Category: Religion / Spirituality

So, my thoughts regarding sin. If you have any experience with church or organized religion, you probably heard a lot about sin. Turn on any Christian radio station or tune in to any televangelist on TV and I can almost guarantee you you’ll hear that word within fifteen seconds or so. Most conservative religions seem to be obsessed with the word and concept. A few years ago I preached a sermon on religion and sin and types of religious people. I referenced the classic book by William James, (the “Father of American psychology ,” as he is called ) “The Varieties of Religious Experience” (the late 1800’s). He basically divided religious people into two camps. There are the unhappy, miserable sinner types of people and the happy religious and spiritual people. (Now, of course, I’m oversimplifying this for this short essay.) The unhappy, miserable sinner type of person is often racked with guilt and seeking salvation from that prison of depression.

The other type of religious/spiritual person has a more pleasurable experience of religion and is happy and joyous and feels good about life and his or her connection to that something greater (God, the universe, the higher self, etc.) I would place myself in that camp now in my life. I am enjoying a good, happy, joyous life and I am not obsessed with the idea of “sin,” personally. Now that does not mean I don’t see the evil or vile side of life. I am realistic. There are some spiritual teachers and gurus that preach that evil does not really exist or is not real. I’m not going to get into that debate here. Let’s just say that I do see the crap in the world. History has always shown how evil people can be. So, what I can say is that yes, I see the bad in the world, but I do not let that suck me into the whirlpool of depression and the experience of a miserable view of life.

Now, having said all of that, I guess the paradox is that I do have experience with sin, personally. I do not go out and murder or steal or hurt people, but I do have to admit I have what I consider “my” sins. I am not racked with guilt as the miserable sinner type of person is, but I do have to watch for my personal sins creeping into my life.

Let me tell you what I consider to be sin in my life. First off, the root of the word sin means to “miss the mark,” referring to spear throwing. I like that definition better than the usual church definition of an immoral act of transgression against divine law. So, for me, what do I consider “missing the mark” in my life? Well, for me, the biggest sin for me is to stagnate. To just be stuck in my life, to stay stuck, to choose to be stuck and not growing and moving forward in my daily life, on many levels. For me, to be alive is to constantly progress, to learn something new every day, to have new insights, new experiences, deeper relationships, to have every day be a new, creative experience.

For me, the other sins that concern me are: to be mean, to hurt others or myself, to hate, to have resentments, to be envious or jealous, to desire bad things for those people that I don’t particularly like. To have unforgiveness in my heart ( I can forgive even despicable people I do not like, that’s for my own good only, really).

Those are sins for me in my life. I have to watch closely in my daily activities and thoughts that these particular sins to not sneak into my life or consciousness. Many people do not watch that these sins stay out of their lives, they usually don’t even pay attention or care, really. They just live and react without working at this.

So, for me, sin is not necessarily a bad word. It is necessary to be aware of sinful or thoughtless or damaging thoughts and activities. I do not live in guilt or negative environments in my life. I do not want any of these mentioned transgressions from the good life to be in my personal world.

Wally

Okay, I’ve been talked into this topic by a good friend. I would have tackled this one eventually, but maybe the time is right the more I think about it. At dinner recently, my friend said, “the post I’m waiting for is ‘Who is God?'” He stated that I recently said that, “you know, I guess I’m really an atheist at heart.” I was stunned that he said that and I wish I remembered the context I said that in. I don’t remember the conversation and find it hard to believe that I actually said that. Oh, well, I’ll take that as fact and see how to cover this very deep subject in a short essay. (Maybe I was just drunk and being a smart ass.)

In previous blogs I covered my spiritual and religious wanderings through my life. I said my eventual religion today boils down to a very simple theological statement, “love, trust God, and #@$/* the rest!” And that really is it, that covers everything for me as far as my personal religion goes.

