Sparks from the Fire

I’m not particularly big on the word “religion”.  I find it to be oft times restrictive, non-inclusive and all too often divisive.  Though I have studied the world’s religions all my life, it’s not a field that I find myself associating with very often.  When anyone asks me if I am a religious person I often answer, “not particularly, but I am a spiritual seeker.”

There’s probably no greater cause of war throughout history than religious differences.  The only thing that comes close to it is greed.  I choose to stay as far away from the human element of religion in my spiritual practice, which, of course, is rather impossible, but, for me, preferable.  We humans (and I count myself as one) have confused the study of God, consciousness, reality, our world, matter, thought, spirit and the universe by dividing into groups and along the way, shutting doors and windows to alternative thought in an effort to protect our own.

It strikes me that religions often are more limiting than creative.  They often force the thinker into a box and essentially say, “think this, study this, here is the only truth – shut the rest out.”

If there is anything that I’ve learned in my life’s study of spirituality, it’s that nobody has a corner on truth.  Truth is truth.  Everybody has access to it. Every religion I’ve ever studied captured and illuminated much truth for me.  The only thing that really ever got in my way was the differences in language or the various definitions of words that are tossed about.  Most religious differences I’ve found to be based on a confusion of semantics.

So I choose to call myself first a spiritual seeker rather than a religious person.  I hope this does not offend you as I approach the writing of this post with the objective of unifying thought as opposed to dividing it.

Wikipedia states, “A scientist in a broad sense is one engaging in a systematic activity to acquire knowledge.  In a more restricted sense a scientist is an individual who uses a scientific method.  The person may be an expert in one or more areas of science…  Some perform research toward a more comprehensive understanding of nature, including physical, mathematical and social realms…  This is distinct from philosophers, those who use logic toward more comprehensive understanding of intangible aspects of reality that lack a direct connection to nature, focusing on the realm of thought itself.”

If we’re to accept these definitions put forth by Wikipedia, then I suppose I’m sort of a scientist/philosopher, a combination of both.  I do engage in a “systematic activity to acquire knowledge” and also I do “use logic toward more comprehensive understanding of intangible aspects of reality…, focusing on the realm of thought itself.”

All said and done, I prefer the word “scientist”.  I find spirit to be actually quite tangible the more I study it and matter to be less and less the reality.  So I call myself a spiritual scientist. (more…)

The dictionary defines this in simple terms.  “Someone who denies the existence of God”.  It’s from the Latin: atheos which means ‘without God’ or ‘Godless’.

I’ve always been curious to meet an atheist.  Whenever someone announces themselves as one, I always try to take a moment (or often many more) and discus their atheism with them.  I like to first start with the obvious question, “Define God?”

I’ve had this opportunity 15-20 times in life and it’s always been the same experience.  Once they’ve explained their definition of God to me, I’ve always found myself saying back to them the same line: “Well then, I must be an atheist too because I don’t believe in that god either.”

Often the definition portrayed is archaic, anthropomorphic, and usually something taught them by confused parents or Sunday School teachers, but always ideas that I find equally hard to swallow.

Can this be the most misunderstood word in the human language?  Quite possibly so.  I’m not here to rectify that.  I have had an evolving, ever-changing struggle with the concept of God for over a half a century now.  I’m not at all sure what God is, but I do have a feeling for what He, She or It is not.

A guy in the sky with a long white beard?  No.  A He or a She?  No.  A Father/ Mother?  Sort of…  An infinite and eternal concept?  Probably.  Love, Life, Truth, Being, Interconnection?  Yes. (more…)

I’ve been working on loving more.  It makes me a bit uneasy just to say it.  I mean, why should I have to ‘work’ to do that?  I’m sorry to have to say it.  I know it should come more naturally – to love more – but I just went through a pretty terrific healing and one of the things I identified in my negative thinking as I worked to clean it up was that I simply needed to love more.  Love people, love what I do, love God – more.

Much of what I do is easy to love.  I live for the moments every day when I can be creative and I’m fortunate that my life seems to bring me those opportunities daily.  However, some of what I do, like everybody else, is just drudgery.  I battle through it running headlong to what I love.  I’ve learned not to put the drudgery off, but to tackle it ASAP so I can go about the things I love with freedom.

