H,
High words count for nothing without the ‘low’ art of giving a damn. The high treason of Kingdom life is not caring. You should be the cheated and the stepped on before you are the one who does not care, who shuts ears and heart to other pain, including the one you bear, and pursues a life of careful consideration and self-protection. Now I am not saying to dive into the sea of other troubles just to neglect your own. He is saying connect your own pain with the suffering of others and you will understand both much more. Then look up to things that will last forever for help.
The Kingdom is not a cold and unfeeling mass of creatures who want domination over connection. It does not battle with the ordinary weapons of the human experience so far. It connects. It seeks to bring lion and lamb to the table of peace and set the earth again on the foundation of light and love that was always its destiny. I know this flowery language looks obtuse in the face of fierce words in the book of life. Well, the words there may be tough but so is love. It is oxymoronic to say: “tough love.” There is no soft or easy love. Love as a principle that rules the universe is supposed to cost you everything. It fills up only the empty. So you see, you must always be empty.
The harsh words speak to rebirth. The pain is the last pang of a new earth emerging from the darkness that has surrounded our globe since man went left from purpose.
Yet, those are all high spun concepts that will work out in God. We start with ordinary love. We begin with connection. The easiest thing on earth to do is to find a cold and unfeeling pursuit, like writing a book to gain success, and chasing it to the detriment of anything else. It is easy to take the law of focus and make it all there is. To eliminate all forms of human interaction that does not benefit your stated aims and then make reaching the end of the tunnel the goal. It is good for stolid hearts and closed minds. It frees us from some consequence and it allows us to make progress and take flight away from the thought that we do nothing so we are worth nothing.
This is not the Kingdom though and it has never been. Our very connection to God will make us feel more and not less. He slows down the progress we think we are making to show us we are really in regress. The Kingdom is not a 9 to 5 or a bluesy Monday to freaky Friday occupation. It is not in the things you do but in the person you are. We are told that many will do works and be shut out because they are not known. We are told that we need the right clothes to be granted excess to the face of God. That is to be like Christ not to act like Him. There is no acting here. We have to be and become.
He was not a person who did things to get somewhere. He is the person who is and so does. None of this is against work. He did not stand still. He just waited to be before he did anything at all. That is the mark of the Kingdom. Being and then doing.
To be is connection. To be is relationship. To be is waking up every day to grace, hope, faith and love in God. It seems esoteric until you try it. Then it takes on a life of its own. It will be manifestly uncomfortable at first but it should be. That is just the old you going away. It will try and come back from time to time but it will lose every time. You have stepped into the light. You are becoming. You live in the Kingdom now.