The “Everythingness” of Jesus: How Joy, Love, Peace and Beauty become Portals to Heaven
Editor’s Note: We have been pleased to present this once-a-week, all-summer-long series of familycentric essays from Richard Eyre. Today’s essay #12 concludes the series and concludes with a summary of the earlier 11 articles, each with a link that will take you back to any of the essays you may have missed.
As most Meridian readers know, the Eyres, for five decades, have focused their professional lives on strengthening families. This focus has ranged from writing New York Times #1 bestselling books to speaking to parents in more than 60 countries around the globe. But their true passion is for an Inclusive, Eternal Family Paradigm that can’t be fully shared or grasped without the insights of the Restored Gospel. And they feel that the reverse of that is also true: The Restored Gospel can’t be fully grasped or shared until it is seen through an Inclusive, Eternal Family Lens. The goal of this series of essays is to better understand and have more realistic expectations of both Church and Family. And “family” is broadly defined so that each article speaks to us all, whether we are single or married, parents or siblings, aunts and uncles or grandparents.
Author’s Note: Thank you all so much for reading and thinking with me each weekend during the summer about the wonderous truths the Restoration gives us concerning our two-way eternity. How blessed we are to know what we believe and believe what we know about our life-before-life as well as our life-after-life; and the famlycentric nature of it all. Please continue to send any inputs or feedback on any article in the series to my pen name email at dr*******@gm***.com Your thoughts will be helpful to me as I turn this series into a book next year.
The Best Question
Throughout this series, I’ve received thoughtful and provocative questions from readers, and I thank you for every one of them. Perhaps the best question of all has been, in essence, “Where does Christ fit into all this?” Or stated another way, “Why have you not talked more about Jesus in these essays?”
My short answer to that first question is “EVERYWHERE.”
My somewhat defensive answer to the second question is that every essay in the series is about Christ—in that each has centered on the plan that He presented, and depended on His Spirit and Atonement which makes all of it possible.
But I saved my more intentional answer for this concluding article where I hope to share my conviction that the Lord, our personal Savior Jesus Christ plays every and all of the key roles in this three-act play of Eternity.
Those leading roles are Creator, Jehovah, Healer, Savior, Redeemer, Light, Judge, Father, and Supreme Teacher and Head of His Church in both the old and the new world and in the Spirit World. And that only names a few. Our semi-adopted Bulgarian daughter Eva Koleva Timothy has created a picture illustrating all of Christ’s roles that are mentioned in scripture. That piece of art appears as the opening visual for this essay, and you are encouraged to spread it larger and feast on His names.
I said in essay 2 that Christ is not the end, but the indispensable means to the end that is set forth by His Father, and ours—the end of Exaltation—of the Immortality and Eternal Life of mankind.
But that was only part of the story, because Exaltation depends on our relationship with Jesus Christ, so in fact, He is both the end and the means.
Another way to say it is to paraphrase Nephi’s suggested objective for mortality. “Adam fell that men (and women) might be (mortal) and men are (mortal) that they might have JOY.”
And since we know that a fullness of joy comes only through Christ, we can say that He is the end, the means, and the joy (and of course also the love and the peace and the beauty beyond compare.)
One of my earliest books, What Manner of Man, suggested 48 readings or meditations, each on a separate facet of Christ, that we can ponder each week, one at a time for a year, as we partake of the Sacrament each Sunday. For example, there is one on Christ’s loyalty to the Father, one on His physical strength, one on His compassion for the disenfranchised, one on His peace, one on His joy, etc. You can get these weekly ‘facets” at https://valuesparenting.com/what-manner-of-man/.
But no matter how much we know about Jesus, it is not the same as knowing Him. And that goal should be our fondest desire.
The Story of our Three favorite Questions from those not of our Faith
Frequently, when we are speaking to mixed audiences around the world (something we have done less since the pandemic) we say enough about our personal lives and beliefs that we get some very probing and doctrinal questions, often after we have concluded our speech. Those questions often come in a sequence of three:
- Are you Mormons? (We answer yes, but correct the name to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.)
- Are Latter-day Saints Christian? (We love the chance to say yes, and to testify of Christ)
- How do Latter-day Saint beliefs differ from traditional Christian beliefs?