So,the first part, “love.” Do we need to discuss that? I don’t think so as far as I’m concerned right now. Maybe later in another post, but not now. But the second part, “trust God,” well, what does THAT mean? And what is God as I’m using the term? Trust what? Okay, so here we go, putting in a brief blog what no one really knows or can understand or explain.

Making it all very simple, there seem to be two basic views of life. One view is that everything is just total randomness in life; it’s all just an accident, chaos somehow just coming together to create life. The other view is that life is not just randomness and an accident and chaos. My life experience and my intelligence puts me in the latter group. (I was an atheist for a few years, so I’ve been on both sides of this dilemma .) I now know (as stated in an earlier post), that there is an “unseen” side of life. I’ve experienced it. I will call it the spiritual dimension of life. It is in this dimension that I experience what I call, to keep it simple and comprehensible to me, God. Now, what is that? What the hell is that? You tell me! Oh, no, please don’t. My whole life people, authorities, intellectuals, religious leaders and others have been doing that. And you know what? They don’t know, really. We are all guessing, speculating, pronouncing, preaching what this driving force of life and creation is, what a majority of people call god or God.

I’ve been to theological seminary, I’ve studied this subject most of my life. I’ve studied many religions. The spiritual has been a part of all civilizations throughout history and even before history was written. People have always been aware of this “something” beyond the visible world.

So… that’s it. That “something.” That’s it! It’s as simple as that! Wow, what a cop out you say. Haven’t really said anything. Not very deep theology. So God is a something. So, love and trust “something?” You gotta be kidding me!

So, what I will do now is give you some tidbits and statements of my feelings about this vagueness that I am presenting as God.

God has many names (from the civilizations of the world and history), I have a list of over one hundred terms used for “God.”

The theologian Paul Tillich says God is not a being, but BEING itself. I agree with that assessment, and he says God is the God above god.

As I see it, God is or God isn’t. God can’t be both, It’s not a sometimes thing. God always is or always isn’t, It doesn’t come and go depending on circumstances, nor depending on whether times are good or bad or evil.

I am not a God seeker. I do not “seek” God. I know God. If I’m seeking God, then I have not found Him or It.

God is love and love is God ( 1 John 4:16 in the New Testament).

God is always with me, always inside of me ( “the Kingdom of God is within you” as Jesus said).

God is truly, absolutely unknowable, but I KNOW him (woops, excuse the sexist terminology…him, her, it, whatever… oh chill out over the term used).

Many people, as I see it, use God. They want him around only at certain times (times of trouble, on the deathbed, etc.). Otherwise they want to keep him away. Not me. God is an always thing, every moment of life, every situation.

I’ve had two very intimate times with this something I call God. Maybe in a later blog I will discuss that. I’ve faced very realistically my death.

So, there. Maybe I haven’t really said anything intelligible or profound ot theological. Maybe I’ll return to this subject at another time.

What I do know is that I can’t lose God. God simply is. God is life. God is life itself, the life force. I am one with God, the father and I are one. There is a oneness in all of life on the spiritual plane.

So, the statement my friend says I made that I’m really an atheist at heart, maybe I was saying I see God differently than a lot of people do, that to them I’m an atheist because I don’t see things their way. These days especially, in our current political climate, the “crackpot Christians” in the spotlight would probably call me an atheist or worse. Yeah, like I care what they think?

We all have our own experiences of the unseen side (the spiritual side) of life. Maybe this gives you a glimpse into mine. I could write a book, but this is enough for now. I prefer to keep it simple. Thank you for joining me in this blog of “Theology 101,” my ramblings about stuff theological. A lot more could be written and maybe it will be at a later date.

Wally

This has not been an easy subject to write a blog post about.  I will try to briefly explain the topic and give my thoughts on it.  Many books have been written regarding our “dark side,” or our demons.  All I can do in this short post is give my thoughts.

I think we all can acknowledge that the evil people in our world have a serious problem with their dark side. No question that evil criminals have serious flaws or demons that cause them to act out in evil ways in our world.

