Trigger warning: This post may offend you. If it does, please know that offense can only be taken, not given. If you are offended, I suggest you ask your Higher Power to help you discover what part of you is in need of healing. That's what I do when I take offense.
It is not my intention to offend you. This post, and all of my posts, are about me, not you. My intention is to use my gifts and my experience to inform, enlighten, heal, and inspire.
I want to thank the person who religiously bullied me on Facebook. This person basically called one of my practices evil, and said I needed to steer clear of false gods. I want to thank this person because this person pushed a button in me. They pushed the button labeled You are wrong and you are going to hell. I was angry and I was hurt, and the rest of my day was consumed with thoughts of this person and people who behave in the same manner as this person. I want to thank this person because they helped me move toward seeking healing for a hurt that exists deep within me. I want to thank this person because I allowed them to push me to a place where I felt I had to connect with my Creator and ask, "What's going on here and what do I need to do?"
You see, as a young adult I experienced religious bullying. Religious bullying is when one person says to another, "You are wrong and you are going to hell because you don't believe what I believe, or because my god hates you because of the way you are." I feel attacked when I hear this from someone. I feel like the person is saying to me, "You don't deserve to be," and, for some reason, that affects me deeply. Let me state here that I believe that it would be a very unskillful action on my part to tell this to anyone. I also believe that it's a very unskillful action on someone else's part to say this to me if they are trying to attract me to their way of thinking and believing.
I honor your path. I have an understanding that Spirit, our Creator, is within each of us, meaning I know God is within you and me, loving us, supporting us, guiding us, healing us, protecting us. I believe that one of my tasks is to find out how to make and maintain my connection with Spirit - to make the 18 inch trip from my head down into my heart, to take what in my head I know to be True, and to let it engulf my entire being so that I can live the Truth more and more each day. It's a challenging but (mostly) enjoyable enlightening task!
I was deeply offended by what this person wrote, so I knew it was time for me to heal something within. My head says, "Boy, that's dumb - they just labelled as evil the practices of some of the most compassionate and peaceful people I know on Earth." My head knew that, but if I was offended or hurt by what this person wrote, that means there is some doubt or fear within me that needs some healing. You see, if I am strong in my faith, if I know with all of my being that I am on the right path, nothing anyone can say or do will knock me off - that I will stand firm in my path. This person didn't knock me off, but I teetered a bit!
There is a reason that God, or Source, or My Creator (or whatever you want to call the Loving Force that underlies everyone and everything and makes life life), there is a reason that God cannot get angry (despite what some spiritual scriptures say): God is God. Anger comes from hurt or fear. I cannot make God angry because I can't do anything to make God afraid. God is God, and It knows it! Nobody can knock God off of It's throne! This is because my Higher Power, God, the Universe, is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. I can't sneak up on God and sucker punch It, and I don't believe that you can either.
I am really very, very fortunate that I grew up in a family that believed in religious freedom - the right of each one of us to choose our own path toward God. We didn't grow up hating Jews or Catholics or anybody else whose beliefs and practices were different from ours. I have two siblings, and all three of us practice our faith in a different tradition than the one we were raised in, and a different tradition than each other. Yet we know (I hope) that we're all on the path that works for us.
My interpretation of this, and I interpret the Bible and other scriptures metaphysically, not literally (usually), is to listen for the Truth intuitively. That's what I do. I have something within that says this resonates with me, and that doesn't, and I work on uncovering and trusting the still, small voice within, the intuition that my Creator gave me, that tells me what's right for me and what's not. It's my inner GPS. Obviously, I don't always hear it or follow it, and that's why I'm still here practicing. I believe Jesus was recommending that I not become attached to any one idea as a final and inviolable truth, but to become openminded and openhearted so that I can find the Truth in my heart. My faith is open-ended, meaning there is always going to be something more for me to discover about God, me, the Universe, and life.
Does this sound wacky to you? That's ok - some of your beliefs sound wacky to me. But you know what? I believe that you are exactly where you need to be on your path, whether you believe this or that, or even if you believe nothing at all. I trust that our Creator is guiding you and me and all of us back to It because we are all children of the One Creator.
This is what I believe about why we were created: That our Creator desires to know Itself, and our Creator can't know itself without contrast. God is All Loving and can't be anything but, so His Creation (us) can give Him contrast, because we aren't All Loving all the time. Sometimes we think and act out of fear, which is the opposite of Love. God is perfect, but can't know it without the contrast of Imperfection, and that is why we're not perfect.
I don't believe hell exists, except in the space between my ears. It's there, and I still visit it from time to time. But if hell is an actual physical place, then God is there because God is omnipresent, and God is watching literally billions of souls that It created burn for eternity because they did not believe perfectly in Him. To me, that doesn't sound like something a loving Creator could do. First of all, I believe hell is intensely cold, not hot. But more importantly, hell (suffering) exists in my consciousness when I begin moving away from my connection with Spirit, and begin listening to my fear.
I practice wise speech. This means that I endeavor to make my words, both spoken and written, kind, compassionate, true, and uplifting. I don't always reach that standard, but I do most of the time. So my response to the person who condemned some of the people whose concepts of life I like was a firm, kind, and informing response. I suggested this person look up on Google a couple of the foundation beliefs of these folk and judge whether or not for himself if the concepts they try to practice are evil. And then I let this person know that I don't really care for unsolicited advice. I didn't unfriend this person, but I have unfollowed him a long time ago. This person condemned some folks (and me in my head) following a response I gave to a person who responded to my main post. In other words, this person butted in on a conversation I was having with someone else in order to call that person evil. Oh-kay! In my head I had a number of responses, but I chose to respond with kindness and truth.
Ok. In this post I've shared some of my basic spiritual beliefs. Do I expect you to believe them? No! You can if you want, it's up to you. Do I condemn you for believing differently than me? Absolutely not (at least not out loud)! Do you know why? It's because I believe if I condemn you, then I'm condemning Our Creator too, because Our Creator lives in each of us no matter what. It is impossible to be apart from our Creator in Truth no matter what we do or do not think or do. I believe in God in you, I believe in God as you, and I believe in the unseen process that is bringing each of us ultimately back to God. If you find that, or anything I've written, offensive, please know that it isn't my intention to offend. It's only my intention to share a little bit about how I aspire to look at my Creator, myself, you, and every other bit of Creation. I'm describing a bit of my path. My thoughts and actions do not always reflect what I believe and what I want to believe. I am far from perfect about practicing my own faith, but each day I endeavor to allow my Creator to pull me closer in consciousness and behavior to It.
So do I see people and situations that make me say "what the heck?" Yes! Every day! And each time I see something that I think is weird or off or even evil (yes, I have those thoughts!), it is an opportunity for me to look for my Creator in that person or situation, because He is there. God does some wacky stuff sometimes to get to know Itself!
So the purpose of this post is for me to become vulnerable and share some of the beliefs that I currently hold that inform my thinking and actions today. It is also to suggest that if you take offense at any part of this post and feel like attacking me or my beliefs, that you might want to take a real good look inside to see what fear my words trigger within you. It's not a bad thing - uncomfortable feelings help us to discover faults in our connection with Spirit and possibly rectify those thoughts - improve our connection.
I am extremely grateful for the connection with Spirit that I enjoy today, and I am extremely grateful for the path I'm on. If you would like to share some of your beliefs that are helping you in this lifetime, I am very open to hearing them; however, if you try to shove your beliefs down my throat, please know that I might vomit on you.
Namasté,
Ken
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