On that third one, if there is time, we like to talk about the concept of Eternal Progression and tie it to Eternal Marriage and Eternal Families (the subject of essay 11, last week). But there are so many other answers we could give—our belief in living Prophets, our belief in additional Scripture, our belief in a Restored Priesthood…
But the context we try to create, the thing that we don’t want anyone to miss, is first that the most important thing is not our differences with other Christians, but the core similarity in our convictions of Christ as our Savior and Redeemer; and second that each of these additional things we believe in (our prophets and additional scripture) deepens rather than dilutes our belief and our faith in Christ.
The Three Themes of this Series
Each article in this series has been preceded with an “Editor’s Note” suggesting that we are searching for an Inclusive, Eternal, Family Paradigm or Lens that can help us better understand both Church and Family. So perhaps a concluding declaration of each of those three adjectives is in order:
Inclusive
If, indeed, we are capable of becoming new and perfectible entities through the New and Everlasting Covenant (see essay 11), it is important to remember that all of God’s children will have that opportunity and capacity. There must be total inclusivity in this as in all of God’s promises, for our Heavenly Parents are the parents of us all, and that is why the words “all” and “everyone” occur so often when prophets ancient and modern speak of God and His children. One example is Elder Patrick Kearon in his conference address earlier this year:
“Everything about the Father’s plan for His beloved children is designed to bring everyone home.”
“Nephi explains this beautiful truth: “He doeth not anything save it be for the benefit of the world; for he loveth the world, even that he layeth down his own life that he may draw all men unto him. Wherefore, he commandeth none that they shall not partake of his salvation.”
“The Saviour, the Good Shepherd, goes in search of His lost sheep until He finds them. He is not willing that any should perish.”
If we ever get hung up on the concern that only one in one thousand of the inhabitants of the earth today are practicing members of the Restored Church, we should remind ourselves of two things:
- The eternal scope of time in which all of our spiritual siblings will have equal opportunity, and
- The fact that the light of Christ is potentially with all men, and that truth is found in so many places.
And our inclusivity should extend to our sources of truth. I told the story, in essay 5 of the night during our London Mission Presidency when President Hinckley cautioned me “President, don’t ever think that the Mormon Church is the only tool the Lord has.” In my life, two good examples of those “other tools” are Richard Rohr whose thoughts on the Divine Feminine have played into this series, and C. S. Lewis whose book The Great Divorce makes clear the oft-discussed self-judgement that will determine our eternity.
We asked some young people, who had managed to stay strong in the faith, what their parents had done to keep them in the Church (That is a difficult topic, since so many things—from premortal life to life circumstances go into the equation of active or non-active.) Nonetheless, a prominent answer was that their parents taught them to seek truth wherever it can be found and to respect other truths given to other individuals or faiths. (Almost a paraphrase of Joseph Smith’s declaration that we seek truth wherever it is found.)
Eternal
So much of this series has tried to suggest my overwhelming gratitude for the restoration of a belief in a two-way eternity, extending forever in both directions, and for the faith which that belief can give us not only in the complete majesty of our Heavenly Parents, but in the fairness of Their plan wherein They will forever want for us, Their children, all that They have.
Things that may seem unfair to us here, in this time-bound physical world, (or worse, things that may make us appear to be favored or chosen over others of God’s children) will be exposed and revealed in timeless eternity to be part of the infinitely beautiful and just unfolding of the options and opportunities that make us all equal, that never end, and that allow us to make the choices that determine our own forevers.
God, in His wisdom, has given us just enough eternal insight and perspective to insure us of His complete justice, His complete mercy, and His complete love.
Familycentric
We have always known, in this dispensation, of the central place of the family—the complete and extended family—in the Restored Gospel, in the government of God, and in His plan of Happiness, and we have also known, in light of the inclusive and eternal scope of that plan, that all family relationships and blessings will be available to all who want them.
Reminders of that familycentricity have come from all of our Prophets, but certainly none more than our beloved and current Prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, who has a gift for saying things directly and powerfully (and so briefly and to the point that they cannot be forgotten or misinterpreted or ignored). Just to list four of his most powerful…
“Family centered; Church supported”
“Salvation is an individual matter; Exaltation is a family matter.”
“Our family is the focus of our greatest work and joy in this life; so will it be throughout all eternity.”
“Think Celestial”
And President Oaks’ defining sentence has been something of an underlying theme of this entire series:
“Our theology begins with Heavenly Parents, and our greatest aspiration is to be like Them.”
