All That Remains ...

Pre-occupation, constant demands for your attention, too many things to do and too little time to ever complete them all; what do all of these realities of your life have in common?  They create a symphony of distraction, cause you to believe you must make impossible choices, and most of all drown out that still small voice.  Is it any wonder that scripture states … “be still, and know that I am God.”  Our lives are anything but still, our demands ever present, our needs real, and our time already spoken for.  And the consequence is a life too busy to find time for anything of real value, instead buried in minutia of meaningless details with no end in sight.

Stop it already.  Just stop.  Take a deep breath, slowly exhale.  Now just for a minute prioritize all the things you still need to do today, as if you were going to literally be dead tomorrow.  Not trying to be morbid, but does anything actually still exist on your “important” list of to-do’s.  I doubt it.  In point of fact, the only things that remain on a list of to-do’s when seriously expecting imminent death – are the things that really matter – i.e. relationships and the sharing of love.  In those critical last minutes of flight 93, and on the floors trapped above the flames in the twin towers, how many cell phone calls were placed to loved ones to simply say those critical words … I love you.

No one in that position calls the office to get that one last task moved along a little further.  No one calls the mall to see if they still have that item you have been shopping for.  They call the people who matter.  Then they say the only thing that really matters in the time they have left.  But remove the threat of impending, remove the immediacy, and we resume life as if we have all the time in the world to get around to attending to those precious things.  People seem to make little time to love until they realize how truly important time is.  This is the lesson of our mortality.  To help us see that the fragility of life should guide us closer to the things that really matter, and keep us from wasting the time we have been given.  Seconds count, minutes matter, hours are precious, days are a gift, years are a treasure.  You cannot measure time by money, as the value of time is far greater than that of money.

And while the world around us makes little time to love, they make even less time for the Author of love.  The Bible speaks of a “remnant” groups of believers who greet the Lord when He comes again.  Remnant is all that remains.  When I look around at the crippling distractions of our lives, and see so few people who even care if they miss time with God, I am amazed at how many seem perfectly content in the pain they live with each day.  People seem to run full speed and head first into the brick walls in their immediate path, damaging themselves, and hurting everyone who cares for them.  And then they do it again and again, each time seemingly having forgotten the immediate past.  We carry our burdens ourselves, knowing we are not up to the task, failing miserably, and then act surprised at the results.

“Why me?” cries the alcoholic while pouring drink after drink into the glass in front of them.  When not completely overcome by the effects of their condition, the alcoholic has no time for God, no time for love, and has to work even harder to make up for the time lost to their condition.  A spiraling downward tornado designed to pull us beyond our hope.  But a still small voice cries out, “you don’t have to live this way.”  It reminds us … “I came so that you might have life, and have it more abundantly.”  Lay your burdens, your addictions, your self-inflicted pain, on Jesus and find “Rest.”

While the world seems content to ignore their painful conditions; Christians claim the name of God, but remain content doing no better for themselves than emulating the lives of the world.  Christians, despite council to the contrary, allow themselves to become just as distracted, just as busy, and just as self-reliant as their neighbors all around them.  Instead of surrendering the will to Christ, and becoming a new creature, we cling to the old carnal one and seek to feed our lust.  Instead of learning to give up to God, and find His way of our escape from sin, we dash towards sin at full speed ahead – counting only on the mercy of forgiveness to save us, rather than the power of Christ to actually change what we choose to do.

Sometimes as I look around both inside and outside of the church, I wonder is anyone really still waiting for His return?  Does anyone just miss hanging out with God anymore?  Does anyone have any questions for Him that don’t start with the words; “can I have …”  Does anyone actually offer love upwards, or do they merely seek it from Him, not for Him.  I wonder, is what I see all that remains?

God setup the original day off concept all the way back at the beginning of our existence.  He knew, better than us, that we needed to take a break from our routines, or we would go nuts.  God loves to hang out with us, and so He setup a day just for that.  One day in seven to spend with us, to talk with us, to enjoy with us, to just hang out with us.  But fast forward to 2009 and man has left behind any lingering ideas of hanging out with God anymore.  We simply do not have time for Him.

