Moment Of Surrender

Last week I was grateful to drive up to San Francisco and visit some of my family.  My brother Greg, my sister-in-law Dede, my nephew Julian and my niece Miriam were vacationing in San Francisco for a few days.  

Up there, I was happy also to stay with fellow monks who live in Berkeley at Incarnation Monastery, our Camaldolese monastery there.  I was glad to see my good friend Michael who lives in the East Bay.  

On the way back south, at the airport in San Jose, I picked up a young fellow named JP who is participating in the Ora et Labora program here at the hermitage.  He'd heard about the program from a friend.  

Word gets around.  Young men who are not asking to become monks but who want to experience monastic life may come work and pray with us for a couple of weeks as this particular man is doing.  

In the car on the way back here from San Jose to the hermitage, at one point we were listening to the song "Moment Of Surrender" by U2.  JP explained to me that the band recorded the song in a single take.  

The relevance to the spiritual life?  When we are in a moment of surrender to the grace of God, we are empowered to succeed at what we are doing in just a single try.  

We Are All Valuable And Loved

A place was to be filled.  One of us was all ready, was asked and accepted the invitation.  In the invitation was found affirmation of one's humanity and thus dignity.  

Every Sunday at the hermitage we ask a guest to read the second Scripture reading at the Mass.  We gladly welcome our brothers and sisters not only at the table where we all receive the Eucharist.  We invite them to recite The Word they are about to receive in the Eucharist.  They are welcome to receive Him on their lips and proclaim Him with their lips.  

This past Sunday a monk asked a retreatant who identifies as transgender to read the second Scripture reading.  Since I do not have that individual's permission, I will not use that person's name.  

In any event, that guest walked up to the ambo and in the reading, recited Saint Paul's directive.  I refrained from issuing any accusation, condemnation or excommunication against this person.  Instead, I let Saint Paul speak for me, as this guest read Saint Paul's words, urging us: Love your bodies, "for no one hates his own flesh but rather nourishes and cherishes it, even as Christ does the Church."*   

We ask the second reader to go with the monk who read the first reading to the altar: the guest who has read the second reading brings either the bread or the wine up to the altar along with the first reader.  

This past Sunday we asked our second reader to help bring the bread and wine to the altar.  As with any other guest, we included this person as one of our beloved siblings.  

Right after Mass, this retreatant who had served as second reader went into the bookstore.  This grateful servant explained to the monk in the store how different this particular Mass had just been from worship services in other places.  At other churches, this beloved child of God sadly was thrown out, ejected from church, discarded and disregarded, unheard and unappreciated, dehumanized and demoralized.  

Sharing this rejection, opening up wide, becoming so vulnerable, this valuable gem of a person was on the verge of tears.  The monk who had been listening tenderly encouraged the shedding of tears.  

Tears can express a dignity recovered.  Tears freely flowed as this precious, unique and exceptional human being, having been included, welcomed and encouraged to speak, felt respected, valued and loved.  

* Ephesians 5:28-29 

Have Life, And To The Full

In today's Gospel, we hear that Jesus came that we might have life, and have it to the full.*  What do we have to do, what's our part, so that we might have life to the full?  

God is inviting us into deeper life in all that happens.  In what we expect, what catches us off guard, what pleases us, what seems distasteful, God will work all of it for our good, if we but love Him.**

In what we find challenging, we might not understand the purpose of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Here as always God calls us to trust in Him, to go forward in faith in Him.  

Once we've come out of difficult times, we are not merely to feel relief that we are no longer enduring such trials.  Surely we are to be grateful to God that we're through such tribulation.  

Yet upon emerging from such taxing tests, we do well to take stock of what lessons were just being presented to us.  What was God just trying to teach us?  Were we resisting it, or were we embracing it?  

Last week Highway 1 reopened a half dozen miles north of the hermitage, after being closed for three months due to collapse.  The road opens, yet do we find life in the road we've always taken?    

The way in front of us may be closed, or perhaps God is opening up a new way for us, or maybe God is showing us a way that has always been open to us.  What seems like misfortune may be a blessing.  

When the path is cleared, do we want to go back to going the way we used to go?  We may have evolved such that we no longer feel inclined to proceed the way we used to take.  

To the extent we embrace what God is trying to show us, we find true life.  God wants us to have life to the full, yet God leaves it up to us whether we accept the truth of His invitation.  

