Anyone can see that something is wrong. Most everyone, in fact, doe. There may be many different opinions about what exactly that something is and just as many about what to do about it, but no one is looking around and thinking that we've arrived. Conservatism wants to protect the good from the threat of the novel and progressivism wants to pursue more good than the timid desire, but no one wants everything to stay exactly as it is, and that, as Chesterton points out, is because we are Heaven-haunted. The garden echoes into the ghetto. We miss somewhere we've never been as we miss the mark wherever we are. We feel patriotism for a place we have misplaced and loyalty for a land that someone once loved.
Matthew 6:33
Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
If you seek the kingdom of God you will see the sin in the kingdoms of men. If you seek only the conquest of men, you will be conquered by the kingdom of Christ.
“Aim at Heaven and you will get Earth 'thrown in': aim at Earth and you will get neither." — C.S. Lewis
If you aim for earth without reference to Heaven, you reveal that you do not understand where the earth came from. If you aim at Heaven without reference to the earth, you reveal that you do not understand where it is all going. If you, however, regularly implore God, as Jesus commanded, to bring about His kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven, you will see His will done.
History requires an origin story and an eschatology. The origin and end game of God is Edenic. It is restored relations between Heaven and earth: horizontal harmony and vertical vitality. It is men unified with Christ above and one another below, receiving all good things from God as grace and with gratitude.
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