In the book of Exodus, in the definition of love God outlined in 10 precepts of His character, He stated … “remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.”  While we may have forgotten God, He has not forgotten us.  He still wants to hang out with us.  It was the only precept that included the word – “Remember”.  But like everything else, the one we should get the most enjoyment out of, is the one we “forget” first.  Once the concept of communing with God had left the building, early Jews made a long list of the do’s and don’ts for remembering the Sabbath.  The list eventually grew until little practicality or sense was left in it.  Later, Catholics blended existing pagan traditions of the day into the church and the practices of keeping the day holy.  And more recently, Seventh Day Adventists entered the scene, recreating the lists of do’s and don’ts and deciding to treat this day as either a weapon to judge others by, or something to simply ignore altogether.

It is interesting to me that SDA’s believe that keeping the seventh day as the Sabbath will be the end-time test of true fidelity to God.  But they get all wrapped up in the number of the day (Seven, not the First); rather than on what the meaning of “keeping it” truly is.  Our human tendency is to create rules rather than deal with motives.  We prefer structure to freedom of thought.  We fear that freedom may lead to danger.  But this is because we truly do NOT trust our God.  Our rules, our lists, and our professed methods of keeping the Sabbath are complete moo-moo-caca.  We have lost sight of what it is to simply hang out with God.  Put away our work, put away the commercial demands of the world, provide for our own needs for a bit and give the neighbor a rest, and just hang out with God.  We place our burdens on Him and in this alone find “rest.”

I look around me and see a world full of non-believers who appear to have little concern for God, and in their stubborn efforts to remain in control of their lives, they live with regret and unnecessary pain that a loving God would long to take away.  I look around me and see a church of believers who claim the name of Christ but have no idea what it means to live without pain, as they do not embrace the freedom of surrender to Christ.  Both groups obsessed with the illusion of control, both groups hopelessly burdened with lists of to-do’s they will never quite complete, both groups distracted from their own demise.  And yet there remains hope for them both, as there remains hope for me.  Time is not out just yet.  I pray that the Lord will prevent me from pursuing control to the detriment of my own soul, and will restore between us the time to just hang out once again.  I have to believe it is not quite time yet for what I see to be - all that remains …

Arguing with the Sofa ...

There is an old expression I heard that states … “from a distance, when a man and a fool argue it is hard to tell who is who.”  Christ had a similar thought when He made the statement that we should avoid … “casting our pearls before swine.”  Often we pervert the meaning of Christ’s statement into avoiding having conversations about the gospel with those who are reluctant to hear it, or worse those who question it.  But there is a decided difference between inquiring minds, and arguing with the sofa.

Congressman Barney Frank had an encounter this past week with a woman ascribing Nazism to President O’Bama.  Rep. Frank recognized that having a conversation with her would be like talking with a piece of furniture and he would have no part of it.  So how does a relatively young, average looking, seemingly intelligent woman transcend from an inquiring mind into a dining room table?  More to the point, when looking in the mirror, am I the fool, or the man trying to reason with him?

The biggest problem we all seem to share is our absolute faith that our positions and beliefs on any topic are the “right” ones.  We are predisposed to believe we are right before we enter a conversation, before we pick up scripture to read it, or even before we hit our knees to ask for assistance.  It rarely enters our minds that we may in fact be completely wrong about what we think or believe.  That perhaps we are praying so devoutly for the very thing that would destroy us completely if God granted our request.  We seem to never pause long enough to consider.  Instead we prefer small sound bites from which we can form quick opinions.  Debate is not thought of as enriching or improving a topic, it is thought of as only a tool to demonstrate our intellectual prowess.

In short, we are right, about everything, just ask us and we will tell you.  But logically, and though it may be very hard to admit it down deep in our soul, we know this simply cannot be true.  There is too much error in our history.  There are too many mistakes along our pathway for us to have always been 100% correct about everything.  This means though, that people face this fact and with it face a choice: to become rational introspective thinking individuals who allow for facts to alter their perceptions; or to cling blindly to what we espouse whether we truly believe it or not and therefore adopt all the characteristics of a sofa.

Almost gone from the American vernacular are the words … I was wrong.  It used to be the mark of a man was his ability to learn from his mistakes.  In order for this to occur he would have to acknowledge that he made a mistake in the first place.  It used to be that apologizing was considered an honorable action.  A trait of nobility, of gallantry, was the simple act of apologizing for his misdeeds, or mis-spoken words that cause pain.  Now it seems to be viewed only as an act of humility, with no societal redeeming value at all.  George W. Bush was indeed the leader of this trend, but far from its only participant.

