How You Got to Where You Are- And the Next Life-Altering Steps

I don’t care if you declare you are, or that you are not religious, or if you’ve never been in a church, synagogue, or temple in your life, or never attended a religious service of any kind.

You still carry within you a multitude of jumbled religious beliefs…a hodge-podge of miscellaneous information that you’ve ingested over your lifetime!

MISINFORMATION CENTRAL

Starting at an early age, you began absorbing all manner of religious ideas-

from your society and culture; ethics, morality, right and wrong, the proper way to do things, what is acceptable
from religious education;, Sunday School, CCD, vacation Bible School, church, synagogue, at home
from what people said in your hearing; gossip, comments about other people or the news, things that were not meant for “little ears”
from television and movies and books; who were the goodies and who were the baddies, how people treated each other, decisions and choices and consequences
from answers to your curious questions; were questions encouraged? Was the person embarrassed or reluctant to answer? Were you told too much for your age and so didn’t truly understand much of it?
from funerals and weddings you attended; how people reacted- sad, angry, helpless, hopeful, happy, drunk?
from peer gossip and “honest-to-God this- is- true” false facts; kids pass on all manner of information as God’s honest truth!
and from gross misunderstandings– like the child who attended a graveside funeral, and thought the priest’s blessing was…In the name of the Father, and of the Son, And into the hole he goes.

In keeping with the concrete operational thought that characterizes children of elementary school age, thinking about religion is based on observable behavior, rather than on thoughts, feelings, and motivations . School–age children are very literal, and this colors their understanding of God and religion .(Religion and Spirituality in Childhood and Adolescence by Lisa J. Bridges and Kristin A. Moore, p. 5)

CHILDHOOD PERCEPTIONS REVISITED

Can you remember yourself as a youngster?

Young minds take most things literally, and subtlety in not yet their forte. What an adult may have said in jest or anger, or spite, a child will accept as truth.

The effects can be confusing, devastating and life-long.

Were you once told that God could see everything you did?

That was the information I absorbed. Consequently, I was panicked every time a bird flew past my window. I was sure they were spies checking me out and then flying off to God to report.

Totally sad!!!

Maybe you harbored some such misunderstanding as well.

WILL THE REAL TRUTH PLEASE STAND UP

You are a virtual amalgam of all those subtle and direct messages you’ve acquired over your life.

Some may be educational and factual.
Some may be misleading and uninformed.
And some are just plain cow poop!

How are you supposed to weed out the truth from a barnyard of stuff that has been poured into you from day one?

What is important for you to keep, and what needs to be discarded? What needs to be reworked and amended? And how will that lead to you being able to carve out purpose and meaning in your life?

Ah…there’s the million dollar question.

OUR BRAINS HAVE CHECKED OUT

It’s not especially shocking that people prefer to believe facts and information which is handed to them. It’s easier and requires less work.

Even when we are told things that don’t make sense, the tendency is to go along with it.

Were you ever told as a child to do something, and when you asked why, were told- “Because I said so, that’s why!”

Now take that concept and apply it further. It happens in schools, in religious institutes, in politics. We’re told that this is the way things are.

In essence- Shut up and just go along with it.

The average Joe and Jane do not think for themselves. The desire and ability have been drummed out of them.

Classroom tests often set the standard for students’ learning. However, we tend to emphasize recall of memorized factual information rather than intellectual challenge… our tests may be reinforcing our students’ commonly fact-oriented memory learning, of limited value to either them or society.

“The State of Critical Thinking Today”, Richard Paul- website www.criticalthinking.org

SHUT UP AND LISTEN UP!

Fundamentalism and to some extent conservatism grow out of a need to get a handle on a too-complex world. Give me the rules. Make them tough.

Tell me what to believe and how to act. I don’t want to have to deal with gray areas of ethics and morality.

Take away my ability to reason and think for myself- because after all, what do I know?

And in the past, that may have served a purpose. People were often illiterate and unschooled. Children frequently died young and adults didn’t live very long either.

There was no readily available science to understand natural phenomena, and diseases and poverty were rampant. Thus church and government assumed control. And whenever institutions are dominant, individuals, like chameleons, take on the colors of their surroundings.

A JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY

Spiritual growth is a life-long journey. One doesn’t mature spiritually overnight, but progresses from one level to the next over time.

“But”, writes Kevin Forrester, “ this heartland journey of the soul is one in which the Spirit continually invites us to see through the veils, obscurations, misunderstandings, that cloud our vision and confuse our heart; it is often painful work to see through our identifications and attachments, because it often feels as if our survival is at stake.

