Are You Going To Heaven?

Recently, I was confronted by an “evangelical” in downtown Asheville, NC.
She asked if I was going to heaven. I said, “Yes! I am on my way to see my massage therapist!”
She replied, “That’s not heaven. Sounds like you are going to hell!”
I replied, “I’m living that part of the Lord’s Prayer of ‘Thy Kingdom Come, Thy will be done ON EARTH as in Heaven. Massage therapy is healing, bringing Heaven to Earth. In fact, I see creating loving, healthy, nurturing, inclusive, safe, ‘woke’ communities as bringing Heaven to Earth.”
According to the “evangelical,” I was wrong.
And that is the problem with MAGA white Christian Nationalist Evangelicals – a practice of exclusive certainty, hate for those who do not walk the same walk, and justify the evil of this POTUS regime. No room for compassion, facts, evidence, doubt, critical thinking, curiosity, humility, social justice, or compromise.
Words matter. Conversation matters. Seeking to understand before being understood matters.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.