We like being right.  We like being proven to be right even better.  We love it when our nemesis is forced to acknowledge that we were right and they were wrong.  But our nemesis seems never to find the words to admit this, and frankly neither do we.  It is our pride that we nourish in the praises of being right.  It is only our ego that is served when feeling vindicated.  It is seldom the pure beauty of truth that we bath in when found to be right, rather we attempt to attribute truth to ourselves as if our knowledge of truth somehow makes us part of the truth.

So what is the difference between certainty of truth, and blind ignorance – sometimes … not much.  The problem is not with truth.  It is with us.  It is our need to believe we know truth in the absolute.  Rather than be willing to learn and expand our minds by engaging truth as a learning method, we treat truth as if it were an absolute that we alone can quantify and explain.  The truth does not change.  But in our arrogance we assert that we know ALL there is to know, that nothing else remains to be learned, and just like the sofa, we learn nothing. 

If we could approach differences with others without considering ourselves absolute authorities on any subject, we could begin to recognize our potential to expand our knowledge of truth.  Even during a conflict when we believe firmly that our premise is correct, it is still possible to expand our knowledge of truth through discourse and dissent with someone else.  Listening to another person’s argument, wading through its logical conclusions, comparing it to what you believe is true will either strengthen your position or if you are willing, allow you to alter it.  So much of what we think is truth is really not.  It is “human wisdom” masquerading as truth.  Often our God must help us to unlearn what we have learned and reexamine a subject from a new spiritual perspective to truly understand it.  In this, it is critical that we are willing to be taught.

The role of the shepherd is to lead the sheep.  It is our God that leads us to discover His truths.  When the sheep runs off on its own, believing the adventure will lead to new knowledge, they almost always find themselves in life threatening peril.  The patient shepherd must then leave the flock to seek after the sheep who wandered away and was lost, to bring them back into the fold.  The sheep never seems to find their way back on their own.  It takes a shepherd to lead them, often to carry them back.  Inquiring minds are a gift from God.  Learning and increasing our knowledge about truth through questions and experience is essential to our existence.  But understand that real truth is what we are led to find, not what we invent for ourselves.  When following our God we learn much, when we step out in front of Him, we wander off into the abyss.

It may not be possible to convince the sofa of anything.  You can beat on it, but you only risk breaking it.  When someone else refuses to even talk about truth, or to even acknowledge the existence of truth, it may be that all that is left to you is to pray for them and yourself.  Sometimes it takes a shepherd to illuminate the mind of a stubborn sheep, sometimes only He can reach the places we cannot find. 

For my part, when the young woman who confronted Barney Frank took the microphone, she had pictures of the President doctored to look like Hitler.  She compared the effort to reform Health Care to that of installing Nazi doctrines in prewar Germany.  My first response to this assertion is to look at where she might be getting this information.  Who is the source of this thinking?  What do they have to gain by it?  What is it’s logical conclusion?  What is she advocating instead of what she does not like?  What does she want?  Does she believe what she is saying?  Something about her looked to me as if when hearing Frank’s responses and the crowd’s approval she was embarrassed by her own behavior.  She did not look like a true-believer to me, she looked like a somewhat unwilling pundit, taking up someone else’s talking points.

How problematic is pride to our happiness?  Let me answer it this way, it is only pride that prevents Lucifer from repenting for all that he has done and ending this conflict entirely differently.  The constant nurturing of his pride has left him unable to repent.  It is a foreign concept to him now, as would be his learning anything more about truth.  His only interest now is in poisoning truth.  What pride has corrupted in him, is working its process in us when we nourish it.  Let us then nurture humility rather than pride.  Let us become teachable even by those we believe have nothing new to offer.  Let us believe in our truth, but always look to enrich it, by being led into deeper and more truth by our tender God.  Let us not compromise our morals nor allow the underlying principle of love to be lost in the application of any one of them.  The more we submit to God, the more we allow Him to take self out of our equation; the more truth we will be led to discover.

Giving Thanks ...

Ceremony and gratitude are not the same.  Because a custom is repeated, even remembered, does not necessarily engender the feelings of those who started it.  Often those who believe in our Creator God replace meaning in their words with mere repetition of their words.  This becomes evident just prior to meal times, and sometimes just prior to going to sleep at night.  Times like this recent holiday when we pause for a moment to give thanks.

