VISIONS

Many people like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Nelson Mendala lived out the vision of wholeness that Jesus taught; that in loving others and emptying our lives out we are meeting the needs of the world which is love. Do what you do with love in your heart.

All ground is holy ground when we seek to live simply, to live responsibly and to serve and reach out to others. Over the years I have seen many changes and I know that ahead there are even more. I am becoming aware of the self-destructive philosophy that translators of the Bible have created by separating the soul within us from our divine image in which we were created. We see the image of the family shattered as separation from the source of life became a demanding figure of God who would only be appeased by sacrifices. I think the one brother probably told the other his sacrifice was no good. Brothers competing. I am just thinking as I am typing so I will correct this later. I am also trying to clean the outside windows which the sun is now shining through all the dusty dirt. I am not good at window cleaning.

I am now reading about the "Future of Faith" by Harvey Cox and finding it very helpful. The lines between the religious and the spiritual are softning and we carry our beliefs lightly where ever we go. People are being drawn to churches to become apart of home groups where friendships are valued and spirituality deepened.

More people are being drawn to the experiential in the charismatic and the Asia practices. In India and Japan Catholic monks sit cross-legged practicing Asian spiritual disciplines. Benedictine monks are now teaching laypeople "centering prayer" once view with distrust by the church.

Spirituality is a prostest against the legalism of religion with its fear and predjudice.

Spirituality values the awe and wonder of life and nature that awakens the soul and I know I want to respond in thankfulness.

Spirituality is moving from the Age of Belief to the Age of the Spirit. I enjoy the freedom of expressing my faith in many ways.

Fundamentalisum is slowly fading from its position that there are theological beliefs on which there have been no compromise. I have lived and experienced the different approaches and time and time again I come back to simply wanting to follow Jesus. I have learned through my journey into many different churches and now I am seeing what has to be left behind. Faith and belief are two entirely different words.

'FAITH IS ABOUT DEEP SEATED CONFIDENCE."

"BELIEF IS MORE LIKE AN OPINION."

Both can hold an emotional intensity and both contribute to the choices we make in life. We are now separating the two.

"If we love God, even though we think He soesn't exist, He will make his existence manifest." writes Simone Weil. Love and faith are both more primal than belief.

Maybe we are being offered another chance to "harvest the energies of love" as Tellhard de Chardin says.

Hatred does not cease with hatred, but only by love; this is the eternal rule.

Christianity began as faith in the words of Jesus as a prophet, a healer and a teacher of everyday reality. Then it was turn into the age of Belief. An elite group was formed called ministers and priests who started laying down rules and regulations that defind who was a Christian and who was not. This has been going on for fifteen hundred years since Constantine.

We are now making a rough passage into the age of the Spirit. Each of us has the potential to be in touch with the spirit of God in whatever place or form that takes.
I know that many dislike the sacraments and rituals that the priestly perform. The spirit as the Bible says "blows where it will" and cannot be contained. Pentecostals have stressed this direct experience of the Spirit and they welcome the presence of the Spirit into their worship.

There have been mystics through out time that have had powerful experiences of the Spirit. Even the German pastor Dietrich [1881-1995] Bonhoeffer wrote wistfully from his Gestapo cell of what he called a future "religiousless Christianity".

Today our young people are questioning everything and everyone and finding good people to put their faith into hard to find. Words and actions need to flow together to be believable.
Buddha

Love opens the spiritual door to the truth that compassion is to be our goal.

"We work our whole lives building our lives, and to what end?
I believe it is, finally, to give it away to others.
By this means our life becomes a seed.
Planted in the imagination of one who is ready to receive it, harbour it, nourish it, the seed becomes the life of the future."
-Hazel Parcells, Live Better Longer.
by Joseph Dispenza.