"Most humans...know the world, or think they do, but they don't know God.  They identify exclusively with their own physical and psychological form, unconscious of essence.  And because every form is highly unstable, they live in fear... If you remain in conscious connection with the Unmanifested, you value, love, and deeply respect the Unmanifested, and every life form in it as an _expression of the One Life... every form is destined to devolve again and...ultimately nothing out here matters all that much..." (Eckhart, p 139-140)

As we work with God for Shalom, for reconciliation of all things, it helps to remember what Eckhart says - that ontologically all things spring from and go back to that One LIfe, which is God.  God has made us in the image of Godself - that means that all of us have a piece, a part of God within us.  It also means that we never have far to go to be connected with and to God.  Not only is God indwelling in us but in those around us... If we are having trouble turning inward, going within to the inner body, connecting with God may be no further away than a friend, or neighbor, or spouse, or lover, or parent. 

All of creation is part of God, and reflects God - this is why any serious path towards Shalom must take into account the reconciliation of all creation to itself and to its Creator.  Heaven is eternally being consciously in the presence of God (of Being).

"True salvation is fulfillment, peace, life in all its fullness... to feel within you the good that has no opposite, the joy of Being that depends on nothing outside itself... and abiding presence... it is to 'know God' -- not as something outside you, but as your own innermost essence.  True salvation is to know yourself as an inseparable part of the timeless and formless One Life from which all that exists derives its being.  True salvation is a state of freedom -- from fear, from suffering, from a perceived state of lack and insufficiency and therefore from all wanting, needing, grasping, and clinging... Your mind is telling you...that you need time -- that you need to find, sort out, do, achieve, acquire, become, or understand something before you can be free or complete.  You see time as the means to salvation, whereas in truth it is the greatest obstacle to salvation... You 'get there' by realizing that you are there already.  You find God the moment that you don't need to seek God.  So there is no only way to salvation... However, there is only one point of access, the Now... There is nothing you can ever do or attain that will get you closer to salvation than it is at this moment... Nor can anything that you ever did or that was done to you in the past prevent you from saying 'yes' to what is, and taking your attention deeply into the Now." (pg 147)

Many times Xians in particular get caught up in the idea that only the perfect, or those trying to be perfect, are suitable candidates for heaven.  As Eckhart demonstrates, nothing could be farther from the truth.  We are as we are, and that is enough.  As we work towards becoming enlightened, towards being able to be present most of the time, our behaviors and outlooks change by definition, and so we become more "perfect", but that is a result of salvation, of being present... not a prerequisite.

This seems to be an Episcopal/Anglican view, and may be why i am not something else, although i have been to many different churches.  I no longer see salvation the way i once did, having more sensitivity and understanding...