If we see God’s eternal family as the end and the Church as the welcome and supportive means—we will have more realistic and less pressurized expectations of the Church which will keep some in it who might otherwise leave; and we will have more hopeful and less pressurized expectations for the Family which will make us a little easier on ourselves and a little more joyful in our imperfections.
The Four Portals
Let’s go back to where we started this essay—to the “everythingness” of Christ
How can we better recognize and honor Him as the center of all our beliefs and all our hopes? How do we recognize Christ in each of the themes of this series—in His Inclusivity, in His Eternity, in His Familycentric teachings and existence?
How do we recognize Christ?
I suppose that is a question that every individual, every son or daughter of God, and every younger spiritual sibling of Christ, must answer for themselves.
But for what it’s worth, let me share how Linda and I recognize Him…
As we have talked about this together, we have concluded that we recognize Him by feeling things that come from Him and through Him.
We recognize Him when we feel joy—the joy of both happiness and sorrow, the joy we know He is the author of and that He sends His Spirit to magnify within us.
We recognize Him when we feel love—understanding that He is love and that when we keep the first commandment of loving Him, the second commandment becomes natural, even easy.
We recognize Him when we feel peace—His peace which can supersede all chaos and trouble and calm both our minds and our hearts.
And we recognize Him when we feel (see, hear, taste and smell) beauty—realizing that everything created by or related to Christ and His redemption feels beautiful, while all that is connected to the adversary is ugly.
We have come to feel that these are the four portals to Christ and His presence—the four gates to His heaven here as well as hereafter. Some of us are better at one portal than the others, but the beauty of it (and the joy and love and peace of it) is that once we enter any of the portals, we are inside where the other three also dwell.
So maybe a minute more, another personal thought or two, on each of them…
Joy
The first book I ever wrote was called The Discovery of Joy. I was a kid, just out of graduate school, but I felt then, and still do now, that the four levels of Joy, all infused and made possible by Christ, are: Level 1. The gifts of earth and body and agency. Level 2. Using those gifts and their inherent opportunity to create Achievements and Relationships. Level 3. Understanding, through restored Gospel insights, the eternal nature of all of the above (earth, body, agency, achievements, and relationships). and Level 4. Feeling God’s approval, approbation, and acceptance of our efforts to find and use and give (through service) all that He has given us—thus feeling and identifying Christ in each of the first three levels.
I love the Gospel’s differentiation between happiness and joy. Joy is the positive (and as it turns out correct) interpretation of all that we experience here in mortality. Happiness is only a part of it.
And sometimes that is expressed best by wisdom outside of our particular church (by “other tools” of God. An anonymous author said “Happiness is a thing of here and now, the bright leaf in the hand, the moment’s sun, the fight accomplished, or the summit won. Happiness is a lifting, buoyant kind of thing that lifts the bird more surely on its wing. When things go well, happiness may start, but Joy is secret smiling of the heart.”
And Shakespeare wrote, “Sweet are the uses of adversity, ugly and venomous like the toad, but wears yet a precious jewel in his head. And so our lives, free from public haunt, find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stone, and good in every thing.”
And a woman named Storm Jameson said, “Happiness? It is an illusion to think that more comfort brings more happiness. True happiness (joy) comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simple, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.”
Indeed, there are so many sources of Joy in this mortality, the goal of which, according to Nephi, is joy, and all of them, as I recognized back in that first book, are both given by, and enhanced by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Love
I told the story in an earlier essay of my wonderful father who died when I was 15, leaving me a letter where the key line was “if a person practices love, then everything else takes care of itself.” That story went on to the time, much later in my life, when the spirit of my father came to me to bring a two-word message, “Love more.”
I’ve been working on that admonition ever since, and progressively realize how far I have to go. But the goal and the capacity, the end and the means, the example and the source, is Jesus Christ. In the What Manner of Man book, mentioned earlier, there is an entire section on the “facets” of Christ’s love, one of which goes like this:
One of my most treasured possessions is a letter of love and counsel written to me by my father when he was on his deathbed. A focal point of that letter reads:
“The greatest thought that Christ left on earth is love. It surpasses everything else. If a person practices love, then everything else takes care of itself.”
I have already mentioned the snowy Christmas Eve when I asked my four-year-old daughter why Jesus came to earth. She answered: “To show us how to love each other and to show us how it will work when we die.”
Beyond His atonement, what is “the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13)? Perhaps more than all else, as my four-year-old implied, it is Christ’s perfect love.
