Originally posted on Facebook HERE
Late post today. Still in Florida. Beautiful day here. Doesn’t even look real out the back window. Easter Sunday. I went to a service, then a Passover Seder today. Most of you who read my posts with any regularity will notice that although they often discuss spirituality, I seldom discuss a particular way to do it. I’ve mentioned Buddha, Jesus, Lao-Tzu, and referenced books and teachers from many different faiths within my writing. I didn’t really ever start even thinking about anything in a spiritual level until I was twenty nine years old. That’s when I quit using alcohol and drugs, and I started to look within myself and maybe seek the “higher power” they mentioned in AA. I started living by a different moral code. A month after I quit alcohol and drugs I also stopped eating meat. Eating meat never really seemed right to me, but while in the midst of my addiction it wasn’t a big enough concern for me to take seriously. And from a spiritual level, I started reading, journaling and meditating. One thing that I think was nice for me was I came into a spiritual search with no preconceived notions. While I guess we were Lutheran or Methodist supposedly when I was growing up, we maybe went to a church twice?… I wasn’t really brought up with parents who imposed any belief system on me. I think that might be somewhat unusual, to be sort of a spiritual blank slate at age twenty nine. Eastern philosophies have always seemed to be what I prefer to gravitate to, but I’ve also read and done the entire year long workbook from A Course In Miracles (which comes from the perspective of Jesus). Over time I found that there is a church that looks at all spiritual study as valid, and that is what I identify with if I’m ever asked about it now – Unitarian. So, going into today’s service I didn’t really know as much about the crucifixion, the resurrection, or what a Passover Seder is as many others, maybe most others. I think I learned quite a bit of Biblical history today, and that’s a great thing. Learning. I like to learn about people’s beliefs, not just criticize them because of something I heard once and took for truth. If I want to know more about Islamic faith, I’ll do my own research. Same with Christianity, Buddhism, or anything else. And all religions have people who do despicable things in God’s name. Breaking up God into sects and believing whatever sect you belong to to be the only way, that isn’t God to me. That’s humans screwing it up. If there truly is one God that is omniscient, omnipresent and omnipotent, and you find God’s grace within you, why should it matter what path you took to get there? Jesus said: “He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these he will do; because I go to the father” (King James Version). Let’s stop bickering about all the different ways there are to find God, and focus on maybe going to the father ourselves and doing some work there, no matter what path we take. Because once we truly know God, at the level Jesus did, only then can we do the works that he did and greater things. Also Jesus: “With God all things are possible”. ALL things. Like respecting the views of other true spiritual seekers. If you’re pissed off because someone else isn’t doing God right… maybe that’s on you. It doesn’t sound like any spiritual teaching I’ve ever seen. What is important is that you find God. And live from that place as much as possible. I wish you well on that journey, whatever it is for you.
