Some days, your heart just gets ripped wide open.
Not a comfy gentle expansion, but a claws-out tooth-baring rift down the sternum. The layers of convention and politeness ripped off and flung to one side, leaving truth lying throbbing out in the open (where in an ideal world it would’ve been along).
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We do not love in an ideal world. THAT is abundantly clear!
Instead we live in a world that demands we play nice and blend in and, for heaven’s sake, don’t cause any trouble.
This world misses the truth that its prophets and gurus and sons of god have ALWAYS caused trouble! That’s their point: they shake us out of dull grey complacency and anaemic niceness, they rip our masks off, and lay our truth out in the open. That IS their point.
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To my mind, heaven (if it exists at all — I remain unconvinced by traditional depictions of eternity) is unlikely to be a shallow ankle-covering bastion of polite brushing over.
I doubt that whatever gods exist are actually that interested in upholding middle class niceties.
Certainly, that son of god we count our years from didn’t seem that way inclined. His dining with prostitutes and tax men, feeding everyone (whether they’d washed their hands or not), and the literally overthrowing examples of local capitalism on one notorious occasion would suggest otherwise… But then he was about love. And love gives no fucks about niceties.
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Love — real love — does not stand by and watch the world become a bland commercial.
Love — real love — does not hold back because it wants to be nice.
Love — real love — is partnered with truth (not politeness).
It rips us open — baring soul, revealing humanness, illuminating our all — so we can see ourselves truly yet compassionately. And so we can learn to see each other the same.
Love — real love — shatters our complacency, sticks a rocket up us, and makes us look at our lives and our worlds anew.
Love — real love — challenges to follow our souls (not our bank accounts) and engage joyously with this life we have right now.
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To my mind, heaven is all about love — real love.
Uncomfortable love.
Truth-filled love.
Soul-filled love.
Heaven is having your heart ripped wide open, so you can expand in love — and thus in joy — and thus live more lovingly in this world.
And THAT is what we truly need.
Not niceness. (Fuck niceness.)
Not complacency. (Fuck complacency.)
Not polite and dainty social conventions. (Fuck them, too.)
We need LOVE.
Real love.
Love with teeth and heart and soul.
Love that will risk offending to spread its truth in the world.
Love that cares for everyone (whether they’ve washed their hands or not).
Love that makes room for everyone (including the prostitutes and the tax man).
Love that helps us wake up and live this life fully!
With soul!
With joy!
With truth!
And, indeed, with love!
THAT is what creates heaven — and we CAN create that right here on earth right now — if we choose to.
Let’s wake up!
Let’s do this!
Let’s love.
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P.S. If my swearing in this piece offends you, you might need to reread it ;)