Not until Christ came (and since then, only because of Him) could mankind know the full meaning of love.
Before His life, in most societies, “love” meant friendship, loyalty, affection for one’s own. The Savior gave depth to the surface, dimension to the flat. He added charity, empathy, magnanimity; He added the hard, self-sacrificing elements of love to the easy, self-serving aspects.
The coin of love, in many earlier philosophies, had revenge on its other side people expressed love for friends and colleagues, hatred and vengeance for enemies. Cicero dated his letters from the “happy event” of his enemy’s (Claudius’s) death. Xenophone, a favorite disciple of Socrates and Plate, praised and eulogized his hero Cyrus the Younger by saying, “No man ever did more good to his friends and more harm to his enemies.”
Jesus Christ revolutionized the western world’s concept of love. Since Christ, forgiveness has been acknowledged as one of the greatest virtues. Tennyson represents King Arthur as near perfect because Arthur forgives Guinevere after she has deeply wronged him. Christ’s instructions to “turn the other cheek” and “love your enemy” have counterparts in many behavioral codes. Even governments and constitutions take the posture of “reform rather than revenge.”
The Lord taught the world about love, unconditional love. He acted rather than reacted. When he saw unkindness in other people, He took it as a sure sign that they needed love and help.
As with all else (and somehow even more than with all else), He was what he taught. He is love.
Peace
I find myself, these days, praying more for peace than for anything else. In this divided, polarized, angry world peace seems ever harder to find, and to hold. Yet I know, just as you do that peace lies in Christ, and that it is a gift He can give more than a skill we can gain. And when we feel true peace, we are feeling Him.
The way toward it, I find, beyond putting ourselves in peaceful places—temple, nature, solitude, meditation—is simply to ask God, through Christ, to give us this gift, and then to observe, with our hearts as well as our minds, everything around us, really seeing people, really seeing detail we had not noticed, and finding in all of it some form of beauty, something you can connect to Christ.
The more we observe, the more we look outward trying to see what is around us and appreciate it and know how we connect and fit into it—the more we do that, the more we get outside of ourselves, the more we can begin to understand what Emerson said, “See how the masses of men worry themselves into nameless graves, while here and there a great, unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality” (and I would add, into joy.)
Beauty
Most people, making a list of the things through which they feel Christ, would include Love, Peace, and Joy, but I wonder how many would include Beauty, which I have come to think may be the most accurate and reliable feeling of all, revealing Christ and allowing us to reap insight and better recognize who and what He is.
Keats, whose home we lived near, in Surrey, England, said “A thing of beauty is a joy forever.”
As a young man, I once worked with and for a gentleman who made that line his motto. He was very wealthy, and humanitarian and charitable groups of all kinds were always approaching him for donations. He was always polite and cheerful as he turned them down, saying that what he gave to was beauty. He built fountains, he helped art galleries, he sponsored and gave prizes for good literature. His other favorite Keats quote, one that I have pondered for a long time, is…
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”
In this confused, polarized, AI infested world, perhaps the most valuable and needed attribute or attitude is discernment. We need to find a way, far deeper and more reliable than our five senses, to discern truth from error, and things motivated by good from things motivated by bad. This gift of discernment is perhaps the central thing we pray for—for our children and our grandchildren who are growing up in a world where truth is too much and too often mixed with crafty and dangerous error.
We know that discernment is a gift of the Spirit, but perhaps it is closely tied to beauty—and to having eyes to see both truth and beauty in some things and their absence in others.
Is it an oversimplification (or is it the simplicity of an always-reliable filter) to say that “everything of or from Christ, the Creator and the Redeemer, is beautiful, and everything that is from the adversary is ugly.”
May we remember and retain in our remembrance that Christ, the author and owner of all beauty, will reveal it to us as we ask.
Finding and recognizing these 4 portals is another way of saying (or doing) what we need to in order to find and feel Christ.
As Linda and I discussed this final essay, she (as she always does) got to the practical heart of the matter by simply saying “it is service that brings us through and into all four of the portals.”
So, our plan for feeling Christ and getting to Him through those four gates is simple:
- Serve!
- Ask God for each of the four, inviting the Holy Ghost to reveal them and guide us in their pursuit, always attributing each of them and experiencing each of them with Christ, the author and finisher of all four.
- Remember that we can enter by any one of the four portals, and as we do, it will put us in (and in touch with) the other three.