Gratitude, as feelings go, seems like a foreign concept in this world of ours.  No matter what the achievement, there is always something more to chase after, and rarely a moment is spent in thanks for the journey thus far.  People are amazed that even life changing events do not always warrant thanks.  Take the story of the 10 Lepers that Christ healed in His journeys between Samaria and Galilee.  Ten men with a fatal disease call for mercy.  All ten called out.  All ten needed healing.  All ten were doomed to die.  All ten were healed.  Only one came back to give thanks.

Were the other guys just too happy to think about giving thanks right away?  Were they so overcome by the miracle they experienced that they needed to get home and tell their families and friends all the great deeds the Master had just done, for them personally?  Was time of the essence?  Perhaps they were so lonely from being kept away from former friends and family that every second counted in getting back to them.  They needed to prove they were healed.  They needed the fellowship of those who cared about them.  They were excited.  They were happy.  They were on a clock.  For everyone, and everything perhaps, except to make time to thank the one who had literally given them their lives back.

Christians ironically, are the most guilty of this.  The immense life changing blessings that Christians are so often given, have become so common-place in our own eyes, we fail to thank the One who sends them all to us free of charge.  Those who have been forgiven much … perhaps should take a minute and realize just HOW much, and how often, and how far, they have been brought.  Those who have been forgiven much … should remember that they are not the judge of others, as they would not have wanted others to judge them.   Those who have been forgiven much … as they begin to see Christ more clearly, will immediately see their own corruption more vividly and realize how much more they require forgiveness and reform.

Christians have come to prize ceremony more than meaning.  The pre-meal blessing is a good example.  Those who are faithful to ask God for His blessing on the food they are about to eat; do they know ‘why’ they pray what they do?  Do they take the time to vary the words, or do they fall into a trap of saying the same 4 or 5 prayers over and over and over again?  Ceremony, with hollow sentiment.  Why do we ask God to bless food He has provided for us?  Is it to remember He is the one who created all food in the first place?  Is it to remember that without His providence we might actually be going hungry?  Are we saying God loves us more, because we eat, and there are those that do not?  Are we saying that without His blessing the food will not “nourish our bodies”?  If in fact we are actually grateful for the food, why not offer thanks at the end of a fine meal, rather than before we know if we like it or not?

When Christ blessed the food, he fed 5,000 men, plus women and children with 2 small fish and a few loaves of bread.  Enough food for everyone with much left over.  That was a blessing on food.  He took everything the young boy had to eat, and made it enough for everyone listening to his words to be completely full.  Thousands fed from the meal of one.  That was a blessing.  What is our intent?  Can we call it gratitude if we don’t really mean it? 

This is what happens when manna falls from the sky every morning, enough for the day alone.  Twice the ration on Friday so that no work will be required on Sabbath to prepare it.  A daily miracle.  Bread, falling from heaven in the middle of an otherwise horrific place known as the desert.  Add to this daily miracle, another daily miracle of perfect weather.  No scorching sun by day, as a cloud overshadowed the entire camp and provided both shade and moderate cool temperatures.  At night, no biting cold, as the cloud became a pillar of fire, providing both light, and warmth, for the entire camp.  Literally no one suffered.  Not a single poisonous snake, spider, or scorpion came out to bite anyone.  Every need was met.  Every day for forty years.  No lack of water (short one significant incident).  No normal problems of living in the desert, their clothes were maintained like new.  Nothing wore out.  No sickness, no disease.  Every need met, with every day miracles, and was gratitude the response – Nope.  They complained about what they did not have.

We marvel at the stiff necked Israelites and then turn around and mimic their every action.  God puts food on our tables, enough for the day, and we worry and fret about whether we will eat again tomorrow.  Or perhaps, we are so secure in knowing where our next meal is coming from, that Publix, Safeway, or Albertsons are conveniences that have completely replaced manna.  We take our ability to bring home food and put it on our tables so much for granted that we dare not give it even a second thought.  Are we really grateful, every time we eat, I doubt it.  I think just like the Israelites, we focus our attentions on the things we do not have just yet.  Better food, better things, better jobs, more money, more popularity, more, more more…

When you lack the motive to pray, your prayers become empty words.  If you do not know why you are asking for God’s blessing on your food, what do you say?  There is a simple way of reminding yourself why you are grateful for food you eat each day.  Skip a meal.  Go without.  Not forever, don’t plan on starving yourself, just miss a meal you were looking forward to.  That irresistible urge you have to find something to eat, that overwhelming focus your mind has on all things food; those are signs of just how grateful you should be.  If those Israelites had not had food every day, they might not have taken it for granted how good it really was under God’ care.  Just like you.  If you missed meals you really wanted from time to time you might remember more often how good you have it under God’s care.

