I respect religions, and on some level, I love religions. I’m a member of two different faith communities: one in my old community in New Jersey, where I lived and served for 35 years, and the second in Virginia, where I have now lived for the past 15 years. I have served on both executive boards and as a prayer minister. I am fortunate that, thanks to the modern technology of Zoom, I am able to watch both services on Sunday mornings and be a part of their family communities.
I believe in religion and strongly support it. Basically, this is because of the sense of community it provides. Community is necessary. However, what often comes from the pulpit is almost always a bunch of hypocritical dribbles. I’m not educated in theology, but I wonder what they teach in seminaries, because a lot of it seems to be merely opinion presented as fact. When you look closely, nothing in the Bible is presented as fact; it is all myth, written several hundred years after the events it describes. There is no legitimate Bible scholar who would admit otherwise, which is why I say that I am spiritual but not religious.
Was there Jesus? Yes. Was he the Son of God? Yes, but so am I. And so are you. And so are we all. Was he a great prophet? Yes. Did he have special powers? I assume that he did. The stories that were handed down orally have great value because the people trained to pass them down imbued those stories with significance.
Getting to the religious side of things, I want to quote Brian McLaren, who writes in a missive from “The Center of Action and Contemplation”:
“It’s better that I go away so that the Spirit can come,” Jesus said. If he were physically present and visible, our focus would be on Christ over there, right here, out there … but because of his absence, we discover the Spirit of Christ right here, in here, within.”
This aligns closely with my belief. Yes, there is a God, and we needed Jesus to let us know that there is a God. This God is always with us, as the biblical prophets said—we are created in His image. But we’re not gods; rather, we are made in the image of these gods. Our innermost being, our souls, reflect what these gods made us of. God is projected outward through us, our souls embodying God within.
We can’t escape from God. God is always present. When we look at another person, we see God. When we look in the mirror, we see God. In every act of love toward another, we expand God’s reason for being here. When we welcome a third person into our circle, we expand God’s love. God is always with us in the present and will always be with us in the future. God is love, and I don’t need organized religion to teach me that, but I do need to be spiritual.
Russell Kendall Carter, BA. MAT. DLitt.
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Meditating to Heal 