# 'Heaven is a place on Earth'



## Finduilas (Dec 13, 2002)

Once I heard this song and didn't actually impressed me a lot,then I heard it thousand of times and I started love it but I didn't see any special meaning relevant to my life.
Yesterday I heard it once again and I started asking myself quite a lot of questions connected to Tolkien's world,of course.
First of all,authors become authors to create not to work,but I mean create something valuable like fairy tales.Didn't Tolkien himself start his,and ours later,journey around not only countries but-worlds,children's dreams,hopes,and even time's barriers-as a imaginitive fairy tale?Well,a very complicated one but still a fulfilled dream of many kids and adults as well.
So my point is if you can see Tolkien's creative work as a kind of the perfect Heaven-not of complete good.Becuase nobody would resist to leave in perfect bliss.People do need adventure but happines as well,good and bad to keep them contious about life,love and hatred to be able to appreciate the true love.Tolkien tries and I think quite successful to create Heaven-Middle-earth and every single piece of the author's imagination.
Do you find your Heaven in his works and their atmosphere because I think books should make you feel comfortable as well as give delight of what you are acually reading.


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## Gil-Galad (Dec 13, 2002)

If I had the chance to chose between my world and Tokien's world,I would chose to live in Tolkien's one.I cannot tell you why,That's just a dream,I desire for life filled with battles and great deeds.But I don't think this world is Heaven,even Valinor is not Heaven,because Melkor has spread away the seeds of his evil.


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## Finduilas (Dec 13, 2002)

> But I don't find this world Heaven,even Valinor is not Heaven,because Melkor has spread away the seeds of his evil.



That's what I meant - perfect life is just...not perfect enough because ou always mis adventures and challenges.Aren't Melkor and his seeds the greatest adventure for good itself?


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## tom bombadil (Dec 15, 2002)

It would be awesome to live in Tolkien's world, Arda.
Not because battles, but because of the honor, the bravery, friendship, and many other values that OUR world is loosing.


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## Hirila (Dec 16, 2002)

It certainly would be great, living as apart of the ME myth.

But I think I wouldn't want to live there forever. I would prefer a sumer holiday, or something. I found my place n our reality and dream myself into the myth. 
And isn't this exactly what makes a Heaven? The dreaming of it. Would it still be Heaven if lived in it. I do not think so. You would get used to it and someday find it as boring as our reality. And you would dream yourself away into another world. (Valinor?) And from there to another world. 

Tolkien said it himself: Men are never contented with what they have. They have this longing for new things, want discover everything. If we couldn't dream of something because we lived in a dream, where would Heaven be?

No, I'd rather be here and dream myself away into Arda from time to time.


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## Mindy_O_Lluin (Dec 16, 2002)

I think the reason we recognise Tolkien's world as blissful is because it is all taken from experience of our own world. It's just all encapsulated into a one year period in the book. If you live a long enough life over time, you may experience most all of the things that make you feel like you are in heaven. Travel. Beauty in nature. Love of your good friends and family. Humor and fun. Parties where you get to stand out in the crowd. Sleeping out under the stars, The smell of pine needles under your feet. Hiking in the wilderness with friends and cooking out at a campground. The honor of doing the right thing. All the fears and overcoming them or surviving them. The grief of death of someone near to you. Falling in love when you least expect it. The joy of achieving something great or purposeful for your fellow man. It's all right here. It's just that Tolkien's story focuses us on these things for the length of time it takes to read it. And that was HIS great gift to the world. 

(I just hope we, as a species, do not destroy all the good things of our world that give us these pleasures - with waste, over consumption, over-population, and destruction of nature, so that many future generations can experience them too.)


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## Finduilas (Dec 16, 2002)

> It's just all encapsulated into a one year period in the book.



Are you talking about LOTR because I meant the Sil and Tolkien's work or better world in gneral.But even if we consider only the LOTR-a one year period in this book-well,there is so much to discuss and think of.The LOTR is undoubtfully amaster piece and that means a extraordinary rich one-rich of vocabulary,English,epic,legends etc.

But your words of Heaven are really inspiring and quite true as well,oh for me they are.But our Heaven here on our Earth is disapearing,yes,it's thin and thinning,light and lighter.Life needs love as well as real people not machines,Heaven needs life.Therefore Heaven needs love as well but ,unfortunately,we can't congratulate ourselves for let's call it 'LOVE EARTH',because it doesn't exist anymore for which we will suffer all life or the rest we have.
A little pesimistic ,isn't it?
Well,that's the true.


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## Beruthiel (Dec 16, 2002)

*Hmmm*

While I would jump at the chance to visit Middle Earth, I would balk at the lack of modern convieniences.

Granted, modern medicine can be foregone if you have Aragorn around to Heal you. But I doubt they have flush toilets in Rivendell. Certainly not in Lorien!


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## Mindy_O_Lluin (Dec 17, 2002)

No, they would be smarter than us and have composting toilets. And they would recycle every speck of waste back into the earth. And not use any 'disposables'. I could not invision any kind of litter problem in Lorien.

Yes, Finduilas, sorry, I missed your point and was referring to LOTR with that time scale. But you did make the point that I would eventually have gotten too -- That it all boils down to LOVE. The same with Heaven. I suspect Heaven is just a place where we will be totally, eternally encompassed in all the combined love within the universe. And Tolkien's world is close to that kind of place. Here in real life, we only get glimpses and smidgens of it to remind us of what could be. But with all the increasing destructiveness, hatefulness and selfishness going on in the world, those smidgens are getting less and less. I could fill pages and pages with the details of what is wrong in the world, but a nutshell to summarize, it's the devastating lack of caring.


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