* John 10:10 

** Romans 8:28 

Know How To Save A Life

WARNING: This blog post contains major spoilers for the film "It's A Wonderful Life."  

Gratitude leads us to prayer, which can help avoid disaster.  If we just realized the power of prayer, God could save us from so much.  And yet when we go through dire circumstances, we would do well to remember that Jesus suffered infinitely more than we ever have or ever will.  Knowing He is with us in our suffering, we can be encouraged in our faith, to pray boldly, with much gratitude.  

Receiving encouragement to gratitude and prayer, last night some of the other monks and I watched the 1946 film "It's A Wonderful Life."  Many know the film, and rightly so, as a call to gratitude, for those in our lives, for the many opportunities to love our neighbor.  However, in recent years I've come to see it also as a call to prayer.  

At the beginning of the film, celestial beings are discussing the plight of George Bailey, the main character in the film, who lives in the fictional town of Bedford Falls.  They are considering his current circumstances because so many people are sending up prayers for him.  They call Clarence, a junior angel, to familiarize him with George and his life before they send Clarence down to help George.  

Clarence learns that George has helped many people in life-altering, even life-saving ways.  George saved his younger, eight-year-old brother Harry from drowning.  Not too long later, he prevented his boss, the druggist Mr. Gower, from accidentally poisoning a young boy.  When George's father passed away, George postponed his plans to travel around the world so he could take over the Bailey Building and Loan Company, so that working-class people in town could get loans so they could live in respectable homes; if George had left, then the greedy Mr. Potter, the richest man in town, would have gotten rid of the Bailey business, forcing people to live in substandard housing.  Once Harry returned from college, he was married, with a lucrative job offer from his new father-in-law, so he didn't take over the Building and Loan Company.  George once again felt stuck, but in time he married beautiful, devoted Mary, and with more time, they had four kids.  

Coming to the end of the present day in the film, we find ourselves just before Harry's return home from the Second World War.  At that point, George's Uncle Billy misplaced eight thousand dollars, which would be over one hundred thousand dollars today.  George went home to Mary and his children, and was so disturbed that when he rushed out of the house, Mary picked up the telephone to alert many people that George was in trouble.  Her children were already gathered around her, asking her if they should pray for their father.  Their mother Mary replied that, yes, they should pray very hard.  George was so distraught that he was seriously considering committing suicide, and so Clarence is sent to save George.  

George discontentedly mutters that it would have been better if he had never been born.  Clarence consults with his superiors, and George's wish is granted.  Clarence shows George what would have happened if he had never been born.  

First he sees that his favorite neighborhood bar, where his friends had gently and tenderly cared for him, has become a business where his one friend Nick now works as a cold, heartless, cruel bartender.  In walks Mr. Gower, who, George learns, spent twenty years in prison, since George wasn't there to prevent him from inadvertently poisoning the young boy.  

Once he gets back to the center of town, George sees the town has been transformed for the worse.  It's no longer called Bedford Falls; now it's Pottersville, since Potter has totally taken it over.  Not only is the Building and Loan Company long gone, but debauchery is rampant; as George looks on, one of his former childhood friends, now belligerent and combative, is being dragged into a police vehicle.  He hails the cab his former friend Ernie is driving; once he's in it, Ernie tells him he's living in a slum, since the lovely home George had made possible through his loan has never existed.  Later George learns Uncle Billy was committed to an insane asylum when he lost his business.  His own mother doesn't recognize him since she never gave birth to him; she is cold and hardened, with none of the warmth and tenderness he had formerly received from her.  

Retreating from the center of town, George goes out and attempts to see the numerous homes he had made possible, which, of course, are not there; instead he finds a cemetery.  In it he sees the grave of his brother Harry.  George declares it's a lie, that Harry Bailey went to war, shot down two enemy planes that were about to crash into two transports, and thus saved many lives.  Clarence explains that Harry wasn't there to save them, since George hadn't been there to save Harry.  Then Clarence says to George, "You see, George, you really had a wonderful life."  Still George persists; he urges out of Clarence the whereabouts of Mary, whom he finds, and who, of course, also does not recognize him.  George rushes back to the bridge where he had been considering committing suicide, but now he is begging God, earnestly telling God that he wants to live again, desperately imploring God to let him live again.  Grateful, George is restored to life.  

