Dear Heaven Maker:
We have to think about ’Not Heaven on Earth.’
We have to understand the belief structures that keep it in place.
I recently read this quote by Russel Kirk:
“Men and women are not perfectible, conservatives know; and neither are political institutions. We cannot make a heaven on earth, though we may make a hell. We all are creatures of mingled good and evil; and, good institutions neglected and ancient moral principles ignored, the evil in us tends to predominate. Therefore the conservative is suspicious of all utopian schemes. He does not believe that, by power of positive law, we can solve all the problems of humanity. We can hope to make our world tolerable, but we cannot make it perfect. When progress is achieved, it is through prudent recognition of the limitations of human nature.”
And here’s another one:
“On Earth there is no heaven,
but there are pieces of it.”
– Jules Renard
And yet another.
“There is no heaven on Earth. Not now anyway.”
– Jean Reno
Some people believe that Heaven on Earth is not possible.
Here are some of the reasons I’ve found:
- We’ve never had it so we can never have it.
- I can’t bring it about alone….not me.
- It’s impossible.
- If we have it, there’ll be nothing left to do.
Let’s go through those one by one:
We’ve never had it so we can never have it.
We never flew and now we do.
We’ve never been able to talk to someone half way around the world and now we can.
The fact that it’s never been done before means it’s never been done before….it says nothing about the future. As a Rabbi I read once said, “The past has a vote but not a veto.”
I can’t bring it about…not me.
If all 7.7 billion people believe this then we have a collective story called “I can’t have an impact. I can’t make a difference.”
But isn’t it true that new inventions, new ideas, new stories always start with the first person who says “I can, I will.”
It’s impossible.
That only says it’s not been done before. It doesn’t say it can’t done in the future.
If we have it, there’ll be nothing left to do.
Think of the logic of this statement. It’s saying let’s continue to have the sufferings in the world (war, hunger, disease, poverty, etc.) because getting rid of them would leave us with nothing to do.
For me, I’d rather eliminate these sufferings and then discover what’s next.
Do you have any beliefs about ‘Not Heaven on Earth?’ Write and let me know.
I’m really interested in these limiting, what I call mis-beliefs. The more we learn, the more we can help melt them.
Ask your friends, family. Ask people at work. Write and let me know.
I want to start a discussion about this. I invite you to delve deeper into them, to find the underlying structures holding them in place so they simply fall apart.
Thanks,
Martin
Martin Rutte
