Chapter 151

Thomas Traherne: “To have blessings and to prize them is to be in Heaven; to have them and not to prize them is to be in Hell. . . . To prize them and not to have them is to be in Hell.”

There are a lot of heavens and hells here in this statement. But that is actually not the point to be made here. All the points pertinent here are thinking perspectives, and what you think about it matters most of all. It may be the only thing that matters at all.

What I think constitutes a “blessing” is what indeed makes something, whether it be material thing or event or relationship or whatever, a blessing. What I think about it will impart blessing-worthiness on that objective, or not. Does my thinking create physical matter? Well no, but what I think about this piece of physical matter will determine whether or not it is important to me, a blessing so to speak.

Of course “prizing” them, valuing them or not, is the very essence of what I think about it. What you and I prize, is something that we have mentally ascribed high value to, we place the most honor upon this, we seek it more diligently than we do lesser things.

And Heaven and Hell, while they may well be physical geospatial places somewhere in the universe, they are most definitely what I think about them. What mentally makes one place the most sought after, and another the most shunned, is what I think about them.

And what you think about these matters is what will ultimately determine all the pieces of this blessing prizing puzzle of heaven and hell.