We can fail to appreciate God's many blessings.  We can focus on what we don't have instead of what do we have.  Yet when we pay attention to what we do have, then we are grateful.  

Gratitude gives birth to generosity.  Gratitude feeds compassion.  If we are grateful, we'll take care of those in our lives.  When others are in need, since we are grateful, we'll help them.  

To recognize the need of another person, we need to keep our eyes open.  Then we need to embrace the duty of the present moment.  

I have learned these lessons in tragic ways.  Ten years ago I was in a park with a group of friends.  At one point I was walking along with Bob, who was the friend of a friend.  He was silent.  I asked him how he was.  Literally, never at any other point in my life have I ever felt such unspoken darkness from another human being.  He did not reply.  A few days later I heard that he had committed suicide.  

In the many e-mails that were exchanged in our social circle as we struggled with the reality that Bob had taken his own life, a friend of mine asked, "Where was Clarence?"  He was referring to the guardian angel in the movie "It's A Wonderful Life," who appeared to save George Bailey from committing suicide.  I sent a group e-mail to those in our social circle, pointing out that in that movie, many people were praying for George.  In contrast, I asked how many of us had been praying for Bob before he committed suicide.  A crowd was storming Heaven on behalf of George Bailey because his wife Mary had urged them to pray for him; I had reason to know that Bob was in trouble, but I did and said nothing.  

On the Feast Day of the Guardian Angels, back on October 2 this year, this blog post had occurred to me, yet I said nothing.  Now I am conveying it to you.  Yes, there are angels.  Yes, they have jobs to do.  We also have jobs to do.  One of our jobs is to pray.  Prayer is power.  Power is exerted when it is used.  If you don't use your hand to pick up a telephone off of a table, it remains on the table; if someone else doesn't come along and hand it to you, you won't get it.  If you don't pray, and if no one else does, no request is made.  

We are called to care for each other, including by praying for each other.  We are not without models to follow.  Jesus came and cared for us.  We follow Him by caring for each other.  

Some of us could point out that we have not been well taught in caring for each other since we have not had exemplary families.  Earlier this year I met a woman who asked me how to cope with a parent who inflicted trauma and who continues to inflict trauma.  Twenty years ago when I made a new friend, she told me that as a young girl, she watched until her father beat her mother until her mother was bloody.  

Yet when we have been mistreated, we do well to keep in mind that often those who have abused others were themselves gravely injured.  A couple days ago I received a letter from someone I met years ago.  Back soon after I met him, repeatedly I heard that he hit his cohabitant very hard.  Then in this letter from him last week, he told me that he is still grappling with the reality that his father killed his mother.  

Knowing of his emotional and psychological wounds, I became compassionate toward him.  Learning of his deep scars, I was brought out of myself and into communion with him.  

We are called to solidarity with our neighbors in their suffering.  They are not to be left alone, and we must remember we are not alone in our tribulations, when we feel tortured and agonized.  In Jesus, Mary and Joseph we not only find our models.  In them we also find spiritual family members who share and feel our pain because they too felt such anguish.  

In Mary, Joseph and all the Saints, we find our spiritual family members who are waiting for us to call out.  If we simply ask them to intercede with Our Father in Heaven and with His Son Jesus, they will pray for us and thus show us the love they have for us as our spiritual family members.  

A couple days ago we celebrated the Feast of the Holy Family, the family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph.  That day at Mass we heard of Mary and Joseph taking Jesus to the Temple to present Him to the Lord God.  At the Presentation, Simeon, an elderly devout man, prophesied that Jesus was destined for the fall and the rise of many, and that a sword would pierce Mary's soul too.*  A sword pierced Mary's soul partly because her Son, though he would never sin, was put to death.  He was condemned to death although He was innocent.  

Jesus stands with those who are murdered yet are guiltless.  Today we honor the Feast of the Holy Innocents, those boys two years old and younger in Bethlehem, who King Herod ordered murdered, as he attempted to wipe out Jesus, who had been born in Bethlehem, The One who would become King.**    

It is often asked how God can exist when innocent people are victims of tragedies.  When we are crying out in disbelief over how God can allow such catastrophes to occur, let us not doubt the love of God.  God let His own innocent Son die.  God let His guiltless Son die to save us, because God infinitely loves us.  God loves us limitlessly because God made an infinite sacrifice for us: God, the Divine, is infinite; God sacrificed His Son, who is Divine and thus infinite, for us; God's sacrifice for us is infinite and never-ending.  

