The Pageless Book

Photo Above by Angela Hopper.

Jules from a UU Deist in Texas has tagged me for yet another blogging meme. I’m suppose to provide ten weird, random facts about myself. I could do much more, but I think I’ll stick with ten. Also, I don’t think it would hurt to try to stick with the theme of my blog for this one, so I’ll try to choose facts that deal with religion or spirituality.

1) I taught myself meditation when I was elementary school. One would think that such early experience with meditation would make it a life long habit. Alas, no - I have become woefully lazy in adulthood, and rarely make time for meditation.

2) I used to peruse Wiccan, pagan, and occult websites during my programming classes in high school. Suffice to say, I no longer remember how to program in BASIC, but I’m still perusing those websites.

3) For Halloween one year, the church that my mother sent us to for Sunday School asked the children to dress up as Biblical characters. They took offense when my brother an I showed up with toy six shooters and ten gallon hats. Cowboys, apparently, do not appear in the Bible.

4) Same church taught that drinking alcohol and smoking were sinful, and unrepentant drinkers and smokers were going to hell. My mother, who used to drink and smoke, took offense to that. Needless to say, my brother and I were pretty much un-churched from then forward.

5) At one point in my childhood, my parents were toying with the idea of becoming Mormons. Yes, I’m well aware of the irony.

6) My mother, my brother, and I have had extensive conversations discussing the meaning behind Marilyn Manson, Nirvana, and Nine Inch Nails lyrics - particularly within a religious and moral contexts. My mother’s thinking was that if we were mature enough understand it, we were mature enough to listen.

7) I think I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again - I knew I wanted to become minister before even knowing what religion to become a minister of. Yes, that is a very backwards way to approach religion.

When I told my mother that I felt I was no longer a Christian, she remarked that she was more afraid that I was going to tell her that I was a homosexual. No, that didn’t sit well with me, but I let it slide at the time because it meant exploring new faiths without having to hide my activities.

9) Learning about The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowley, Qabalah, and Gnosticism gave me a renewed respect for the Jewish God and Jesus Christ. Catholic Theologians everywhere are turning in their graves so fast that they are generating electricity!

10) Oh, and lets not forget that whole “Omnitheism” / “The Gated Emptiness” thing that this site has going for it. There is nothing stranger than an eccentric blogging about his beliefs…

I will forgo tagging others for now, seeing as I’m still getting back into the swing of things. Hopefully you’ve found this entertaining. Namaste.

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written by John \\ tags: Bible, Blogging, Christian, Meme, Occult, Religion, Spirituality

Photo Above by Richard Rutter. Photo Below by Lee Chisholm.

The Master doesn’t talk, he acts. When his work is done, the people say, “Amazing, we did it all by ourselves!” - Tao Te Ching, verse 17, Mitchell Translation.

At work, I’ve been trying to foster people-management skills within myself to further my career and in preparation to go into ministry. Too often I’ve heard that being a minister for a Unitarian Universalist Congregation is like herding cats, so I figured management-skills would be an important asset. What I’ve found interesting, though, is how much management philosophy has in common with my spiritual philosophy.

A great deal of emphasis is placed on achieving success through indirect means. For example, although managers have power and privilege above that of a normal employee, the point of those benefits is not to enjoy them for yourself, but to use them in accomplishing your job. The training material that I’ve read suggests using that power and privilege to reward employees and ensure they have the tools needed to succeed.

For those who’ve never been in a position of management before, it is quite a paradigm shift. Instead of doing something as a means to accomplishing an end, you are influencing people as a means to accomplish an end. Each manager is given the authority to make demands, force results, and discipline employees, but the power that a manager has isn’t derived from using his authority - rather it is from having the authority yet not using it that he is able to get things done. It is through mutual trust, respect, and communication that a manager achieves results.

What is perhaps even more interesting is how a manager finds job satisfaction in the achievement of others. They are like engine grease; it is their job to make sure all of the parts are running smoothly and aren’t causing friction. A manager knows he has done a good job when he is no longer needed to get the job done. It requires a sense of the larger picture - a manager needs to be able to see how all the parts of the business fit together.

How are these thinks like spirituality? The same panoramic understanding of business, when applied to life, helps us see our place in the grand scheme of things. We know that we are but a small part of a whole, greater than the sum of its parts. Power is not within money or fame, but in the trust and respect of others. People are the ultimate power source; they create authority. The trick is to understand that power and authority is most effective when given back to that source of power and authority. Using the trust people place within you against the better interests of those people results in diminished respect… diminished authority.