And in a sense it is.

Most of us would much rather grow without changing a bit, which is simply how the ego is. In truth, for us to authentically grow we cannot cling to who we have taken ourselves to be.

“The purpose of spiritual maturation is neither to accept nor reject a particular doctrine or belief, but to grow in our understanding of ourselves as a person who thirsts to know the truth of who we are…

The dominant form of religion has done a great disservice in abandoning this spiritual journey for the thin and barren land of propositional doctrine and creedal belief.

It (has) left (us) to fend for (ourselves) as adults with the spiritual tools of childhood.

The point of spiritual education is not to accept or reject but to understand with our heart, our mind, and our body… that Being itself is the Holy Source inviting the soul to question and inquire without end, because the Mystery itself is inexhaustible.”

~Rev. Kevin Thew Forrester, Ph.D. in “Beyond my Wants, Beyond my Fears: The Soul’s Journey into the Heartland“ as found in “A New Christianity for a New World”

AN ADVENTURE LIKE NO OTHER

So, in order to carve out an authentic, meaningful life for yourself, it no longer suffices to leave all the thinking to others.

It means stepping out of the restricted but comfortable unquestioning place, and begin to ask those hard, profound questions-

To allow your mind to wonder
to look at things with a keen and sharp mind
to face your doubts
to welcome the struggle to understand and make sense of something
to basically chew on it

Have you ever watched a cow chew her cud? She ruminates- meaning to chew again what has been chewed slightly before and swallowed.

In other words- ruminating means for us to go over in the mind slowly and repeatedly a thought, idea, concept.

Thoroughly chew it!

TRIPPING OVER THE BIG FANTASTICS

So there you are- with years and years of input poured into you, and out of the jumble you’ve forged some sort of way of looking at the world and your place in it.

But is that enough?

For a thinking person, and I’m convinced people are curious but unused to examining things more closely, sooner or later, the big questions crop up:

Why do we want positive proof for everything?

Why am I here?

What is this life all about?

Why was I born?

Am I doing things right?

Is there really a God?

What happens when we die?

What about hell?

Why are there so many conflicting ‘answers’ to these questions?

And what do so many people do? Because those questions are tough to contemplate, with no final or definitive answers, they back-burner those doubts and thoughts, but they don’t go away.

They simmer away in the background, and one is left with a sense of incompleteness, and non-closure.

I have been asking those questions since I was a young child…and I’m still asking them, because a spiritual journey is a process and is life-long.

To not mull over them, is to cast anchor and stagnate.

NEW CLOTHES FOR OLD

You who are parents know how fast your children outgrow their clothing. It seems like a wink before they need new size shoes and clothes.

What if the child felt compelled to not discard those clothes, but by force of habit, perhaps, continued to walk around in too tight outfits that pinched and restricted movement and growth?

Finally uncomfortable, would he/she just chuck those clothes and walk around stark naked?

Of course not!

People want to wear clothes that fit their size, that are comfortable for them at whatever age they are.

And when/if they outgrow them, they won’t resort to nudity.

Nope!

They will search for, and find clothes that are right for the time being. Nor do most of us restrict our clothes to one-size fits all, and then wear it forever.

OUCH!

So the big snarky question is-

Why do we hold onto our childhood beliefs about religion way too long- and sometimes for our whole life? They pinch! They’re restrictive, limiting and prevent growth.

Yet we carry those beliefs around like a familiar blankie. And heaven help whoever tries to take that blankie away.

“A religion is as much a progressive unlearning of false ideas concerning God as it is the learning of the true ideas concerning God”.

Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan

So…Do I have all the answers?

Of course not.

But where I am today is light years from where I was. I ask, and ruminate and ponder, read and research until I find some solution that serves for the time being, and when that no longer serves, I dig deeper.

BIRDS OF A FEATHER FLOCK TOGETHER

And that’s what this blog site is all about-

opening to the questions and willingness to dialogue,
keeping a receptive mind,
being open to ambiguity and different ways of looking at things,
not being afraid of new information that might seem startling at first,
ruminating everything carefully and slowly until you derive some sense of issues and make conclusions for yourself.

“To not ask questions is tantamount to forfeiting one’s own spiritual birthright and allowing other people’s experience of the Divine to define your experience”. D.M. Felton & J. Procter-Murphy

I sincerely hope you’ll stay along for the ride- truly a journey like no other!