Standing Together

I have this dream.   It is a dream that stirs deep in my heart and is never very far from me.

My dream looks like this. I am standing in church surrounded by thousands of people.   We are standing in the pews all packed together and no one has elbow room.   Everyone is singing.   We are all singing the same song and our voices mix together and become one.   One voice that reaches the Light.  Our Light.  The One who loves us and created us and knows us.   We are praising Him and the joy overflows.

I stop singing for a moment and I look around because I know something is different.   The people that surround me are NOT the same people that come with me to Mass every Sunday.   I look closer and really see them.   I smile and sing louder and my heart sings with joy.   This is heaven.  I know it is heaven because I have never seen anything like it in my whole life.  Everything is different. 

I know in that moment that each person in the church with me went on a journey to get here.   A hard journey.  And, each person's journey was different but it led them to this place.  This place where we can all stand together and sing.

The Catholic, the Methodist, the Baptist, the Lutheran, the Mormon, each and every denomination was present.  We no longer found a need to separate ourselves.

The Christian, the Buddhist, the Muslim, the Jew, the Hindu, each and every religion was present.

We all were one in that moment.

The murderer, the liar, the thief, the abortionist, the homosexual, the abuser, the molester, the adulterer, the hater, the cheat, the sloth, the polygamist, the violent, the prideful.   They were all standing in the pews next to me.  Each of us had our own sin yet we could all stand together because of our God.

No matter what any doctrine has taught me this is what I believe to be true.   This is the dream that God has placed into my heart.  God is love.  God is forgiveness.  God loves us all.

My heart longs for this place of togetherness.  When we can finally all stand together and stop judging each other.   A place where we can love each other no matter our differences and we can glorify the One who loves us the most.

For now, I will stand in my church and at my bible study surrounded by fellow Christians.  In these places I will worship, study, and glorify God because this is where I find my home, my strength, and my joy.  Yet, secretly, I long for this place where everyone is welcomed and cherished.  A place where no one is condemned for their beliefs, their sins or their journey.  A place we can stand together and put everything else aside.  A place where we can stop trying to convert and change each other and just love each other.

My dream for today since we are not in heaven yet is that we put aside every label, every judgement, every condemnation and we do the one thing that our God has asked us to do:  To love Him above everything else and then to love our neighbor as our self.    I think if we do that we may just find our own little heaven on earth.