But herein is the beauty of our God, He knows all this and could easily inflict it on us, to teach us this lesson, yet He does not.  Whether we thank Him or not, He provides, every day, every need.  That whole Israelite camp was fed every day, not one person went hungry.  Zero hunger for forty years.  And yes, He even responded to their complaining about a lack of meat and provided quail.  Enough of it for it to be coming out of their ears.  They got the message.  Just like with you.  God does not stop providing for you whether you thank Him or not.  He makes sure you are fed every day.  He takes care of your physical needs consistently.  He does not stop feeding you to teach you gratitude.  He could, but just like with Israel of old, He doesn’t punish you by taking things away to make you grateful.  He just keeps on giving, faithfully.  God does not provide for you to find your gratitude, He cares for you because He loves you.

A screaming 2yr old, spoiled by a constant series of gifts, does not engender feelings of generosity.  This is so often the image Christians portray to both God and the world around them.  They complain incessantly about the things they lack, the more they want, and the time it takes to get them.  Just like the 2yr old they do not take time to recall all the things they have been given, how their care is guaranteed, how much love and forgiveness they receive every day, how someone changes those dirty diapers despite what an ugly job it may be.  But that is what our God does for us each day, He removes the filth of our sins from us, cleaning us up again, feeding us, clothing us, and getting us ready for the world each day.  We would do well to remember why we pray, remember why we are thankful.  When we do, our words will carry meaning.  Our prayers will actually have something to say.  Ceremony disappears, and meaning emerges…

Another Inconvenient Truth ...

Apologies to Al Gore, but given the momentous events that have dominated the week, a particular concept caught my attention: … now, the hard work begins.  Elections are all about pomp and circumstance, about eloquence and ideas, about decision making and popularity polling.  Once the office is held however, the every second occupation is about work, lots of it, most of it hard.  We get all excited during the contest, but this excitement sure fades when the cold realization sets in, that real work will be required, even of us, even of me.

To climb out of the muck and mire this country has chosen to wallow in for the last 8 years, we will have to begin the task of slowly, painstakingly, cleaning up our messes, and putting things back on a right course.  It is an interesting human phenomenon that when the time for real work begins, few are found who are willing.  This is true in our churches, and even in the depths of our characters as well.  It is said 20% of the people do 80% of the work.  This applies to business, church services, and life in general.  It is a truism that can readily be verified simply by looking around.  But that’s the trick isn’t it?  The looking around, rather than the working, is ‘why’ the expression is so true.  We gladly look to others to accomplish the hard work, while trying our best to avoid it for ourselves.

Poor President Elect Obama, who will he find that will be willing to actually do the work to fix our broken nation?  Oh sure there will be cabinet appointments, and a majority in both houses to vote in legislation; but that is not where the real work is required.  The real work is required of us.  We will be asked to sacrifice.  To cut back our spending on unnecessary things; to try to limit our use of fossil fuels; to become more energy conscience and energy aware.  We may have to buy more expensive cars, live in less expensive housing, take public transit more often.  We may see the loss of jobs because not every sector of our economy ‘can’ be fixed.  We may have to pay more taxes to pay for the mess we are in.  Not inconsequential changes.  And without them, we will remain in our mess, and pass the legacy to our children, and them to theirs.

Our spiritual condition is not much different than our political one.  We get all excited about the good news of Salvation.  We marvel at the absolute love of God, the magnitude of the gift He offers, and lengths of the work He has done for us.  But the work of surrender, the hard work, we cannot seem to find the time to do.  The work of service to others, we choose to limit to things that are easy to us, or at least easier.  The inconvenient work, we leave to others. 

No one likes doing dishes in their own homes, let alone for an entire church body after a potluck.  At least 80% of the members will eat, and then rush home, not giving a second thought to the cleaning work that remains to be done in the church.  No thought is given about how much work it takes to prepare a church for a pot luck meal, way beyond the preparation and transport of the food each family may bring.  Long before, tables are setup, chairs laid out, decorations placed, not to mention the coordination and placement of the mass of food itself.

