What is the Essence of Heaven?

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This morning, we reflect on a deeper answer to a timeless question: what is the essence of heaven? While love is the heart of it, today I’m struck by how peace forms heaven’s very atmosphere. Like the stillness of dawn, as Swedenborg writes in Secrets of Heaven 2780, where “Peaceful conditions in the heavens resemble the mood of dawn on the earth. Everything heavenly and spiritual… exists in a state of peace.” That peace isn’t just passive, it’s profoundly generative. Making love possible and giving it room to grow. In a world so often frenzied, heaven’s peace reminds us of the value of sacred stillness. As Mary Oliver says,

“It doesn’t have to be the blue iris.

It could be weeds in a vacant lot or a few small stones.

Just pay attention.

Then patch a few words together

and don’t try to make them elaborate.

This isn’t a contest, but a doorway.”

This voice, I believe, is God’s voice within us, and our calling is to make space for it. So, I invite you to settle peace into your soul. Not to escape life, but to enter it more fully, lovingly, and faithfully.