The lessons are clear - pay attention, respect and be respected, do good unto each other. Moral teaching of the great religions have found a home within effective management philosophy. Of course, that doesn’t mean that learning how to manage people is easy. Then again, neither is religion.

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written by John \\ tags: Career, Lessons, Life, Religion, Spirituality, Work

Photo Above by Danielle Blue. Photo Below by Wired Protocol.

I come from a lower middle-class family with two blue-collar working parents. When my mother had first met my step-father, he was a union steel worker, which was at the time a secure job you could count on until retirement. Someone forgot to tell the company owners that, because throughout my childhood our family suffered temporary lay-offs which lead to unpaid bills and eventual eviction notices. I don’t blame my parents; they were raised in an industrial society and were unprepared for the shift to a technological white-collar based economy.

In time, the temporary lay-offs stretched from weeks into months, until one day they closed down the plant at which my step-father worked. This event sent my parents into a panic. I remember long nights of listening to them argue about money, bills, and blaming each other for how bad things had gotten. At some point, I became tired of worrying and fearing the next crisis. Had we not survived these issues before? My parents had always seemed to pull their resources and their wits together at the last minute, finding a means for us to survive as a family. I began to see all the arguing and worrying as a waste of time and energy that could have been better spent resolving or even preventing my family’s financial problems. We would always survive; the question became how well we would survive.

In stark contrast to my parents, I had developed hope for the future. Now this wasn’t a naive hope - after all we had been through, I learned that hard times are always a pink slip away. However, times would not always be hard, and every passing moment of in-fighting was another lost opportunity to make the hard times a little less hard. Why waste that energy and time?

So, when my wife came home early from work seven months ago and told me with a stunned look on her face that she had been let go, I didn’t panic. I knew that we would make this work - no stressing needed. I was pretty confident that she would have a new job within the next couple of months. Even though I was wrong, and we have struggled through these last seven months, I knew that we would survive. There was no question in my mind that this was a temporary situation.

On Saturday, my wife visited me on my lunch break at work and told me that she had an interview with a local company. This company she was referring to has a great reputation, and she is looking forward to working for them. After such a long period of shrinking prospects and temporary positions, we may finally be looking at the opportunity for which we’ve been waiting. The hard times are almost over. Do you know what? They weren’t all that hard after all.

What does this have to do with spirituality? It shows that hope does win out in the end. These financial issues that I have witnessed in the past and am living with in the present are a microcosm of the ills in this world. Faith - that which is at the very heart of spirituality - does not need to be blind, deaf, or dumb to our present situation to be maintained. Not once when I expressed hope for the future did I ignore the truth of the present, and I am aware, even now, that this new opportunity isn’t guaranteed. However, it is the message of spirituality that, no matter how horrible things become, we have the capacity to survive, adapt, and even thrive. It is what experience has taught me and what history proves. Even in our worst hour, we have been living off the fruits of Hope.

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written by John \\ tags: Faith, Family, Life, Spirituality, Work

Photo Above by Meyshan. Photo Below by Jaqian, of sculpture titled “Aspiration” by Rowan Gillespie.
Lately, I’ve been doing a lot of meditation and prayer on the subject of my aspiration and hopes for the future. Now, I’m not the type of person to believe that prayer was meant making requests of the Divine, but rather clarity in how to approach those things you want in your life. At this time in my life, the resources I need to pursue my passions are scarce. While I know that in the future I will be free to pursue bigger and better things, right now I’m frustrated with my current situation.

I am meant to do something important with this life. Constantly, I am reminded that I am meant for something greater. Not fame or fortune, but something that actively makes this world a better place. There is a lot to love in this world that often goes unrecognized and unappreciated. It is as if I see potential where others see only profit, greatness where others see poverty, and beauty everywhere while my fellow human beings walk about with glazed over eyes.

This is what I want from life… I want open eyes, create, heal, and learn. I want to be a father to my children, a husband to my wife, and a brother to all people. I want to be artistic in the way I live my life. I want to start a revolution in humanity’s perception of itself. I want to pry into God’s eye and see deeper into the truth than ever has been seen before. I want love for myself, for those around me, and for those in pain. I want to be the person who makes all difference in the world.