God's love is greater than any catastrophe that befalls us.  The Holy Innocents died as King Herod ordered their massacre.  God gives us free will.  Unfortunately, some people misuse the free will God has given us.  God takes the risk, that free will might be used inappropriately, because God loves us.  Love does not force itself on another.  

God also takes the chance of the improper use of free will because tremendous good can ultimately come out of this situation.  Here we delve into mysteries which will not be fully revealed to us this side of Heaven.  For now we are called to trust that through these perilous waters we will be strengthened.  Now we see what we are; what we will be has not yet been revealed to us.***    

In the end it comes down to what we believe.  Belief is crucial.  What you believe determines what you pray.  What you pray decides the result.  We reap what we sow.  

When we fail to pray, tragedy unfolds.  By contrast, we avert tremendous suffering when we pray.  

In our prayer, or lack of prayer, we determine the course of events.  Simply in being grateful, we are transformed.  Having become grateful, we are more likely to pray.  Being more prone to pray, we are more likely to be turning to God in all circumstances, including in rather trying situations.  Turning to God, and enlisting others to petition God, together through our prayer God delivers us.  God transforms the world through our prayer.  

* Luke 2:22-35 

** Matthew 2:16 

*** 1 John 3:2 

Thank God Constantly For The Love God Shows Us Through Our Faith

Abundance flows in all our steps.  Thank God in all circumstances,* since God's blessings endlessly proliferate.  

On Thanksgiving Day, in his homily Father Cyprian noted that we can be thankful in various ways.  We can be grateful that worse circumstances have not befallen us.  Right now, thanks be to God that the coronavirus is before us and not anything more devastating, nor an additional, much more threatening challenge; this spiritual dynamic is easy to perceive here at the hermitage, given how, thanks be to God, no one here was injured during the recent wildfire, nor how any structures were damaged in that fire which erupted in the midst of the coronavirus.  

In his homily, Father Cyprian also noted that in a much more profound sense we can thank God for the spiritual blessings He bestows on us.  Thanks be to God that He gives us faith in Him.  Through this faith, God strengthens us in the hope we have in His promise of what is to come.  God motivates us through this faith to love Him** and to love one another.***  Having faith, we are empowered by God to open our hearts to receive His love He pours into our hearts through the Holy Spirit.****

As we open our hearts to God, we are grateful to God that our hearts are open.  Although current circumstances may feel challenging, thank God for what is happening right now.  Often we are not able to see the good that God is working through all that is happening right now, the good that He works for all who love Him.*****  Trust is an indispensable bulwark to going forward in faith in God.  

What do we think is happening right now?  There is what is happening that we cannot see.  There is what we do, in which we can make seen the unseen.  In our choices, we can be the pathways through which God makes manifest that which could not be seen, yet which can be seen if we consent to cooperate.  If we embrace the faith God has given us, God makes His love manifest through us, and thus we give constant thanks to God.  

* 1 Thessalonians 5:18 

** Deuteronomy 6:5; Deuteronomy 10:12; Matthew 22:37; Mark 12:30; Luke 10:27 

*** Matthew 22:39; Mark 12:31; Luke 10:27; Leviticus 19:18; Romans 13:9; Galatians 5:14 

**** Romans 5:5 

***** Romans 8:28 

In All Things God Loves Us, So Give Thanks

We can always be receiving, if our hearts are open to love.  If we open our hearts, we can see the love being extended to us.  

A woman came into the bookstore this month.  She helps to see the light.  She noted if the coronavirus hadn't forced us into lockdown, she and her husband would not have been around their daughter to notice her mental health struggles.  With the virus come what seem like restrictions.  Maybe they are more like guideposts and life preservers.  

This woman has been guided into gratitude.  She is grateful for the additional time with her husband and her daughter.  She is even more thankful that this additional time has led her and her husband to help their daughter, perhaps averting a tragedy.  

Give thanks for a virus, for a fire, and for all things.*  Perhaps some people find it difficult to always thank God for all God sends us.  Sometimes we will see benefits God is giving us.  Sometimes we will not see how, if we but love God, God is working a virus, a fire, and all for our good.**  

God is always giving to us, since God is love.***  If we truly believe God is love, we will thank God for all things.  

