We're at the threshold of heaven and hell and let's not forget it
Remember this famous line from Jesus? “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Roughly 2000 years later, one of the flags of the American Revolution was this:
On the threshold of eternity is where the highest highs and the lowest lows are. It’s where you feel most alive.
If this middle space was a country, it would be the US. We are a potent mix of two wildly different views. America is the shoreline that breeds new species—ones that go from ocean to land, or from land back to sea.
In this space, we don’t know the answers. Everything is in play. Discovery is a salty mist.
The world will remain a blend, but start to sharply divide until the space between is an uncrossable chasm—a rift.
Love is like this.
A relationship with God is like this.
There’s a finite amount to do here, and an infinite amount to do as we climb mount improbable. Many ancient religions understood this. The Greeks had Zeus on Mt. Olympus throwing his thunderbolts. I’ve heard that the Hebrew God was also originally a storm god.
For us, the choice between heaven and hell should be obvious. Evolution tells us that we crawled out of the primordial soup—a microscopic step in the direction of the stars. We’ve taken cautious steps toward heaven—and now we’re galloping.
And just as we’re getting our bearings, collectively we’re unsure of ourselves. Our willpower defeats us. Though the stars call to us, so do our notifications. We are weak and fragile flesh. We bruise easily. We’re easily distracted by threads that lead nowhere toward heaven, even if they once did.
Each generation’s discoveries become the next generation’s sacred cows. But if we question all tradition, we are tempted to let go of the heaviest traditions, rather than the least relevant.
With each generation, both heaven and hell come closer together. Soon, at the gates of paradise, we’ll see demons.
Despite being the greatest winners the world has ever known, we feel awful. We are all the progeny of endless success—a chain of success so long it began with time itself. Millions would have given life and limb to be us. So many tried and failed.
The stars beckoned to our ancestors. They lit the way in the days before compasses and maps. You’re not just a little someone. Everything you do matters, and it matters more than ever.
We overshoot. At some point we came down from the trees. Then we built the tower of Babel, and again we had to come down—we weren’t ready. Maybe next we’ll come down from the skyscrapers.
To make it up there, we should remember to neither overshoot, nor undershoot our target.
The closer we get to reaching the stars, the harder it is to see them. The light at the end of the tunnel is overwhelmed by the flaming artificial flame we’ve created to make our way through the darkness.
The light in our hands feels warm, and the distant light feels cold, but really it’s the other way around.