So I’ve been working more on loving the drudgery.  Or rather taking the drudgery out of the activity and going about the supposedly non-creative stuff more creatively.  To a certain extent it’s working.  I’m happier and I have less drudgery.

I’ve been working on loving people more.  This has been my most successful endeavor in this exercise because I’ve simply decided to button my lip as much as I can when I don’t have something good to say about someone.  I’ve stopped rehearsing my complaints as much and that has enabled me to spend more time on what’s right or what’s good about someone and see them in a positive light.  It too is working.

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Yesterday, while doing my duties as Creative Director of Watchfire Music and reviewing new album submissions, I’ll have to admit I got a bit off course and unconnected with the pure idea of Inspirational music for a moment when I was reading the liner notes of a new submission.

The artist wrote, “May our God El Shaddai, who through divine providence gives them a compassionate heart…” and I got stopped on that and asked the Missus, “Is ‘El Shaddai’ from the Bible?”  Her answer was, of course, “Yes” and I’m now somewhat embarrassed to say that inwardly I breathed a small sigh of relief and went on reading because now this guy was “OK”.  He wasn’t some sort of a nut.

Inner bells went off, gongs gonged, sirens wailed and I stopped my reading again and thought about the trap I had just fallen into.  “Who cares what he calls God?” I thought.  The guy was from Nigeria.  In the Yoruban language of Nigeria God, the Supreme Being is called Olodumare.  In French He’s called Dieu.  In German, Gott.  In Russian, ???.  And, of course, in Mandarin Chineese, ? (Shén).

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The idea that a chariot of fire would sweep down out of the heavens and carry off a man in a mystical spiritual process called “ascension” has fascinated me since childhood.  When I first heard the story in the Bible of the master Elijah and his devoted disciple, Elisha, probably in Sunday School, I tucked the tale away in the back of my mind for further imaginary consideration on those nights when sleep would not come easy.

Later in life, as I taught Sunday School, I began to study thoroughly the story so that I could best relate it to my boys in the class I taught.  I watched them too become fascinated with the tale and found that the discussions around the story went on for weeks in my classes.  Every step of the experience was questioned and thrashed about.  “What was ascension?”  “Why did Elijah say to Elisha that if he could see him ascend then Elisha might be able to someday ascend as well?”  “Why did Elijah ask Elisha to hold his garment?” (more…)

Ouch!  This one can sometimes be a tough one.  Most of us understand the folly of carrying around hatred for someone.  Our carrying it around doesn’t really do anything except hurt us, but to swing the whole magilla all the way around to loving?  Well, that’s a different story.

But this is what we are taught.  “Love your enemies”, the Master said.

A very wise woman once taught me how.  I can’t say I use this technique enough – sometimes in the middle of emotion I forget until the problem becomes so all-encompassing that I have to really get up and do something about it.  About then, the fog of hatred in my brain begins to lift and usually I’m able to turn the situation around pretty quickly by quietly sitting down with myself and going through the following procedure.

I create in my imagination an empty white room.  In that room I stand my so-called enemy before me.  I then go down the list of all the things I don’t like about him or her.  Were they dishonest with me?  Did they say bad things about me?  Whatever it is that I don’t like about them, I look at and list. (more…)

“Integrity” is one of my favorite words.  Its derivation is from the Latin word integritas, which means wholeness or soundness, and from integer, which also adds to the mix the concept: untouched.

Webster’s Dictionary goes on to add, ”the quality or state of being whole, unimpaired, unbroken.”  And lastly, “the quality or state of being of sound moral principle.”

The word cross-pollinates all human activities.  Or at least it should.  It governs politics, business, marriage, athletics, personal relationships and far beyond.  It is the governing principle of all human relationships: to behave with integrity. (more…)

In the long run, what does it matter?  Christianity’s biggest split seems to me to be was he or wasn’t he.  Was Jesus God?  Just doesn’t make sense.  To me it seems like he was not.

Don’t mean to stir up a hornet’s nest here (or maybe I do), but I think a ton of people here got it wrong.

For my money, Jesus was the way-shower, the exemplar.  He was sent here to be an example for us on the subject of how to live our lives.  He was a human being just like us and that was the point.  He showed us our potential – what we could be if we knew what he knew and practiced what he practiced.

He taught us how to think, how to treat our fellow man, how to heal, how to live.

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