Egotistical? You bet it is. It is the main occupation of my ego to wish bigger and better things for myself. I’m not content to remain a cog in the machine; I’m tired of going around in circles. While I am still young, I can’t help but feel that time is slipping away from me. It just doesn’t feel like I’m moving forward.

I know, I know - enough of this incessant angst! I have a lot to be thankful for, not the least of which is my loving wife, family, and friends. I’m also thankful to have a place where I can speak my mind on spiritual and religious topics - a place to think and be heard. Perhaps I should spend sometime focusing on the positive and remembering that I am blessed. I still have sixty-some-odd years of life ahead of me; my adult life accounts only for eight of my soon-to-be twenty nine years.

…It’s too early for a mid-life crisis.

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written by John \\ tags: Aspirations, Family, Humanity, Life, Meditation, Prayer

Photo Above by Cory Doctorow. Photo Below by Tom Conder. Final Photo by Kyle Flood.

If you couldn’t tell, I have been on a bit of a D&D kick as of late. I guess the passing of Gary Gygax has awakened a bit of my nostalgia for the game - I grew up on this stuff, after all. Looking back, I can tell that the game influenced my spiritual beliefs along with broadening my mind and my imagination. The life lessons I’ve learned playing D&D might have been learned through other avenues of experience, but perhaps not as soon and perhaps not while having so much fun.

Life Is About Gaining Experience

D&D was the first game ever developed that used experience points and levels to measure the growth in power of the player’s “piece.” Most people don’t seem to grasp how revolutionary that idea truly is. In poker, your growth as a player depended entirely on your own mastery of the game. With chess, each player started the game on a level playing field. While in playing Monopoly, your piece gained more monetary capital and real estate, your control over the game always remained dependent on the roll of two dice. Only in Dungeons & Dragons did your playing piece, your character, have the chance to develop separately from your own experience. Of course video games have now made the concept of character levels and constant improvement through game play more popular than ever, but they all owe a dept of gratitude to D&D.

The reason why experience and levels were introduced into the D&D game in the first place was to simulate the personal growth of each individual person. For me, this provided the first and most important lesson - life is about gaining experience. While in real life I don’t have to hack up monsters to grow and to becoming a stronger person, there is little doubt in my mind that the human experience is about learning more about how to better live. With each step that we take in life, we gain the experience necessary to take the next.

Potential Failure Makes Life Worth Living

I’ve been through my fair share of characters. I’ve seen their triumphant mistakes land them six feet under more than a few times. However, if D&D did not allow for the chance of failure, than it would not be as interesting to play. In fact, if I knew the outcome of every die roll, I don’t think I would be as much of a fan of this game as I am today.

The same goes for life; if we all knew exactly what to expect, I doubt that life would be as rich and vibrant. Can I handle a new management level position at my place of employment? I’m not entirely sure, to be perfectly honest. Am I going to shoot for a management level position? Yes, if only because I want that experience. I am sure I will stumble along the way, but it is worth trying if only because I don’t know what to expect.

We Each Decide Our Own Conditions For Success

As a Dungeon Master (the referee of a D&D game), I’ve seen a number of fair maidens go un-rescued due to my players deciding that the kingdom is better without her anyway. Sometimes, the goal which I had set out for the players is ignored completely and the game goes in a completely different direction than what I originally intended. I have even ran a game where the players have taken over a town which they originally had pledged to save. I may have been a little disappointed at these turn of events, but my players felt triumphant. Why? Because they have set their own condition for success and have achieved it.

In a similar manner, we can decide for ourselves the conditions for what we consider a successful life. I don’t need to be married with two children, making a six figure salary, owning a home I can barely afford filled with the newest technological gadgets to be successful in this life. That is someone else’s definition of success. My definition of success could be to live without answering to anyone, to make my own schedule, and to roam where ever my heart leads me without the tethers of responsibility. The definition of what society believes to be success is just a suggestion - a suggestion based purely on material things. I, as well as you, can make up our own minds as to what constitutes a successful life.

You Can Change Who You Become

One of the more challenging aspects of Dungeons & Dragons is wrapping your head around all the choices you have in terms of creating your character. Sure, I could make it easy on yourself and choose one of the standard classes and standard races, but what if I change my mind latter on? That is where multi-classing comes in; I can choose to alter or tweak the role of my character as I advance in levels. I may not be able to alter who that character was formally but I can change who he becomes. For example, if my brutish dwarven warrior later tires of battle and instead finds new interests and challenges in healing, he will still know everything he knew as a warrior but begin learning how to best mend wounds instead of how best to create them.

