Religion based on fear

One of the reasons I cannot to commit to any of the established religions I’ve studied or been part of is because I will not base my beliefs on fear.  

I firmly believe that the higher power in the universe is all about love.  I cannot subscribe to the idea of being sent to hell, or the existence of a vengeful God, or a myriad of commandments that insist that you should act out of fear.

If you are doing or not doing something because you are afraid, whether of hell or some other kind of punishment, then your actions are those of a child.  You are not choosing freely, you are not accepting responsibility and being true to yourself or your inspiration, you are simply a toddler cowering before the hand that will smack you if you oppose it.

If your behaviors are rooted in love, if your actions are chosen because they are the most loving and beneficial, the least harmful, isn’t that ideal?  To do what is right, despite any fears you  may have, isn’t that what adulthood is all about?  Or at least what it should be all about?

If there is a judgment after death, I am ready to answer for my actions and words.  I do not believe a person can point to a book or a pastor or anything else and say, “He/She/It told me to do it.”  I believe we have to be personally responsible and own up to the choices we make as grown ups.  I have to think things through for myself.  

I have thought it over for many years, and I will not act out of fear.  I refuse to focus my attention on some devil or worry about some presence of evil or dread some bad place.  

I will give my power to love.  I will dwell in the presence of love, concentrate on good, meditate on truth, embrace wisdom.  

Instead of fighting, we can use the wisdom of Peace Pilgrim when she says: “If any should attempt to harm you, may they contact your thought of God and be healed.”  If we stay away from negativity, we can be full of positive energy, and it will be more easily spread into the world.

This, for me, is the purpose of being spiritually minded, so that what my mind is focussed on, I will pass on to whomever I meet.  And I want to be a source of love.

The First Day…

How many cues do we give ourselves to start over?  It seems humans feel the need to renew themselves just as the Earth renews herself each year with the purging of fall, the quiet slumber of winter, and the rebirth of spring.  

So at the new year, an artificial human construction, we make resolutions, we look behind with an eye to learn from our mistakes and we look ahead with the intent to do better.

So many religions have rites and rituals that renew us.  I was raised in the Catholic religion which had the explicit process of confessing your transgressions to the priest in a special room reserved just for that activity, receiving a penance which is usually a set of prayers to say, and then the priest clearly states that you are forgiven.  There is no question to the believing Catholic that after going through this process with honest intentions, one is forgiven.

For those of us who have not embraced an established church to guide us in our spiritual journey, how do we know we’ve been forgiven?  Do we give up the idea, and just apologize to those people we might have wronged, and try to forget about those “sins” that cannot be directly atoned for?  

There are times that I use a stone, an apache tear, a polished black beauty of a rock, and I hold it in my hand and imagine all the dark thoughts and sadness and anger going into it.  When I feel emptied, I bury the rock in the dirt for at least three days, letting the Earth take back the negative mental and emotional waste I have generated, just as she absorbs feces and compost, and she turns it into healthy energy again.

It may seem an odd process, unauthorized and unofficial.  But all of our rites and rituals are simply tricks, sleight of hand, they are all just a outward show of what we are trying to accomplish on the inside.  We simply need to have the right intention in our hearts; in this case, I am acknowledging that I have imperfections that generate negativity, that I need help to get rid of this negativity, that I turn with humility and faith to something greater than myself to take care of it, that I must continually repeat this process because I will always be flawed.  

I will always need help.  I will always have to turn a critical eye to my own thoughts, words and actions, to make amends when I have done wrong, to ask forgiveness from the most direct target of my “sins.”  

I know that I could do this same process without moving, simply asking God to forgive me, clean my heart, let me start over.  For some reason I find more satisfaction in using props, in letting the rock represent my faults, in using the Earth as the face of God, and acting out in a physical way the mental, emotional and spiritual process of asking for and receiving forgiveness.

May we all find a way to know we are loved and forgiven.

May we all begin the new year as a rebirth, to live our lives as wiser and more loving human beings.

New Year

To start off 2009 I am creating a place in cyberspace to share my thoughts, experience, prayers, dreams and beliefs, and to invite others to join me.  This site is open to all who come with an open mind and heart, who strive to follow the path of love, who live the Wise Way.

What is the Wise Way?  We must make it up as we go along, we wise ones.  We must listen to our hearts, learn from our experience, use our common sense, and stay connected to the world and the spirit of love in order to walk the path of truth and joy.

I have spent my whole life believing silently, in my own head.  I am ready to make connections with others on a similar journey.