The transcendent inside

Everything you see has its roots in the unseen world.
    The forms may change, yet the essence remains the same.
Every wonderful sight will vanish; every sweet word will fade,
    But do not be disheartened,
The source they come from is eternal, growing,
    Branching out, giving new life and new joy.
Rumi, translated from the Persian

Tree, Paul Jarvis, unsplash.com

Tree, Paul Jarvis, unsplash.com

Theologically, you would call heaven "the transcendent inside" of everything.  Heaven is not so much a place out there as it is the full depth and dynamism of things in here.  That's why Jesus said "the kingdom of [heaven] is within you".  Heaven is an experience now before it is later and forever. Richard Rohr

"The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible...He is before all things, and in him all things hold together." Colossians

The depth and dynamism of things

Sometimes you don't know that you have been looking for something.  And then you find it and you realise you had been on the lookout, in my case a better feel for what on earth heaven is about, that iconic draw.  A friend has described her foreboding, seeing heaven as 'claustrophobic',  another as an endless round of choruses (this was not for her a happy thought) whilst someone else hoped for one long eternal hot bath.  There are concerns as well as hopes.

The invisible revealed

Picasso painted onto canvas the emotions that were felt deeply on the inside.  'The full depth and dynamism of things in here', the things that are invisible, often hidden, but which are in fact substantial and necessary, reveal and support a human being and a thriving world.  There is thrill that goes with the God made.  The world is charged with the grandeur of God/It will flame out, like shining from shook foil observes Gerard Manley Hopkins. The God filled universe spills over.  How else could it with Christ holding all things together, not so much in a desperate straining way but in a charged fashion that coheres and harmonises.