How Love Goes Beyond Religion

By Richard Kent Matthews - Coach | Author | Speaker

The Light has come...

Spirit without religion: Can it work?


My long journey with religion has been winding and mostly uphill. But eventually I found a new way for me, a better way. Some think it means I don't believe in a Higher Power anymore, but that's far from true. In fact, my relationship with the Source of All That Is continues to grow, to intensify and to help me be more loving* in a world that seems on the verge of forgetting what that even means.

But I have not lost my faith and trust in Spirit.

I share this from John Pavlovitch:

I am not losing my mind.
I’m not losing my faith.
I’m not failing or falling or backsliding.
I have simply outgrown much of American Christianity.

I’ve outgrown the furrowed-browed warnings of a sky that is perpetually falling.
I’ve outgrown the snarling brimstone preaching that brokers in damnation.
I’ve outgrown the vile war rhetoric that continually demands an encroaching enemy.
I’ve outgrown the expectation that my faith is the sole property of a political party.
I’ve outgrown violent bigotry and xenophobia disguised as Biblical obedience.
I’ve outgrown God wrapped in a flag and soaked in rabid nationalism.
I’ve outgrown the incessant attacks on the Gay, Muslim, and Atheist communities.
I’ve outgrown theology as a hammer always looking for a nail.
I’ve outgrown the cramped, creaky, rusting box that God never belonged in anyway.

Most of all though, I’ve outgrown something that simply no longer feels like love, something I no longer see much of Jesus in.

If religion is to be worth holding onto, it should be the place where the marginalized feel the most visible, where the hurting receive the most tender care, where the outsiders find the safest refuge.

(You can get to John's site at JohnPavlovitch.org)

*See my Guiding Principles here.

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