Where Do I Turn?

So much is wrong in the world...

So much effort must be spent just to stay slightly positive...

Most folks just give up.

Oh, they may still go to a church or mosque or temple but beyond a passing prayer for peace, not much gets done...

Our post, The Death of Violence !, has 64 simple and powerful things each of us could do, every day, to further peace...

But...

Beyond the good deeds we all need to do lies the need for a solid connection to a Spiritual Path.

Back in the post, My God, Your God, Our God, I listed quite a few Names of God from different cultures and Faiths. Right here, I want to list these names of the major Founders of Religion: Zarathustra, Krishna, Buddha, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, The Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh.

More and more people are coming to realize that these Prophets of God were all speaking the same "Language". When you look carefully at the core teachings of each of Their Faiths, you find the very same Truths. The only real variance in what They each brought to us is in the social laws, which must change periodically as humanity grows up...

So, how does a person decide which Faith to cleave to? If they're all teaching basically the same thing why do people fight over their religious beliefs?

According to a WebPage titled, Major Branches of Religions Ranked by Number of Adherents, there are twelve "classical" major world religions and 65 "branches" in those twelve "classical" styles of Faith.

If you look at that page, you'll find Many More "sub-branches"...

Ever get the suspicion that all those flavors of religion are created by people and may or may not have much to do with God's Wishes?

The more I talk to earnest believers in various Faiths, the more I find agreement that the Prophets each brought the Faith of God and people immediately began to erode It's pristine beauty and purity, created their own materialized variants, and made it quite easy for massive human slaughter due to "religious" strife !

This is one post I really hope to get many comments on...

Heaven and Earth

> Image Credit <
Nneka is a blogger to reckon with!
I scan many blogs most days, looking for topic ideas for this blog and, always, making an effort to stay tuned-in to where the culture's heading. My scanning is always slowed to a stop--to pause, read, and reflect--when I arrive at Nneka's blog:
Balanced Life Center ~ Spirituality Applied to Life
In her blog post from yesterday ( On Earth As It Is In Heaven ), she writes:

"When asked by his disciples how they should pray, Jesus responded with these words:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

"I pray the Our Father as it is written when I feel separate from God. It helps me to clear the seeming space between us. It reminds me that God is always with me, ever near."

She goes on to speak of the results of her "meditations" on what "heaven" means:

"Heaven, in this context, is not a physical destination in some time in the future. Heaven is the unseen realm of All there is. It is the space in which God abides. The place of radiant health, unconditional love, infinite supply, joy, harmony, and all good. It is like the steam form of H2O. Conversely, earth is the manifest realm. The place that we see, smell, taste, hear, and feel. We may experience challenges and triumphs. It is like the ice form of H2O.
"Between the two is our lens. A space of our own creation. The prayer, “On earth as it is in heaven,” helps to thin the layer between, or clear up the lens so that we may experience all that there is in the invisible."

Fascinating... I highly recommend your regularly reading her blog!

The very last sentence of her post is:
"Do you have any prayers that you learned as a child, but have come to understand as an adult?"

I had to answer yes and I had to bring the interaction between me and Nneka's blog here.

I published my first book of poetry last year. In that book was a poem that incorporated a prayer I'd said a gazillion times when I was a child. Scared me to hell but I said it; partly at the prompting of my parents, partly out of fear of God.
Here's the prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

As an adult, I'd come to realize that this is a most positive prayer; yet still, in my late fifties, I added four more lines to the prayer, to calm the fevered bosom of my little boy self, alone with God, headed toward sleep, and afraid of death...

Here's my poem:

Child’s (?) Prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep
And hope for dreams of bliss.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
His wish may I not miss.
If I should die before I wake,
May He make loved ones glad.
I pray the Lord my soul to take
But let folks not be sad.