. There are some big things we can cite - Darfur does far too much to increase the amount of hell that we encounter. At the same time there are countless moments of heaven on various scales that make the kingdom of heaven a little more of a reality. Jesus talked about the Kingdom of heaven being at hand - being present. Our job is to make that a reality.

Secondly: Rather than being a dichotomy, heaven and hell represent endpoints on a scale. I don't want to get to scientific with this - all I mean is that if we think about the kingdom of heaven (that is a reality where things are as God intends them to be) as being one endpoint and the kingdom of hell (that is a reality where thigns are exactly the opposite of what God intends them to be) then the things that happen here place us somewhere on the scale between heaven and hell.

Thirdly: We can AFFECT where we are on that scale. The decisions that we make and the actions that we take culminate in such a way that can move mankind towards one of those endpoints (either heaven or hell). We can choose to bring heaven to earth or to bring hell to earth. In practical terms, when we choose to be kind to our neighbors that are far too loud late into the night (not that I have any experience with that) we bring heaven to earth. When we choose to sit and talk with a homeless man rather than just pass them by or maybe just blindly throwing them a couple of bucks, we bring heaven to earth. In the same way, we can choose to bring hell to earth by choosing to do things that are less than what we know we should be doing.

All that to say I wish we could stop thinking about hell as a place that "sinners are condemned to" and start thinking about how heaven "is a place where people act as though every one is a child of God; where His love for them is greater than our condemnation of them."

It's dangerous to think this way - or at least threatening. People think that you're universalist and that you're throwing out what it says in the scripture. In reality, I feel like it's holding more closely to it. There's no judgment - that's not my role. I'm doing to others as I would like them to do for me. I'm loving my neighbor regardless of who they are. I still think there's a "right" way to live. It's not heretical.

Anyway - just thoughts.

Grace,

Des

tree of life

As often is found true, Kristy and I were watching National Geographic tonight and they had a great special on about the amazing-ness of Yosemite and the wonders therein. One of the things that struck us both was about the giant sequoias that grow there.

Firstly, they can be 3000 years old and 300 feet high. That in itself is incredible.

But then they were discussing the way that water travels up inside the tree for nourishment. Three hundred feet is a long way for water to travel . . . especially considering things like gravity and pressure and logic. However, what mr. narrator said was the the sequoia has the most efficient hydraulic system on earth . . . more efficient than anything man has been able to recreate.

So that's amazing.

But there's more.

Every day the average sequoia moves 1 ton of water through it's system . . . 1 ton. That's about 907 litres ( which is 907 liters spelled in American English . . . or 240 gallons).

One tree, one day, one ton.

There was also a piece of granite that fell from one of the mountain faces that was bigger than two football fields (approximately 1.89 Canadian Football League fields - they're 110 yards each) that caused a shockwave when it landed that snapped trees for about a half-a-mile. The air that rushed out from underneath on the leading edge of this shockwave was travelling at 300 mph.

There are a lot more stats in this post than I thought there would be . . . but it's all good.

Grace,

Des

eyes

I live in a world where pornography is ok - where objectifying people (not just women) is ok if it sells products, makes money, serves some "greater good." I'm not gonna lie - I know that it can reek havoc on your brain, your heart, and your mind.

Too many guys know how powerful it is and how hard it is to leave behind.

So, I've been thinking about these things. Seems like every couple of years or so God really challenges me on some big issues . . . a few years ago it was homosexuality . . . if you look back through the annals of this blog, I'm sure you'll find more than one post on it.

Recently, it's been porn. What it does to your brain, your relationships with others, with God...

I've been forced to think about what it means to look at someone through God's eyes.

I'm convinced it's looking at people through the eyes of children. Not being a parent, of course, I have to get my information from other people - from parents that have kids with eyes.

That happened this week at watershed. We've been in the middle of a series called Stogies and Stilettos for a few weeks and this week was about "inside the feminine mind." It was good stuff. On somewhat of a tangent, Taryn (who was sharing at the time) spoke of how her son had bought her a gaudy $1 hair band from the dollar store. To spare you the details however ugly she thought it looked, Colson (her son) thought it was beautiful. She went on to say that he thought she was tall (she's not tall), she's young (she is . . . but not as young as her son) and all these things that she thought she was not.

I took a mental tangent of my own after that. I want to look at people, no matter who they are, through the eyes of a child - to see that there is value and beauty and greatness in everyone - in fact, that the opposite of those things don't even exist.

I went on to think that there are no sexual complications through the eyes of a child. There is no lust. There is no objectifying. How do we get there? What do we have to do to be restored?

They're pretty powerful thoughts . . . another measure of wisdom from the mind of a child.

God, help me, a guy in objectified society see people as valuable, free, wise, caring humanity. Restore my eyes, my heart, my mind to that of a child.

O, to be a child again.

Grace,

Des