5002. 'To be with her' means lest it should thereby be made one with it. This is clear from the meaning of 'being with someone' as existing joined more closely or united together. The reason 'being' means existing united is that the actual being (esse) of a thing is good, and all good flows from love, love being essentially a spiritual togetherness or oneness. This explains why in the highest sense the Lord is called 'Being' (Esse), or Jehovah; for all good flowing from love or spiritual togetherness is derived from Him. Because the love that is derived from Him and returned to Him through the acceptance of it, and also mutual love, make heaven one, heaven is therefore called a marriage, which gives it its 'being'. One would be able to say the same of the Church if love and charity existed there as its essential being. Therefore where no togetherness or unity exists, the Church has no 'being', for unless something were present there to unite its members or make them one, the Church would disintegrate and cease to exist.

[2] The same happens to civil society if everyone there is out only for himself and nobody, except for his own purposes, takes any interest in anyone else. Without laws to unite its members, and without any fears for loss of gain, position, reputation, or life, society would fall completely to pieces. Therefore the 'being' of such a society in which everyone is out for himself consists in its members being joined or united together, but at a purely external level. Internally that society does not have any 'being'. Consequently in the next life people like this are confined to hell, where in a similar way they are kept in check by external restraints, especially by fears. But as often as those restraints are eased, one individual hastens to destroy another, there being nothing he wants to do more than to destroy another completely. It is different in heaven, where love to the Lord and mutual love deriving from that love join its members together at an internal level. When external restraints are removed there, angels become even more closely joined to one another. And being thereby drawn nearer to the Divine Being (Esse) coming to them from the Lord, they are filled deeper still with affection, and from this with a sense of freedom, and as a consequence with feelings of blessedness, happiness, and joy.