Dear Heaven Maker:
A story can either be unconsciously lived or it can be consciously chosen and lived.
At heart, a story is a choice. We can be victims of our story or we can choose to be the authors of our story. It really is that simple.
The story of Humanity can be ‘This is not Heaven on Earth and it will never be’ or it can be ‘We are experiencing and co-creating Heaven on Earth.’
When I started Project Heaven on Earth, years ago, I simply said, “I’m not happy with the current story of the world and I’m going to change it, first for myself, and then for the world.” Many people told me that was an insane move, impossible, naive. “What right do you have,” they asked, “to change the story of Humanity?” But that’s exactly the point. I’m a human being, just like you are, just like many of those people who are engaged in co-creating Heaven on Earth are. And we have chosen the new story of Humanity to be ‘We are co-creating Heaven on Earth.” Why? Because we used the authority we have as human beings to declare the story we’re living in. Everyone has that authority. Project Heaven on Earth says, “You have the authority, by declaration, to help create the new story of what it means to be a human and what it means to be Humanity.”
Here are two examples of the power we have to set the story we live in.
1) Many residents of the city of Detroit have long grown accustomed to stories that celebrate the ‘ruin porn’ of abandoned auto-factories, urban decay and black-white tensions.
Mike Duggan, the mayor of Detroit, wanted to do something about that. He wanted to establish a new narrative for his city, a new story that, instead of deflating people, inspires them.
To do that he’s hired Aaron Foley as the city’s first Chief Storyteller. Foley is the former editor of Blac Detroit magazine.
Foley’s job is to create a new story, a story of a Detroit with vibrant neighbourhoods, where people learn about each other and work together. He doesn’t deny the current reality, in fact he writes about it. But he’s also adding examples of people and organizations that are making Detroit work.
2) Another example, is my friend Mary Alice Arthur. She’s a Story Activist.
Story, for her, is the human operating system. She believes it’s important to be awake to the stories we’re living in. She wants us to be engaged in stories that are activating, that are generative, that help us live together well and take us to a more flourishing future.
For Mary Alice, we make sense and meaning of the world from our own stories.
Isn’t it time for ‘Hell on Earth’, at what ever level we engage with it, to no longer be our story. Isn’t it time for our story to be Heaven on Earth?
I think so.
Are you in?
Martin Rutte