* 1 Thessalonians 5:18 

** Romans 8:28 

*** 1 John 4:8,16

In You Alone

Every other Thursday evening at Vespers, amongst other Scripture passages, we sing the first six verses of Psalm 137.  Psalm 137: 1-6 reads as follows:

By the rivers of Babylon there we sat and we wept
remembering Zion.

On the poplars that grew there
we hung up our harps.

For it was there that they asked us, our captors for songs,
our oppressors for joy.

"Sing to us," they said,
"one of Zion's songs."

O how could we sing the song of the Lord
on alien soil?

If I forget you, Jerusalem,
let my right hand wither!

O let my tongue cleave to my mouth
if I prize not Jerusalem above all my joys!

After each verse or so, we sing the refrain "In you alone, Jerusalem, my joy!"  The Psalmist wrote these verses from the perspective of the Israelites, as a lament of homesickness over their homeland, over Jerusalem, when they were in exile in Babylon.  When reciting these verses, one is recalling the angst which the Israelites seemed to have felt at having been forced to leave their homeland and at their having been involuntarily relocated to live in another land.  Written to particular notes which seem particularly evocative of the melancholy which they understandably seemed to have felt, I have often brooded that the tune we sing which is set to these verses is especially apropos in expressing the anguish which the Israelites seemed to have felt.

However, during the most recent instance when we sung these verses, I felt them.  No longer did I intellectually, dispassionately conclude that these particular notes fit the words we sung.  Rather, I felt their place in my heart.

Why did I feel the emotion inherent in these specific verses?  I felt the truth of these words because this truth, in a certain, related sense, has abided in my heart, and I have increasingly come to realize this truth.  I have come desperately to seek this truth, which I have felt especially reflected by particular experiences in my life.  

For two years I lived in Morocco while I served there as a PCV (Peace Corps Volunteer).  While I lived there, often I felt homesick.  I went to live in the desert there.  I lived in the desert in the literal sense.  I resided in the southeasternmost region of Morocco, in the Sahara Desert.  

However, I also lived in the desert in a figurative sense.  I was removed from much of what I knew, living in a culture significantly different from the one in which I had previously lived for decades.  Being presented daily with different customs and norms, I was constantly reminded that I was living in a foreign land.  

Not only was I always being reminded that I was away from home, I knew less of home while I was there.  I did not even hear the news as often or access the internet as much as I did when I had lived in the states.  Of course, while I lived there, I also saw less of, and heard less from, my family and friends in the states.  

Even amongst others living there who were also from my homeland, often I was isolated from other PCVs and other expats from the U.S. for much of the time I lived in Morocco.  During my Peace Corps service, at times other PCVs lived close to me.  However, during other periods, no other PCVs lived near me.  

Often it is during circumstances which we would not choose when God surprises us.  When we are deprived of what we expect, what we know, what is comfortable, often it is then that we learn, about ourselves, about what we can accomplish with God's help, who we are, and who God is calling us to be.  

When I was a PCV, I had a lot of time by myself.  I had much time which was not spent working.  I did my best to try to make good use of the solitude.  Being alone, consequently I also experienced much silence and stillness.  I spent much of my time in solitude reading.  As my service progressed, I read more and more spiritual writings.  Increasingly I sought God.  I strove consciously and deliberately to listen to God.  As I read the Bible, I began to crave reading The Word.  I felt God was drawing me closer.

While at times I felt like I was not being nourished, since I wanted to work more than I was working, simultaneously I felt nourished in the care and guidance I was receiving from God.  Despite my homesickness and solitude, I sought to embrace the circumstances in which I found myself.  I aspired to become who and what God was inviting me to be.

From this perspective, in hindsight, now I value and cherish this period in my life when I was faced with these challenging circumstances in Morocco.  Now when I consider this time of my life, which contained so much isolation and solitude, I see that through it God was drawing me closer, to become who and what God has meant me to be.  

Thus now when I think back to the day I arrived to start permanently living in the town in which I lived for two years, I understand how apropos the soundtrack was.  After I arrived in that town on the bus, I was carrying my duffel bag as I walked past a cafe.  In the cafe, through a stereo was playing the song "Sacrifice" by Elton John, which sounded all the way out to the street where I was walking.  As I heard the lyrics, "It's no sacrifice; it's no sacrifice at all," I thought, 'It's very appropriate that this song is playing as I walk by this cafe right now, but I can't articulate why it's so fitting right now.'  I suspected that with time, it would become clear why that song was so appropriate.  