I want to turn, instead, to another sector of our society and talk about our shadow side of our lives.  I’m talking about the “good” people in the world.  Nice, good, even religious and spiritual people in our midst.  I think we all have our dark side, we all have our demons that we have to deal with, or not deal with in life.  One way or another, they do affect us and influence our life, thoughts, and actions.

A good book I recently read (twice, I am planning a third reading soon) is titled “Spiritual Bypassing, When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters,”  by Robert August Masters, PhD.  It is concerned with religious and spiritual people who think they do not have a dark side to their personality and life.  Now, as mentioned in my previous posts, I have spent a lot of my life with religious people, church people.  I have seen that though they are nice, good people, they, too, have their own “demons” that do affect their lives and will keep them from having really free, joyous, honest and psychologically clean lives.  I must include myself in this assessment as I too have my shadow side and have had my own demons to deal with during my life.  

What the author of this book deals with is how often religious people use their spirituality and their spiritual practices and beliefs to avoid dealing with damaging, painful feelings and unresolved wounds.  This is often ignored in our society, we just go on with our daily lives and live in a limited, wounded manner, even if we don’t realize it.

Now, I know some people have found resolution to their wounded parts through therapy.  I also know some people who have had a lot of therapy and don’t seem to be much better in regard to handling their dark side.  Personally, I had a breakthrough when I had a session with a medium and had contact with my deceased parents.  I finally cleared up what happened in my childhood that was not pleasant for me, even though I was not conscious of a lot of the issues we had.  I feel like I had $10,000 worth of therapy in one hour and a half session with my medium.  I totally resolved any early childhood issues for good.

Like I said, I think we all have our wounded parts that need healing.  I still have issues to handle.  I have my father’s temper, that’s a difficult one to totally eliminate (thanks, dad! ).  But my point is, we do not handle these issues by using “spiritual bypassing” or using spiritual bs to just pretend we do not have demons in our lives, a shadow or dark side that God or Jesus or whatever has handled or swept under the rug, so to speak.

The more unresolved issues we have in life, the more our life is limited, as I see it.  Limited in that we are not really free and have real total joy and a sense of a close relationship to all of life and to the Divine life that is available to us all.  I’m not saying that therapy is the answer,  maybe it is for some.  There are different paths to handling these issues in life.  I’m just saying I sometimes see spiritual  people that seem to use spiritual or new age bs to think they have no dark side whatsoever in their lives.

I’m all in favor or living the “good life.”  That includes cleaning up the messes we may have made in our lives.  Heal our wounds, learn to love and practice forgiving all the time!  My particular spiritual path involves working on forgiving everyone and everything.  Not an easy task, not a necessarily pleasant task.  I do not want to be crippled by the past.  I love freedom and  joy and openness and loving relationships.  That’s my choice in how I live and I recommend it.  

Wally

  

Ok, now we are getting into what some would call the “woo woo” stuff.  I think we all have a sense that there is more to life than the “visible” world that we live in daily.  But what exactly is beyond the visible world, though, is the question. And, of course, everyone has a different opinion about this.

First off, science says that we only see about 5% or so of what makes up the visible part of life as we know it.  So 95% or more of existence in “invisible.”  So that really is not “woo woo,” but rather science!  But, as I said, what is the invisible or unseen world, the unseen side of life?

Religions deal with this realm of existence and they seem to have lots of explanations for it all and often claim to have it all figured out.  Some are rather rigid and certain that they have the answers to what the unseen world is and are very precise in explaining it all.

I covered briefly in my blog post #7 my religious and spiritual journey, explaining how I wandered all over the spiritual map in my life from conservative, fundamental evangelical Christian religion, to strong atheism and back to an open spiritual outlook on life.  I explained how I always had a feeling that there was more to life than just the physical, material, visible and tangible existence we experience day to day.

