The Glorious Faith From Surrendering the Ultimate Reward

Some Australian aborigines hold that this, this world here and now, is Heaven.

Consider it a moment: Heaven is not perfect, but what has been, what is real, and what is possible. That suffering is here in Heaven but often within our power to alleviate, and that Heaven is not for us eternal and unchanging. 

What flows from this concept is powerful- active, optimistic and responsible beliefs: how precious are living souls, how immeasurably beautiful is the life of Earth in its messy impurity, how urgent our work, and our accretion of knowledge.  How much there is to do, and help, in whatever small measure of power becomes available.  How the attention to the specifics of our reality, and caring for them, is the direct regard of the ultimate creation.  How cultivation of kindness, and the marking, and in real ways making, of our world with our conscious experience of it, is a goal of living: the ceaseless maintenance of Heaven.

And this is exactly what is done in the songlines, the great treks across the Outback over ancient trails, making the world that is Heaven alive in the act of walking, being in it, singing it. 

What I find especially beautiful in this, is that there is no need of metaphysics; only that it is kind and useful to act as if Heaven is damn fine metaphor for how to regard Earth, and those who wish to take this as far as faith, have no need to demand it of others, as all of our actions would tend to complement each others'. 

What we surrender for this is a fantasy of eternal ecstatic pleasure after death.  That was always pretty ridiculous anyway, and as Twain noted, not possible even in our fondest concepts of Heaven.