We Hold Heaven in Our Hands
Let the music of radical inclusion play
Sing like no one’s listening…, dance like nobody’s watching, and live like it’s heaven on earth. — Mark Twain
Oh, to live and move and be like that! To be so free from the bondage of ego-centric constraint that we could live with complete abandon, here in the now, in heaven on earth. In truth, despite years of committed misfit mystic practice, I’m not there yet, but I’m definitely in the mix.
I believe that a heaven-on-earth vision was central to the message of the ultimate God with skin on man who walked among us in the past.
I’m talking about the fella who ended up nailed to a cross for his radical teaching about just that. The Nazarene Holy man who came from the back of beyond, and was, to say the least, profoundly unimpressed by social elites whenever and wherever they emerge. And emerge they do with monotonous regularity in the human story.
His opening salvo at the beginning of his lonely mission sets the stage for the countercultural revolution he came to proclaim. He quotes the great Hebrew prophet Isaiah:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” (Luke 4:18, Isaiah 61:1).
This was his modus operandi. He was, of course, right on the money, for there can be no heaven on earth where elitism is rife. And sadly, rife, it has always been. Simply put, when the goods that all should enjoy — that means all goods — get monopolized by the few, there is no justice and equality. Without these overarching ethical principles, the potential for heaven on earth dies on the vine, and this cannot stand.
Implicit in the quote above is the invoking of the Spirit of God to take affirmative nonviolent action for a better world. For both Isaiah and Nazarene, this meant profound social change, an upturned world where business and usual just doesn’t cut it.
Mother Teresa said:
Live simply, so others may simply live.
Now, she knew a thing or two about unturned worlds, and finding heaven on earth through other-centered love.
It is never sufficient for me alone in my elite self-centeredness to sing and dance. To really hear the music, to be free, everyone has to be enabled to kick up their heals like nobody’s watching and belt out the tune like never before.
Without justice for all, the music is a just faint echo of the beautiful beyond measure fully available symphony of heaven on earth in the now.
Make no mistake, comrades, the heaven on earth music is playing. We can each one of us get in the groove just as soon as we help every other child of the music-making-living-God to dance and sing and hear it too. We hold heaven in our hands. Let the music of radical inclusion play.
— Cormac Stagg, author of The Quest for a Humble Heart
