christianity
The Five Spiritual Truths That Transcend Religion
Spirituality and religion are often clumped together into the same category. They are certainly similar in nature. For example, a spiritual person can be religious and their religion can intensify their spirituality, but that is not to say religion is the source of spiritual growth.
Religion, however is birthed out of spiritual experiences. Religious practices are often promoted by a specific teacher who has had a profound spiritual experience, or a prophet who communicates information about the spiritual realm, and how it influences the physical world. Continue reading
Life After Life (Part 7 of 7) – Continued Creation
It has been my experience that love is often the most universal message that people who have touched the other side bring back to us. That being said, even though love is the most important quality that we can express as human beings, there is also good reason to ally with love and forgiveness in our lives.
While we are on this planet our actions and contributions really do matter. As souls we are evolving and growing, and through this evolutionary process taking place on the soul level the planet too is in a process of evolution. Evolution is the creative dynamic that love creates.
In today’s final blog in this series I rely a bit on the esoteric traditions of spirituality that came before us, especially that of the Judeo-Christian and Jewish traditions. As I do so, I want to be clear that there are many traditions that express and say these same things in different ways. My personal background is in Christianity, and most of my formal teaching related to religion and spirituality stem from this tradition. This is why my blogs contain some archaic Christian language as reference points for spiritual understanding. Continue reading
A Time To Grow In God’s Grace
Growing up as a Roman Catholic, I experienced Lent as a strong discipline to better my life. “What are you giving up for Lent?” The answers from my non-believer friends were “homework” or “obey the parents” or “saving money for rainy days.” Lent is one of those practices demanded of Roman Catholics to which non-Catholic believers may say, “Another great reason to be Protestant!” It never really occurred to my friends that Lent was something interesting, or beneficial, to a better understand our connection with God.
One day, I sat thinking of the many reason and faces of this season, and upon doing some research I discovered that Lent is in fact also recognized by millions of Protestant Christians, in addition to Catholic and Orthodox believers. The Eastern Orthodox Lent is longer than the Catholic or Protestant Lent, and it begins before Ash Wednesday. Continue reading
Life After Life (Part 4 of 7) – Afterlife Language
The language of the Afterlife, and of Heaven, is much different from the languages we use on Earth. I have shared in the earlier parts of this series my own personal experiences of Heaven. One quandary that I have personally had with these experiences is that the dynamic of the “afterlife” experience was not the same for each person experiencing the transition.
In the four most profound visionary experiences I had, three of which I shared in previous posts, the experiences were profoundly different. In my near-death experience (NDE) I felt a sense of transcendence, and also had a cosmic experience. My father transitioned in what could be considered an average “Christian” transition. Jesus was there, as well as family and friends as far as the eye could see. I mentioned a third person as well, who had committed suicide. In this experience he was actually trying to get away, but angels blocked his path. Continue reading