Building the Republic of Heaven, Together: Are You In?

Over my holidays I read Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials", a gripping fantasy epic spanning more than a few worlds. The protagonist, Lyra, is a little girl of twelve who comes from a world where the souls of people appear as animals who are their faithful companions. She joins creatures as disparate as witches, angels and dwarf-like Gallivespians on flying grasshoppers who gather their forces to oppose the church and its Magisterium -- and -- to kill God.

I had heard this series described before as an atheist tract, so I was surprised at how much its themes resonated with me. In the story, the being known as "the Authority" or "God" was the first angel created who, by deception and force, and through the agency of the church, subdued and placed all living beings under his authority. Through the ages, then, “God” and the church have stamped out all freedom, independence, joy, truthfulness and good feelings from the world.

If this is really what God is, I'd certainly want him killed too!

Pullman's trilogy should really provoke reflection in those of us who profess religious faith to think about how we image God. Unfortunately, religion through the ages has sometimes been distorted and used to subdue instead of free.

I remember a funny encounter with a neighbour of another religion once when I was going off on a retreat. "What's this 'retreat' thing about, anyway?" he asked.

Put off-guard by the unexpected question, I stumbled for words. "Well, it's like taking time off to rest, to meditate, to reflect on life..."

"Oh," he replied with a twinkle in his eye, "I thought it meant going into the forest and sitting like this" - he mimed a lotus position - "and waiting to hear God's voice saying, 'Audrey, this is what you must do... '"

I laughed along, but it struck me that underlying his joviality was a conception of the divine as the all-powerful being whose will you must obey, or else... the Almighty before whose unyielding perfection we must quake in fear and try to placate as best we can. While we now understand the divine in more life-giving ways, this age-old conception has proven hard to shake.

How else can we think about God, and our relationship with the divine?

As I was reflecting on “His Dark Materials”, I came across a biblical metaphor that gave me much joy:

“This is how it is with the kingdom of God; it is as if someone were to scatter seed on the land and would sleep and rise night and day and through it all the seed would sprout and grow, they know not how. Of its own accord the land yields fruit, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear….” (Mark 4:26-29)

Indeed, like the plants that grow by the grace of the Creator Spirit, life has arisen in our universe, scientists tell us, through eons and eons of evolution – from the stars and planets, plants and animals, to us human persons who have been gifted with self-reflective consciousness. The beauty and sacredness of all we see around us has come into being by the grace of the Creator Spirit, in ways we can hardly understand, and will go on with or without us. But, incredibly, like the farmer in the metaphor, we have been offered a chance to co-create and cooperate with this divine Spirit in building a better world.

And how else do we do this than by giving all of ourselves to becoming our best and true selves - the you and me, beautiful and fully alive, that we were created to be - each different and yet each an indispensable part of our shared universe?

It is good news indeed!

*****

Pantalaimon murmured, “That thing that Will said… He said we had to build something…”

[Lyra:] “… No one could [build it], if they put themselves first. We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and brave and patient, and we’ve got to study and think, and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…”

Her hands were resting on his glossy fur. Somewhere in the garden a nightingale was singing, and a little breeze touched her hair and stirred the leaves overhead. All the different bells of the city chimed, once each, this one high, that one low, some close by, others further off, one cracked and peevish, another grave and sonorous, but agreeing in all their different voices on what the time was, even if some of them got it more slowly than others. In that other Oxford where she and Will had kissed goodbye, the bells would be chiming too, and a nightingale would be singing, and a little breeze would be stirring the leaves in the Botanic Garden. 

“And then what?” said her daemon sleepily. “Build what?”

“The republic of heaven,” said Lyra.

(The last conversation between Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon in The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman)

*****

Food for thought:
Relish for a moment the thought that I am a unique, indispensable part of our shared universe.
How am I being invited to build the “republic of heaven”?