The dream of building the Kingdom of Heaven on earth is a utopia. The desire for all people to live in harmony and love, according to the words of the New Testament—but those that are the most difficult to put into practice, which speak of love for one’s neighbor—is a pipe dream.
Apparently, there was a moment in the history of the Crusades when Baldwin IV the Leper, who ruled Jerusalem in the 12th century, wanted to turn the city of Christians, Jews and Muslims into the Kingdom of Heaven. Ridley Scott included this supposition in his film. In his directed film “Kingdom of Heaven,” the ruler of Jerusalem, ravaged by leprosy from the age of nine, dreams of a utopian oasis of love in lands of merciless battles, hatred in the name of God, greed and the dirty politics of powerful families.
There is one scene in the film in which Baldwin explains why he pursues such an unattainable ideal, knowing that the Kingdom of Heaven has no chance of existing for long in Jerusalem. According to his words, it does not matter in the slightest how long such a Kingdom survives; what matters is that it comes into being. From then on, it will exist forever in human consciousness as a model, an idea, a symbol, like hope. It will no longer be possible to deny it—or that we are capable of creating it.
Watching couples on Valentine’s Day, celebrating the day of lovers, I know that they too once created their own Kingdom of Heaven. At the moment when they first looked at each other and confessed their feelings. In the instant of being overwhelmed by the closeness of a person who, only a moment earlier, had been a stranger and indifferent. In a flash of understanding that something extraordinary was approaching. When the feeling that would bind them for life was born. A time when everything existed in extraordinary harmony, when one did not believe in arguments, bad days, tensions, loneliness within a relationship, or troubles and differing opinions about their shared future.
The Kingdom of Heaven is a state in which all evil forces lay down their weapons and have no access to the lovers. The hostile armies of everyday, prosaic life withdraw from their fortress. Nothing and no one can destroy their faith in love or their certainty that, despite illnesses and failures, they will remain together until death parts them.
I know the love stories of almost everyone in my family. Grandmothers, aunts and parents. Relationships that have lasted sixty, forty or twenty years. When I ask them to tell me how they met, their eyes light up. Their faces soften; they look for each other’s gaze, jointly bearing witness to those days. They listen to one another. Both her version and his are equally important. They tease each other over details or over establishing who took the first step, smiled or took notice. They laugh at their fears of being rejected and at their romantic blunders. My paternal grandfather would always eat his fill before visiting my grandmother’s parents, so he would appear modest, someone unfamiliar with gluttony, but he was perceived as a sickly boy who never had an appetite.
Couples return to memories of their love, which came into their lives in its purest form, drawing strength from that experience to remain together. They tell their stories to others to encourage them, to bear witness that love exists in a relationship and is still present. Despite conflicts, difficult circumstances and everyday failures.
On Valentine’s Day, I wish every person their own Kingdom of Heaven, and to those who have already gained possession of it, I say: proclaim the good news and remember.
Grażyna Hanaf