Like my dwarven warrior, you too can change who you are becoming. This is a life lesson that not many people until their later years - I’m just glad that I’ve learned it early. It may be hard to see a way out of your current circumstances, especially if you find yourself destitute. However, there is always one thing that you do control; your own personal development. Who you become as a person is still completely up to you, even if the necessary education seems out of reach. All you need to do is to put yourselves in situations which expose you to the skills you need, and challenges you in the areas you need to develop. It isn’t easy, and it will never change who you were, but we should never be lead to believe that we cannot change who we become.

Morality & Ethics Are Not Simple

The way in which Dungeons & Dragons simulate morality is through a system of “alignments” which dictate the way in which a character views the world. There are nine of these alignments, these being Lawful, Neutral, and Chaotic on one axis, and Good, Neutral and Evil on the other axis. Even with the possibility of neutrality as an alignment choice, it has never been an easy task deciphering what exactly constitutes good and evil, law and chaos. These moral and ethical presumptions that are injected into the game have spawned an ongoing discussion that almost every gaming group has.

For being a dysfunctional mechanic in an otherwise fun game, alignment has taught me much about right and wrong. It is never a simple matter of one or the other. There are no absolutes when it comes to morality and ethics, and to assume to know those absolutes does not some how show more integrity, but instead points to the laziness of the one who makes that assumption. Despite the decrying of moral relativism from some, I do not see it as a downward spiral of loosening ethics and morality. Quite to the contrary, moral relativism demands constant inquiry into the nature of our deeds and their impact on those around us, for good or bad. Moral absolutism judges a thing by its name, while moral relativism judges that thing by its fruits.

It may seems strange to attribute so many virtues to something as silly as a fantasy role playing game. Perhaps it could be argued that I learned these lessons elsewhere in life which were later reinforced by the game… but there is a great deal to be said about reinforcing what is learned. For this I own a dept of gratitude to Mr. Gygax, as well as for the time spent in the presence of friends both in the past and in the future.

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written by John \\ tags: Dungeons & Dragons, Growth, Lessons, Life, Morality

Photo Above by ButterflySha. Photo Below by Steve Evans.

“If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
- Meister Eckhart, 1260– 1328.

I don’t remember the exact time it first happened, but I do remember it was during a gathering with my in-laws. My wife was seated on my right, and her grandmother was on my left side. On one end of the table was my father-in-law, and on the other end was my mother-in-law. Across from us was my brother-in-law, his wife, and between them sat Samantha, my niece and god-child. Food, glorious sustenance, was set out before us. Before anyone could lay one hand on a roll, Samantha said, for the first time of what would become a tradition at such gatherings, “We need to say the words!” My wife and I looked at each other in mild displeasure.

Why displeasure, you may ask? What exactly was it that I have against saying grace? It is because I felt excluded. Many non-Christians feel singled out when called upon to pray in public. Think of the position we are placed in: we can either pretend to pray with everyone else, betraying our own beliefs while insulting the integrity of the beliefs of others, or we can stand there in awkward silence, feeling out of place and perhaps a little bit ostracized. That may not be the intention of the practice of public prayer, but it is often the effect.

Non-Christians often develop a negative attitude in regards to prayer in general, due to our Christian brethren’s insistence on public prayer. In all honesty, this negativity may be part of what fuels the debate on school prayer. It is this reluctance to pray that concerns me - not only my own resistance to prayer, but the lack of prayer among non-Christians in general. The problem is that prayer is so much apart of the Christian experience, than when a person leaves the Christian religion, they feel they must leave behind this deeply spiritual practice as well.

The truth is, prayer has always been a meaningful method of communing with the Divine and has existed since the dawn of civilization. No one group of people can lay claim to this practice as being exclusively their own. As people of alternative spiritual paths, we need to recognize that it is everyone’s inherited right to communicate with the Divine through prayer. We need to reclaim prayer as our own and find a meaningful way in which people of all faiths can pray together.

So how will I reintegrate prayer into my spiritual practices without alienating my Christian in-laws? By requesting a silent prayer when in public, and praying in earnest when alone. Ironically enough, that is exactly how Jesus recommended that his followers pray. In Matthew 6:5, Jesus instructs his followers saying, “And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.”

