Dear Spiritual Companions,
Summer is my favorite season of the year. I lived the first 50 years of my life up North where the upper 80′s were considered a heat wave. It wasn’t until I moved to New Orleans that I learned what a heat wave really is. Someone once described out heat here in these words, “You step outside your house in the middle of May and it feels like you are hit with a wet hot wash cloth. This continues into October.” It is true! I have found a great place to live in because of the heat. Many disagree with me because they don’t like the heat and can’t understand me.
It is funny how we can disagree or have problems with someone else because they may not think like us or like what we like. Why? What does it matter that someone else loves the heat when we don’t or vice versa? Why is it so important that everyone think the way we do, especially with the parts of life that matter the most to us? We are about celebrate Independence Day, but once someone is a free thinker and thereby independent we get upset. We embrace diversity, but when it happens we are threatened by it. We are interesting human creatures aren’t we?
Religion is probably the biggest culprit. Religions have creeds and doctrines – endless rules to follow. When someone calls these beliefs into question we crucify them in the name of god! We end up not speaking for God because we do not want to be confused with the facts. We have our own facts wrapped in truths which are there not to keep God alive, but rather the institution. If we lose God in the process so be it. After all the freedom to believe what makes sense to our inner spirit only leads to chaos. It is so interesting to me that in the first chapter, first verse of Genesis God saw the earth as formless and desolate. Not a bad description of chaos! God turned that into night and day, sky and earth, ocean and land. God also created us and all animals out of nothing. When we let God be God our chaos of free spiritual thinking suddenly creates new life. Take a close look at the various World Religions and the story is the same, out of what was came a new thing. What the people were hanging onto as truth became the catalyst for God to appear in a new way.
We are living in that kind of Time now. Fundamentalists or liberals who say it must be there way are creating the tension out of which God is creating something new. Our spirits are drawn to that which has life not death. When the church, temple, mosque or any holy gathering place demand likeminded thinking or believing the same way they push the independent free thinkers away. The leaders of these kinds of institutions can’t understand why their attendance is dropping or there doesn’t seem to be as much interest. They desperately create new gimicky approaches to attract people, but to no avail. The alive communities, on the other hand, are the ones encouraging one another to choose to believe, think and feel what is right for them. This creativity then spills over into service into the world for those who are most in need or most unlike the ones offering service. In such groups nothing matters but encouraging individuals to find themselves in God, even if no one else feels thinks or believes as they do.
As we draw close to Independence Day we are no longer just a Christian Nation. We are also a Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu and many other various other Religions Nation. Some are frightened by this, but I say Amen! So be it because now God is welcome in God’s various forms. Our first settlers came here for religious freedom. It seems like it is time to widen the invitation. Something to celebrate – right?
Peace,
Gary