And who usually does this rather mundane, but important prep work and clean up work, the little old ladies that do it because no one else will.  Those who feel the weight of personal responsibility for getting the required work done.  Those who do not, eat and run, but delay their own meals to serve others, and delay their own agendas to clean up after others.  Any wonder why the prayer warriors in any given church body are usually the same folks who do these otherwise thankless tasks. 

Christians blind themselves to the beauty of service, because they wish not to inconvenience themselves.  It is a deception of evil that has worked very well, particularly in our times.  The ease of life increases, requiring less and less hard work to survive.  We do not hunt out food anymore, or go without if we miss.  We simply drive to the local supermarket and buy pre-prepared foods of every kind.  We do not build our own shelters and get wet if we do not do the work properly; we move into prepared homes built by professionals long before our arrival.  With the absence of urgency in the work we do for our survival, and the increase in leisure time, we have lost the value in ‘real’ work.  We have placed the value in ‘real’ play instead.  Serving others takes away from our ‘play’ time, so we avoid it, or limit it to easy things we knock off in a flash, then feel good about later.

The motives are all wrong.  The priorities are all wrong.  The value proposition is all wrong.  The beauty of service is not defined by the ease of which it is accomplished, but by the difficulty.  It is not the glory of a martyr we seek, but the employment of our full ability for others without a thought of reward, compensation, or recognition.  The service we do for others, ‘is’ itself our reward.  The knowledge of having made a ‘real’ difference in the life of someone else, is the prize of heaven itself.  We do not seek to serve to boast.  We do not perform the mundane tasks in front of us to be recognized, but to create happiness in our experience.

There is so little happiness in the world, and in our lives, because we look for it in the wrong places.  We try to fill our time with moments of joy over shopping and acquisition, instead of finding hours of joy in the memories of true and noble service to others.  We choose the temporary fleeting seconds of a high, instead of the lifelong, transforming influences that bring fulfillment, contentment, and improvements to the lives of others.  Evil has so poisoned our minds that we find ourselves barely willing to serve the ones we state that we love.  To serve those who do not know us, has become almost completely foreign in our minds.  To serve those who do not like us at all, our enemies, is unheard of anymore. 

The words of Christ to “love our enemies” have lost all meaning in our ears.  We refuse to humble ourselves, act first, and serve incessantly those who would do us harm.  We look to scripture that touts an “eye for an eye”, without understanding its true meaning.  An “eye for an eye” is about what justice would demand, IF NOT FOR GRACE.  Jesus said for us to “love” our enemies.  When we do this, we become hard to hate.  It is difficult to keep on hitting someone who does not hit back.  There is no question about who wins the argument or the fight; in short, they do, our enemy does.  But who wins the war with evil, is the one who reflects love, in the face of anything.  In so doing, we turn enemies into friends, broken relationships are mended, as love is the only thing able to heal such wounds.

It is not convenient to serve.  It will always seem like sacrifice, but this is because evil will always position it that way to our eyes.  The reality of sacrifice is relative.  I know people who tirelessly serve others and think nothing of it.  I also know those who barely go out of their way, and cannot seem to tolerate the immense gravity of the tiny work they perform.  Christ did not think it too great to die to redeem us.  He sacrificed His very life to save us.  But that was not all he was willing to go through.  First he suffered torture and humiliation, almost to the point of death.  We find it hard to help out the local church for a potluck.  What would make the God of the Universe not think it too great a sacrifice to be tortured and killed for His love for us; while we find it a great burden to be inconvenienced to help someone else out?  Blindness.  We indulge in it.

Time to take the scales off our eyes and see service for the blessing it truly is.  Throughout time and memorial God will know what He did for us, in that He saved us.  He will have the satisfaction of having given us His all.  We can know that joy, by simply learning to give ourselves to others too.  We are not asked to die for each other.  There is not survival at stake any more in our lives.  But we can give our time, our meager resources, our cheerful spirit.  We can work in simple tasks right in front of our eyes, that will quietly benefit the lives of others like nothing else can.  In so doing, we change the core of who we are.  We realize the truth.  We shed the inconvenience and regain the rich beauty that was ours for the taking.  We learn fulfillment.  And we begin to see heaven in a new and real way, right here and right now …