Let me end this series with gratitude. Thank you for reading. Thank you for thinking. Thank you for praying for as much understanding of our two-way eternity as our Heavenly Parents wish us to have. Thank you for believing in God’s inclusivity, in Their forever, in Their Familycentricity. Thank you for seeking and finding Christ through His joy, love, peace and beauty. Thank you for your feedback and input. Thank you for passing on this series, or any part of it, to anyone who you think it could help. And thank you for our eternal relationship as spiritual siblings.
Closing Story:
Occasionally, Mission Leaders somewhere in the world invite Linda and I to speak to their missionaries, and we love it—it takes us back to our Mission Presidency in London so many years ago and re-connects us to the vibrance and power and faith of these valiant young Ambassadors of Christ.
One thing we like to do in those presentations is to, without warning, call to the front the two Assistants to the Mission President who are always outstanding and have the respect of their fellow missionaries.
We ask one of them to just give us a quick but accurate, three-minute overview of the Plan of Happiness or the Plan of Salvation—to do so spontaneously and fast and to make it as complete as possible. These Mission Assistants are always capable and confident, and this is a subject they talk about every day with investigators, so it is always quite remarkable how well the first Assistant overviews the Plan of Happiness in only three minutes!
Then we ask the second Assistant to do the same thing, but to use the word “family” as often as possible in his three minutes. “We will be counting how many times you say “family” as you teach us,” we tell him.
What happens is that the second Assistant’s rendition comes alive and gets more compelling and personal as he manages to say “family” upwards of 20 times in his three minutes. “We started as children in God’s family…Our Heavenly Parents wanted us to be part of mortal families…Here, as parts of extended families…etc.”
Then we ask the audience of missionaries which Plan of Happiness overview they liked best, and it is always unanimous for the second.
Finally, we go back to the first Assistant and ask him to tell the story one more time, only this time to also use the word “Christ” as many times as he can during his three minutes.
This third time, the story feels complete and compelling.
May we all find the personal paradigm wherein we can view God’s plan with eternal family as the end and Christ and His Church as the means, and as we do, may we channel our lives and our priorities accordingly.
Series Summary
So that you can click to any of the 12 essays in this series, here is a brief overview of each, summarized not with answers supplied, but with questions explored—and each ending with a link to that essay…
The advantage of a summer-long, 12-part series of essays is that I’ve had the luxury diving deeper into subjects that defy short, cursory treatments. But the possible disadvantage to you the reader is that it may be hard to see the continuity and the connection in the sequence of the unfolding whole.
So, for those who missed some of the essays, or who want to refer back to one, or who just want to see the larger context into which each essay fits, here is a summary—not of conclusions drawn but of questions explored.
Essay One: Making Sense of the Gospel through a Family Lens
An Introduction to a Weekly Summer series on Church/Family Connections
What is the Church and what is the family and what are they each in relation to each other?
Why will the earth be “wasted” or “cursed” if the hearts of the fathers do not turn to the children and vice versa? Is this series (and is this Church) more for those who are married than for those who are single? How unique is our belief in a Parental God? How is our eternal existence similar to a three-act play, and why does that matter? What bearing might a more family-focused perspective have on a faith crisis?
Read essay 1 here.
Essay Two: The Essential Paradigm Shift
I Thought the Family Supported the Church—I had it Backwards
What does “Family-centered, Church-supported” mean in our everyday lives? Which (family or church) is the “end” and which is the “means”? Is the Church an administration or a community? What are the unique (embraced by no other Christian Church) doctrines and insights of the Restoration with regard to family? Should we separate “marrieds” and “singles” or just see ourselves as spiritual siblings in different places on a covenant path that can accommodate us all?
Read essay 2 here
Essay Three: Our Familial Premortal Existence
How our knowledge of life before life changes everything
How is Christ the key to both the exaltation end we are pursuing, and the mortal means by which it is attained? How unique is our belief in literal Heavenly Parents? And how unique is our perspective of a life before life? How do these beliefs and perspectives impact our perception of the fairness and inclusivity of God? In what ways is our eternal story a family story? How is our explanation of the fairness of God similar to Hinduism? Must all covenants on the covenant path be made by all people in the same sequence? Why is the true and living Church so small with only 1 in every 1,000 of earth’s inhabitants being practicing members?
Read essay 3 here.