It was just a vague feeling I had of something, I was not sure what, though.  I definitely had some strong beliefs in this area.  I absolutely did not believe in any “afterlife,” any existence beyond this earthly life.  Of that I was certain!  Life could not possibly go on after physical death, no way, no how.  Even though I felt a spiritual dimension was possible in this life, even real , there was nothing, I was convinced, once this life was over.

Well, that belief of absolute certainty got totally blown up about four years ago for me.  Through a dinner conversation with a friend one night, I made the bold decision to have a session, a reading, with a medium, one who claims to be able to have contact with those who have died, or as thy would say, passed over, are behind the veil, on the “other side,” etc.  My friend told me of an incredible reading he had with a medium and I was intrigued, though an absolute unbeliever in such stuff.

I figured this was the time to do some research and see what all this stuff was really about.  I figured I would waste my money and have a “reading” just to fortify my unbelief and skepticism on the existence of life beyond this earthly one.  This would be money well wasted, I guess you could say.  So I plunged in a set up a reading.

Now this was really an unusual situation for me, as the reading was to be over the phone with a medium in New York State, someone who knew nothing about me and was just a voice over the phone.  

The session lasted for an hour and a half, but immediately after we started, I was blown away.  For the entire session this person told me things no one could ever know about me, my family, my friends, and my life.  Family and friends came through the medium and communicated with me, in the exact way they would have spoken if they were right beside me.   Over the next three years I had two more readings, each one just as amazing as the first one (one session was shared with a good friend also on the phone with the medium).

So, my belief system about continued consciousness after death was been absolutely turned upside down.  That experience has totally shifted my life in new directions.  I have since had several “psychic” type experiences and had to look at life very differently than I had in the past.

So, now I know. I know that there is the unseen, invisible, spiritual world for certain!  Do I understand it?  No, I do not.  It is a mystery, that’s the way it is.  I deal with that as best I can.  It really does change everything when your belief system is totally overhauled like this.  I see things differently, I live differently.  I do see more “wholeness” in my life now.  It’s easier to trust in life, or as some would call it, to have faith.

So, there is an unseen world out there, or rather, in here, or right here.  It’s truly a mystery.  But, I am not going to fall for anyone who says they have it all figured out.  It is a mystery.  Always has been, always will be.  We do have to trust the mystery if we are going to have the good life we have been given.  A good life we have been given for some reason, often a mystery for most of our lives.  So, I would just say, “just go with it, trust and let life be, it works out eventually, even if you don’t see it all now.”

In future blogs I will probably get more into the invisible world and the religious and spiritual worlds we all have some experience with.  Topics I have been tossing around in my mind lately have been things like: what is God?,  Sin (yes, sin), death, etc.  You know, the light topics of life.  Anyway, we’ll see what develops as I ponder things.  I hope you’ll check in regularly to see what’s up as I let my mind meander.

Wally 

Okay, I’ve covered briefly my chronological life in blogs 3 through 6. Nothing controversial about that, just pretty objective.  Now it is time to get into controversial subjects.  Yes, we’ve all been warned to stay away from religion and politics in polite conversation, etc., but well, a blog does get into these areas sometimes.  I’m hoping to stay away from politics, there’s enough of that elsewhere in the world and on the internet.  But religion, well, that’s a factor in my life that’s always been of some significance, whether good or bad.  So, we will take a quick tour of my spiritual journey, if you will.  We’ll start at the beginning.

When I was a child, my family made us go to church, even though we were not a religious family, as I saw it.  I really did not understand why we were made to go, but I guess that was pretty much the norm back then when couples had children, even rather “secular” couples.  We did say grace before meals and I was taught the bedtime prayer, “now I lay me down to sleep.”  But that was about it for religion in our family.  My dad did like our minister because he talked football a lot, but he was not big on religion, really (my father, not the minister).  My father did use God’s name and Jesus’s name, but not in a sacred way, if you get my drift. (Unfortunately, I picked up this habit from him and haven’t quite rid myself of it yet).