Now I think, "Of course I went there.  Of course I moved to Morocco."  I went to live in the desert, yes, literally, but more importantly, figuratively.  Amidst the challenges of life there, I opened my heart to God.  I sought to listen to God, to follow The Way God set before me.  I have aspired to follow God's will for my life, yet submitting to God's will is much more of a joy than a burden.  

From this vantage point, presently I consider it to have been no sacrifice at all to have searched for my true identity, to become who God has always meant me to be.  It is no sacrifice at all to try to be true to myself and true to God: all of these endeavors are one and the same thing, if one is truly seeking God and is truly being honest with oneself.  I seek my right relationship with God, with who God wants me to become.  God wants me to be myself, since God wants me to be happy.  

Thus I truly feel it when I sing, "Let my tongue cleave to my mouth if I prize not Jerusalem, [my God, who loves me infinitely,] above all my joys."  I am so grateful to know of God's undying love for me, to know that God is calling me, that God wants me to be happy, that God is simply calling me to be myself.  

Knowing these truths, I pray, let me not speak unless I am, directly or indirectly, serving or praising God, or serving my neighbor.  I hope that all that I think, say and do is to the service and praise of God, and to the service of my neighbor.  To God be all glory, praise and honor, now and forever.  Amen.  

Give Thanks Always

Recently I was walking along a path here at the hermitage.  About one hundred feet ahead of me I saw a deer, who seemed to notice me at roughly the same time.  He pranced swiftly, yet apparently with little effort, for he was gracefully moving and smoothly advancing in his path.  After a moment I realized that he was heading toward a brick wall, about four feet high.  For a person running such a wall as this would be an obstacle.  Yet I knew this buck would have no trouble scaling this wall.  In light of how it would be so difficult for a human being, I knew it would be remarkable, this physical feat I was about to behold.  Without breaking its stride, the deer leapt in a single bound up onto the grassy ground which began at the top of the wall.  In this seamless motion he continued taking his flowing steps.  I was grateful to God for such beauty in his creatures.  

With a bit more time, however, I meditated further upon what we have from God, namely, everything that is, which consequently includes much which seems less pleasant.  We see creatures which we do not appreciate as much.  We hear how others suffer.  We ourselves feel pain.  Do we thank God when we look upon things which are not our favorites?  Are we thanking God when we are undergoing tribulations?  Everything we encounter and experience presents an opportunity to draw closer to God.  When we feel challenged, we are called to grow, to become more than we have been.  We may, indeed often we do, wish to avoid such challenges, but to do so is often to turn from the invitation to evolve and, with God's help, to become capable of more than we had thought possible.  

When we let God work through us, He displays marvelous creations through us... yet often we choose to remain in our suffering rather than embrace it so that through it God can transform us into something wonderful.  Even under excruciating conditions, we are offered chances in which we can choose to learn.  Lessons await us in circumstances which seem dark and pointless.  Although at such times in our lives, little seems to make sense, at such junctures, if we can recognize and embrace the invitations for growth, wondrous landscape lies ahead beyond what initially seems to be too much for us.  

If we take such leaps of faith in God, after a time, we come to realize that through the trials we have been enduring, and the attendant pain we have been feeling, God has been calling us to be more than we have been.  We rest in the comfort of this reassuring knowledge, having been helped to see that He loves us as a Father and as a Mother, blessing us at all times, displaying wonderful sights in front of us at certain points, and at others depriving us of comforts.  As a parent is at times tender and at other times stern, so God is with us, presenting us with circumstances which are all gifts, which are to be for our benefit.*

Once we realize that God not only is with us always, but ceaselessly waits for us, patiently, and guides us for our benefit, even when it does not seem at first to be so, with time we will come to be more and more grateful to Him.**  Knowing that He works all things for our good, we come to thank Him more and more often.***  Under more and more types of situations, we render Him more and more praise and thanksgiving.  Eventually we should be thanking Him always for everything.****  Thus rejoice always.*****  This is Heaven.  

* Hebrews 12:3-11.  
** Matthew 28:20.
*** Romans 8:28. 
**** Ephesians 5:20. 
***** Philippians 4:4.