"Not everyone in America is a fundamentalist."

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Religion has its place, but we must make room for more.

People are different and approach their spirituality differently.

Each teaching serves at its level of awareness but some teachings have eternal depth and as we evolve the meaning grows within us.

Religion can sometimes muddy our understanding, requiring believers to check their brains at the door in order to fall in line with dogmatism, often enthusiastic and emotional but bereft of logic.

As the great master of Life, ALL LIFE, taught, "In my Father's house are many mansions..."  If you're an individual who wishes to marry logic to the miraculous you will not be denied, however, you'll have to earn the right to that knowledge as all good things must be earned to be kept.

Indolence never serves at the altar of truth and to simply blame religion or ideologies for not fulfilling your expectations is LAZY.  Truth can be apprehended through time, experience, and a relentless dedication to not settling for, as my friend Ole' Doc Young says, "The arrogance that thinks it knows all truth."

Rote and repeat are not my sources of truth.  What I teach I have fought hard to learn and in doing so it's authentically my own because I refuse to regurgitate second hand what I do not know first hand.  

It's important to stay generous when considering more popular ideas b/c, when you've gone through the organic processing of your own research leading to universal conclusions (tinged with your personality) you can afford to look at what is more limiting with a loving eye.

So many human interpretations of Universal Laws tend to obstruct thought, as if faith is only valid when we throw it all into some unproven construct.  This is not faith, this is blind trust.  Real trust asks you to have faith beyond what you see and trust in Spirit which never fails us, unlike man's interpretations.

There's a higher intelligence within all of us with which we have direct contact and we needn't a channel nor intermediary to access it.  

We've each a special, unique relationship to our Spirit (or God, or Love itself) belonging to no one else.  Upon THIS connection should we rely and place unwavering Faith.

Faith is not exclusively religious.  It's personal.  It's what we need to get through our toughest moments, most difficult challenges; when all human options have been exhausted and we've not the strength to battle alone and win.  

It's a humbling moment, confronting our human-ness, humbling because, opening ourselves to a Greater presence we're lovingly reminded we're NOT alone:  The power and source of ALL good is with & within us, by our side, loving us, helping and guiding us (if we've awareness enough to listen and follow through).

This personal God may be the hardest relationship ever attained -- much harder than attending church and following old traditions, however hallowed.

It requires honesty with yourself, that you ask for help with valiance to obliterate the myriad obstacles you've installed into your habitual thinking, feeling, and acting one-by-one-by-one until you become a pure channel for Spirit.

This you'll have to fight and fight hard for.

The frustration with many a person in organized religion is hitting a wall where dogma no longer answers the deeper calling within nudging, "There must be more, more, more..."  

To answer this call one must depart from the common external roads and turn within to explore the internal paths leading to the internal expanse encompassing BOTH worlds, uniting those worlds without which the external is but a hollow open-ended confusion.

You must be brave.  You must be resolute.  You must hold on to the best of yourself and release the worst over and over again.  After this you'll discover how to build a life where a win is mounted upon a win, rather than an endless pile of desperate uncertainty upon which you stand tenuously, always fearful it will slip beneath you, that it will not hold when the time comes...

And you would be right.

What is faith without works?  Therefore, get to work!  Love is always the place to start.

Spiritual Hygiene tips return next month!
"Why praise me?  It's the Father within me that doeth the work."

Again, don't blame Jesus for the sententious overbearing manner in which his name is used.  He never wanted credit for ANYTHING.  He showed us it's possible to overcome life,  the world, that one day we, too, will reunite with the Source of All by accepting this fact:  We cannot be less than what created us.  Living from this Immutable Truth will produce its inevitable outcome -- no religion required -- a universal gift born and given again and again in each moment, from and because of LOVE.  ~t.