In high school I had what you could call a “born again Christian” experience.  A coming to God and Jesus was good for me at that time as I was having problems living with my family and a spiritual/religious dimension in my life helped a lot.  I do not regret that experience at all at that time.

After high school I went away to college, to a Christian college in Seattle where I had three friends from my high school days.  It was a new life for me, being away from home.  I got involved with a group of friends there, good people.  They were charismatic Christians, which means they were really on fire in a religious sense during that chaotic time. It was the 1960’s, a wild time of the Vietnam War, the Kennedy assassination, Martin Luther King’s assassination, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, Kent State killings, etc.  Sometimes I am amazed that we lived through such an insane time.

There were drugs, there were the Jesus freaks, Woodstock, all of that.  But I ran around with my “spiritual” friends and it probably helped me survive being in such a group.  We had good times hanging out together and going to church.  

When college was over I continued on to a theological seminary.  I was there for one year and I learned a lot.  I got to study deeper  the interesting subjects of church history, theology, ethics, etc.  I remember being told that what we learned in seminary we do not want to tell our congregations  when we become ministers because it may damage or destroy people’s faith.  Like I said, I learned a lot.

I left seminary, got a job with an airline and did the career stuff.  Life was rolling along pretty well.  For a while.  At some point, I began experiencing a “crisis of faith.”  I challenged my religious beliefs with deep study and deep reflection and thought.  I guess real life was beginning to affect me and my spiritual assumptions.  Not an unusual experience for some people.

I do realize, and I do know a lot of people that never seem to waver in their religious beliefs since they were children, indoctrinated into whatever church or religion they were brought up in.  But this was not my situation. I went from no faith to a fundamental, conservative Christian faith, to theological study and on to the dog-eat-dog real world of cruelty and awful people and situations in the world.  I could not put it all together.  So, I decided I was, after all, an atheist.

Well, this was an unexpected turn in my life.  But one I took seriously.  When I decide something, I really make a decision and commitment.  So, I joined the American Atheist’s Association, based in Austin, Texas.  It was headed my Madalyn Murray O’Hair, a very famous atheist activist.  I even attended one of their annual conventions and got to be with her and her family (pictures were posted on Facebook a while back).

The convention I attended was a very interesting experience.  I met a lot of people who felt like I did about religion at that time, but something began to gnaw at me.  I realized a lot of these people were very bitter, unhappy people.  I realized that atheism is really just another “religion.”  They have their strong, set beliefs and they hate anyone who does not agree with them.  In fact, they really hate agnostics who question whether there is a God or not, as they see agnostics as weak people unable to be strong and stand up and be atheists like they are.

So, I learned a lot being with those atheists and it caused me to reevaluate where I really stood on this religious/spiritual thing.  As I thought it over, I realized I have always felt there was “something else” in life, something in the invisible world of the unseen forces or energy active in life.  Maybe it wasn’t the childhood concept of God that I (and most children) had at one time early in life.  Even the concept I had of “God” in college.  Maybe I had to grow up my concept of God or whatever was active in life behind the scenes, in the invisible, unseen world of the spiritual dimension.

I studied a lot on religious and spiritual subjects.  I began checking out churches again.  I discovered a branch of religion and even Christianity called “new thought,” not “new age,” but new thought.  It was a much better match for me than the standard,  conservative, mainline, fundamental protestant Christian church.  I found the Unity Movement (Unity churches) and Religious Science churches fit me better than anything else.  I find Science of Mind (the teaching of the Religious Science church) and Unity teachings are my best expressions of my spiritual experience now.

That is a brief trip through my spiritual journeying of my life.  Recently I sat down to draw up my most simple definition of my beliefs. It turns out it is very similar to Jesus’ statement of his theology (if we can call it that).  He said the ten commandments from the Hebrew Bible can be condensed into two commandments, to Love God and to Love your neighbor as yourself.  I came up with a seven word religion that really is it for me: Trust God and Love and F the rest.  That really covers everything if you think about it, as I see it.