Heaven Spread over the Earth
I came upon the ‘Gospel of Thomas’ three days ago. It is a list of sayings attributed to Jesus, discovered in 1945. The saying I first saw was this:
wikipedia
(113) His disciples said to him: On what day will the kingdom come? It will not come while people watch for it; they will not say: Look, here it is, or: Look, there it is; but the kingdom of the father is spread out over the earth, and men do not see it.
There is a philosophical issue here, which is independent of the religion. Compare this to what Clara writes in The Salt Island Diaries:
Heaven is not a holy place; it is holiness of attention…. Heaven is no special time. It is eternal, which means, not later, but now and always. When Jesus said, “The kingdom of Heaven is at hand,” he did not mean ‘soon,’ but rather, it was available at that very moment, and still is.
If you are not in Heaven — right now — what you perceive as reality is simply the non-Heaven that you insist upon. So shall you be, in life, and thereafter, until you make of yourself what you wish to see in others.
The Salt Island Diaries
In Hell, love is connected to infatuation, horniness, trepidation, glee, heart-break, and disappointment. It is something that others can give or take away. To love in Heaven is to make Heaven; love is an act of creation. It is a warmth that others may step into or leave, but the warmth is always there, where-ever you are.
You can fall in love, or you can build love up. Love can either be an expression of will or will-lessness; in Heaven, it is will. This is not a statement of morality; this is merely a choice.