Essay Four: Our Parental God
When We Say, “Heavenly Father” We Mean It (literally)
What changes with believing in Heavenly Father literally rather than metaphorically or merely as a term of respect? Does a Father God imply a Mother God? What do we know about Them? In what ways is our belief in Heavenly Parents the “trunk” of our theology? How might the unity of our Heavenly Parents mirror the unity of the Godhead? And how can it inform us regarding what our marriages should strive to be? What percentage of Christians believe in a Parental God and how can that conviction impact our love and our lives? How do you think the world would respond if our belief in Heavenly Parents was a prominent part of our missionary marriage?
Read essay 4 here.
Essay Five: Good Parents Love All Their Children Equally
And God is not the Exception, but the Example
What parts of the Church seem exclusive; what parts seem inclusive? Are some of the things that look exclusive to outsiders actually more vastly inclusive than we can imagine? How does timelessness the key to Divine Inclusivity? How is the family-tree of our Heavenly Parents similar to a huge Banyan tree? How do impressions of Divine unfairness and favoritism begin? What do we need to know to correct them? Does the fact that half of adult members of the Church are single mean that we should talk less about marriage—or more?
Read essay 5 here.
Essay Six: The Versus and the Ampersand
Why do Gender Discussions Emphasize the V. Rather than the &?
What do “versus (vs)” and “ampersand (&)” mean? Which one best describes our present world? Are there any vs. in the Godhead? Between our Heavenly Parents? Or are both the perfect &? Where is the & most needed and where is the vs. most destructive? How does the first story in the Bible and in the Temple suggest the Divine ampersand? What is a “perfectible entity”—one that can dwell with God? How is “equality” different than “oneness?” Which of the two is a vs. concept and which is an & concept?
Read essay 6 here.
Essay Seven: NOTHINGNESS
How Disappearing can Help you See and be Seen
Are the things we usually read as admonitions or challenges in King Benjamin’s classic speech actually not admonitions at all, but promises? Is there one single admonition that actually yields all 17 of the promises? What is the purpose and the value of praising God? Why and how is “Humble without being compelled” better than “Compelled Humility?” What is an example of each? Why might the attitude or spiritual characteristic of Nothingness have more impact on a family than methods or techniques?
Read essay 7 here
Essay Eight: Turning the Hearts, Lest the World be Wasted
How Society Suffers when the Family is no longer its Basic Unit
What do the nearly identical scriptures in each of our standard works admonish “Turning the Hearts”? What is the shocking warning that goes with the admonition? Is it accurate to think of Family as Financial Incentive? Who are the two demographic groups with the strongest families? And why are there not more connections between those two groups? What are the dramatic differences between a culture centered on commitments and family and one focused on “freedom” and the individual?
Read essay 8 here.
Essay Nine: 3-Generation Family Management
Why it Takes Parents and Grandparents to Raise Kids Today
In what marked way does the American definition of “family” differ from the world’s definition? Were the 50s the good-old-days of families? Even in the face of statistics that show family decline, why are the best families and marriages in history existent now? What trends and demographics suggest that grandparents need to be more proactive today? How inclusive is a three-generation family and is anyone, single or married, left out of that larger family definition?
Read essay 9 here.
Essay Ten: Leaving the Church Compared to Leaving a Marriage
How our Culture Breeds an All-or-nothing Attitude
How do the imperfections in the Church compare with the imperfections of marriage? How is “leaving” one similar to leaving the other? How do our perfectionist hopes confuse us? Looking forward, how can it seem so right to leave; and then, looking backward, seem so wrong? When one “leaves the house” of marriage or of Church, must he vacate the neighborhood, or can he stay on the porch? How do false expectations contribute to both “leavings?” How can time (or timelessness) prevent panic in both?
Read essay 10 here.
Essay Eleven: The Paradigm of Progression
The Entity’s Journey toward Completion is the Unending Story
Is this earth a courtroom or a classroom? Is agency the one thing we have that God has not given us? Does that make it the one thing we can give God? What is a perfectible entity? How does time (or the absence thereof) contribute to fairness? How unique is our perception of eternal progression and how opposite or compatible is it with eternal rest? Does our definition of family become larger and more inclusive when we think celestially, and when we think eternally? What is a perfectible entity? Why?
Read essay 11 here.
The post The “Everythingness” of Jesus: How Joy, Love, Peace and Beauty become Portals to Heaven first appeared on Meridian Magazine.
Meridian Magazine