A piece I wrote perhaps 15 years ago. Still celebrating Life at St. Johns.

Heaven on Earth

I once read that if a person’s religion is not helping them to strive to become their more better selves, then that religion is failing. I would add that perhaps that religion is not practising true religion, as I also read someplace that religion means, ‘to bind,’ ‘to yolk,’ ‘to bring back.’

To my mind, to bring back to an early innocence similar to the natural deposition of children, this time as adults, knowing the things we now know; having experienced the things that we have, and in the midst of that, striving to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. I believe in that right peace of mind, ‘making one’s self better’ would also most naturally extend out to and include one’s environment and community: one’s inner and outer world.

In the beginning, the bible tells us, the world and human beings were perceived by the lord to be very good; that the lord was well pleased with creation. Needless to say, since then we have moved some way away from that kind of earth and from our better selves, the self most of us are in awe of when a baby makes its way into the world, filled with potential, innocence, and grace.

To me, faith, loving others, loving ourselves, and loving & caring for the earth, goes hand in hand: One earth; One human race, aspiring to become humane, having that inherent life-given potential at hand. As an ancient African philosophy says,

“Whatever happens to the individual, happens to the whole group; whatever happens to the whole group, happens to the individual.”

We are bound to each other, as nature planned it- and had hope that we will figure it out.

I love being & fellow-shipping at my church, St. Johns. I believe that in that place we have, and are getting, this faith, this love of each other, of ourselves, and the outside world, balance just right. We strive to love one another as the lord loves us and has revealed to us how we should love, and we love our earth that grounds, supports, house, and feeds us, just the same.

The earth, like many of us, needs healing and helping hands, so we may recover and make her truly better, coming to enjoy her fruits further and to know what it is to have a piece of heaven right here on earth.

I couldn’t be worshipping and be celebrating Life at a church that wasn’t up to date and in the right relationship with these important things. For me there can be no separation and absolutely no question as to our personal and collective responsibilities in these matters.

St. John, as a church, has mostly worked for me because of the open-minded and open-heartedness of the Priests who have taken up term there; they have truly lived out in thought word & deed the admonishment of  “Come As You Are,” and allows the congregation to hold them accountable toward these ends.

As a saying goes,

“An organisation is only as good as its head.”

If the head ain’t right, nothing works properly, let alone righteously. Just like the heads on our bodies, which follows a similiar order.

Organisations and organisms does best, as well as operate with more unity & harmony- maintaining an inherent homeostasis, when it has a good head on its shoulders. They also work best when the head observes its jurisdiction well, and allow its fellow members to do just as well in the areas they have been gifted with.

According to Plan, Nature & Nurture working hand in hand.

Peace & Love,

Light…