This passage in the Bible leads me to believe that perhaps even the early Christians felt excluded because of the practice of public prayer in ancient Rome. It does no one harm to gently remind them of that possibility. Next time I am at a gathering with family, perhaps I will do just that.

Originally posted September 29th, 2007.

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written by John \\ tags: Christian, Faith, Family, Prayer, Religion, Ritual, Tradition

My Grandfather is bald. My Uncle Jimmy is losing his hair as well. Uncle Frankie on the other hand has kept a nice full head of hair. I always had hoped that I would be like my Uncle Frankie and have a nice full head of hair well into my fifties.

The theory I had concerning my potential hair loss as an adult was that I had nothing to fear. Like my Uncle Frank, I’ve taken good care of myself, haven’t messed with hard drugs or drank to excess, and I generally have a laid back demeanor. My brother, who started balding at the young age of twenty three, had been more like my Uncle Jimmy - life in the fast lane all the way. Yes the potential was still there in my genetics, but as long as I treated myself well, I thought I was going to have a full head of hair until the day I die.

Here I am, turning twenty nine in June, and I am beginning to notice more hair in my hands after I shampoo. The first time I mentioned it to Cathy, she assured me that my hair looked as full as ever. However just the other day she looked down upon my head and gasped, “Oh, your hair is thinning!” My God is a cruel God….

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written by John

Above Photo by Manuel Canevet. Below Photo by Brendan Dolan-Gavitt.

“Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause”
Mahatma Gandhi, 1869 - 1948.

I’ve never been a man who enjoys conflict. In all my life, from childhood to my present age, I may have been involved in half a dozen physical altercations, most of which were with my younger brother. I’m the type of guy who would rather walk away from a fight with my damaged pride than stand my ground and turn an intellectual pissing contest into an exchange of blows. There are, however, some things that I will always stand up against: bigotry in all forms, especially religious intolerance.

One of the main purposes behind this blog is to serve as a vehicle with which to fight religious intolerance. Too long have I watched the narrow minded old men of mainstream religion spout their vitriol over television, radio, and in print. Too long have they spoken against common sense, using their titles of Reverend, Pastor, and Father as justification for their bigotry. At one time, the scriptures of the Bible were used to rationalize segregation and sexism; the same text is now used to vindicate homophobia and war. These men of hatred hide behind the pretense of religious freedom and tolerance, like Trojans within their horse, seeking to dismantle the institutions of religious freedom and tolerance from the inside out.

I have to ask myself, how can I alone could stand up against these men? I’m not an authority. Though I am working towards becoming a Minister, I don’t even have a B.A. degree in religion. I am nearly powerless. I might as well be a homeless man on the street corner with a sign reading “The End is Nigh” for what all my credibility and influence is worth. The only thing I have is my faith in humanity. Is that enough? It will have to be.

Yet, I cannot allow myself the luxury of advocating to only those who agree with me. Sitting around listening to others agree with me would be nice, but I wouldn’t be accomplishing much. I have every intention of bringing my message of tolerance to those who will not listen. This, of course, will result in conflict. You cannot have change without conflict - even Jesus knew this. In Matthew 10:34, Jesus said, “Think not that I come to send peace on earth; I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. And a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.” He is not speaking of literal violence, but instead of the conflict that is inherent in challenging the ideas held by others - family in particular.

Which brings me back to my very own “narrow minded old man.” Even though I love my family, I am afraid that they will not approve of this new endeavor. I have, in the past, been the source of controversy within my own extended family. For quite a number of years, I didn’t have anything to do with my grandparents or my aunts and uncles, if only because of my difference in beliefs and ideas. They still do not know the full extend of my ‘rebellion’ against their expectations. I am sad that I may never have the opportunity to truly let them know who I am. It is with that same sadness that Jesus said “I came not to send peace, but a sword.”

Though the path I walk places me directly into conflict with my loved ones and asks of me to be uncharacteristically confrontational, I still have faith that I can make a difference. If nothing else, I know that I will have been true to myself and to the Divine. That alone makes me worthy of this task.

Originally Posted September 28, 2007

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written by John \\ tags: Bible, Family, Freedom, Humanity, Life, Religion

Photo Above by Franco Folini. Photo Below by Aidan Jones.

Early last week, I was told a friend of mine was in the hospital with a serious lung infection. He had a felt a very sharp pain in his chest when he breathed and, believing that it might be serious, checked himself in to the hospital. Due to the infection, he has fluid and growths on his lungs, causing his breathing to become labored. In an attempt to drain off the fluids and slow the infection, he underwent a number of surgeries to have drainage tubes inserted into his lungs.

