City Of God 9

Try as we might, the City Of God cannot be built. It is impossible to create Heaven on Earth. It has been tried, generation after generation, all of the world, by people of all faiths and no faith, from Trappist monasteries to secular communes. Utopia is wisely named because the word means literally, "No Place." It doesn't exist, it never has existed. It never will exist. We have to live with this reality, try as we might to make it a reality. It is as though we are genetically programmed to vindicate Einstein's Theory of Insanity: doing the same dumb thing over and over and expecting a different result. Today I am going to focus on the religious, specifically the Christian version. Ever since Jesus walked the earth with his disciples there has been an expectation that heaven will somehow come to earth and we will all live in glorious harmony and love. Jesus did not return during the lifetime of his Apostles, as he expected he would and they expected he would, and they were all martyred for their faithful witness. The early church did what they could to emulate the City of God in the midst of persecution, threat, danger and martyrdom. I think that at times they might have come close, but their very imperfect and flawed human nature always seemed to get in the way of even the most faithful and devout believers. as Christianity became the state religion of the Roman Empire monasticism grew and flourished as the faithful fled into the wilderness and into small tight communities where they could build the City of God, but there was no gold with which to pave the streets, nor did they find sapphires or rubies to adorn their walls. And so it's gone throughout the centuries and over the millennia. During the Dark Ages monks and nuns faithfully preserved the records of civilization and culture, but then the Church turned into a particularly ugly and devouring monster as pontiff after pontiff mistook spiritual for secular authority, became drunk on power and through crusades and inquisitions persecuted and murdered the innocent by thousands, by millions. The debauchery reached its nadir during the early Renaissance when Pope Alexander VI spawned his illegitimate progeny that mutated into the dreaded and dreadful Borgias, and Henry VIII, Martin Luther and John Calvin, among others, each did their part to launch the Protestant Reformation. Despite the movements of reform and transformation, no one was able to build the City of God. Rome and the Vatican remained as corrupt and removed from realities both terrestrial and celestial, as they remain to this day, and every single protestant mutation has proved to be every bit as brutal, intolerant and hating as the mother church they despised. The Eastern Orthodox are no better, especially in Russia where they have long been pawns to the pleasure and behest of the czar and also that reprehensible Vladimir Putin. Various revivals and renewals have since taken place with intentional communities springing into existent only to perish like desert flowers. Some, perhaps many, have also been able to do a phenomenal amount of good, although they have even more frequently morphed into self-devouring monsters. I know, because I have been part of similar movements of Christian renewal and community. Despite the damage done, in spite of our failure to build the City of God in this world, we ourselves have been able to become more than just ourselves and we have been privileged to serve and help and facilitate the healing of many wounded and broken souls, ours among them. It has always been at great cost. I also think that it is going to always remain in our prevue to continue striving to make real the presence of the Holy One in our midst, if not through our success then maybe through our many failures. this will keep us reaching beyond ourselves and beyond the limitations that we live within to touch and make real something vastly more beautiful and enduring. This supernal reality already is, it is in our midst, it is in our DNA, it thrives and sings in the universe, in everything that surrounds us, and we who have the eyes to see are always be going to striving to summon forth this reality, to open our ears, our eyes and our hearts, a little bit more to this sublime reality of Christ being here among us.