Since I’ve heard of his illness, I have of made it a point to try visiting every few days - first time this past Wednesday and again just Sunday. This was a man who was in my wedding party and was the one who made me realize that I wanted a relationship with the woman who became my wife. While we don’t see much of each other, I consider him an important part of my life.

I want you to understand the type of guy he is; the man’s had a hard life. It’s not my place to divulge the details of his past, but I will say he’s had the hardest life out of anybody I’ve ever known. For this reason, he’s very guarded and difficult for most people to gauge. This friend is brutally honest, unusually curt, and always sarcastic. For someone like myself who thrives on open communication and regular validation, it is easy to be intimidated by him whether he means to be intimidating or not. Yet, somehow, I managed to gain his trust and friendship.

On Sunday, I saw him at his most vulnerable. I saw tubing snaking out of him limply like vines, his head nodding due to the morphine drip, and heard the shallow rasp of his breathing. He couldn’t say much, or even move much of his own volition. Seeing him reduced from being hard as nails to practically helpless is heart breaking and painful.

As I left that day I realized something; being a minister could mean seeing people such as my friend at their absolute weakest on a regular basis. Not only that, but it would be my job to console family members, be fully present to help them with their grief, and yet not show my own weakness in front of them. I asked myself if I could be that person, and I wasn’t so sure. Then I asked myself if I wanted to be that person. I immediately answered that I did.

At this point in my life and with my current financial difficulties, I am at least eight or ten years away from becoming a minister - perhaps longer. I’ve often taken the easiest path in life and yet had never been truly satisfied. I guess I grew up a little bit last Sunday. I’m not sure if I would be a successful minister or not, but that isn’t the point; I want to make this world a better place. This is one way in which I can make a career out of making the world a better place. I can’t let go of that.

Am I afraid for my friend? Yes, I’m scared for his life. But this situation has also taught me a valuable lesson, and I would be a fool to ignore what I have learned. Regardless of what happens, I should hold on to that lesson, because it makes me a better person and because all suffering should have a meaning.

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written by John \\ tags: Family, Growth, Life, Ministry

Above Photo by Francisco Antunes. Photo Below by Prakhar Amba.

Over the past several weeks, I’ve been feeling out of touch with myself spiritually. I really needed to push everything aside and give myself some time to reconnect. If you haven’t guessed it by now, my recent absence is due to this reason. Despite writing about spirituality almost everyday, I’ve realized that alone doesn’t make me feel spiritual. I needed a time without distractions to focus on my spiritual well-being. It isn’t easy finding that time, but it is important that we each try to do so.

Although there are many important advantages to our culture becoming more secularized, there has been one important disadvantage - the loss of the Sabbath day. Whether you attend church or not, I think everybody can appreciate a full day of rest. Not only did this day serve as a time of spiritual reflection, but also served as a chance for family members to reconnect. We are an incredibly busy people; without a mutual day of rest we have the tendency to lose touch with the people we care about.

For me, that means losing touch with my wife. I didn’t have off this Valentine’s Day and I knew that lately we haven’t spent as much time together. This offered me another compelling reason to give this blog a rest for a few days. More importantly, my resistance to the idea of letting go of tending to my blog for a week signaled for me that I was becoming increasingly sucked in by the digital world, while neglecting the intrinsically human experience of spirituality.

And it isn’t just the on-line world that sucks away at our souls; television, video games, music, work, and even books or literature can serve to distance ourselves from our friends, our family, and the self. At times it is necessary to push all of this away, cut ourselves free from our preoccupation with entertainment or success and focus on each other. Too much of anything can have a negative impact on our lives and reliance on any one thing as an escape from reality can become an addiction.

All these reasons show why in the book of Genesis God rests on the seventh day of creation. The writers of Genesis were setting an example for humanity to follow. We humans, as a society or as individuals, make a thing holy or secular; the Sabbath day was once holy and can be again for those who choose to make it so. However, it would take the agreement between many different spiritual paths, including those who are not religious, to make a mutual day of rest a reality again. That isn’t likely to happen again for a long time; such is the marching beat of progress.

Can we, however, hold one day a week holy just for ourselves? We each only try for ourselves.

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written by John \\ tags: Family, God, Humanity, Prayer, Ritual, Spirituality