Spirituality Survey

Take the ExploreFaith Quiz and Find Your Place on the Spiritual Spectrum:

This little survey (I don't think "quiz" is quite the right word...) gave me an extremely worthwhile picture of where I'm at on my Spiritual Path. Ten questions and quite a bit of insight gained!

I'm reproducing the introductory explanation and the ten questions below.

The intro. because, even if you read it again when you go to the site, it can't hurt to be clear about the parameters of the experience...

The questions because I think it's a good idea to briefly ponder the issues before you actually take the survey:

"Think of the questions below as the first marks on a canvas. Like many quizzes pertaining to faith, this one traces the edges of your spiritual life and how you relate to the sacred. Yet this quiz also reminds us that we are all works in progress, that portraits begun in black and white come alive when we add color. We need space to change and grow, and ways to help us fill out our lives and move ever closer to the Holy.

"Thus, your responses are not simply conclusions, they are beginning points for new discoveries, brilliant adventures and fruitful growth. In answering these 10 questions, you can both discern more clearly who you are, and discover new avenues for God's creative spirit to work within you. "

* I try to feel close to God through _________.

* When I have an extraordinary experience of God's presence, I _________.

* When I am questioned about my faith, I _________.

* If someone threatened to harm me unless I renounced my faith, I would _________.

* If I felt that God was calling me to perform an extraordinary feat, I would _________.

* When I feel disconnected to the Holy One and wonder about God’s presence, I _________.

* When others around me are trying to find God, I _________.

* If I were going through a period of doubt in my life, I would _________.

* If a story were written about my spiritual life, I’d want it to say that I _________.

* When I think of being a person of faith in my everyday life, I want to _________.

Go here >>> explorefaith.org and do the survey!

Synchronicity & Conflict

Weird things happening of late...
My read is that they're spiritual in origin. But it can be difficult to decide if a string of events is mere coincidence or something more...

Synchronicity is up there in the the title of this post and, for those of you that don't use that word everyday, here's Wikipedia's link to it. And, here's a brief quote from that article:

"It differs from mere coincidence in that synchronicity implies not just a happenstance, but an underlying pattern or dynamic that is being expressed through meaningful relationships or events."

If you've read the last 4 or 5 posts here, you'll see what may be synchronicity in action. This post will focus on just one instance of this train of Related Events:

Yesterday I wrote about Conflict. Right after I posted, my friend walked in the room and asked me to go to an event with him. I was particularly exhausted but felt the event would be interesting so I said, "Yes!".

We arrived and others arrived and the group finally consisted of:
*Two white males in their 60's
*Two black males in their 70's
*Two black females, one in her 70's and one in her 20's
*Two white females, 90's and 60-70s

I was a visitor but all the others were there to talk about Unity--specifically, action to end racism and bigotry in the city.

After a lot of agenda checking and goal and vision talk, one of the men (black) started a rant about the police and fire department's totally lack of racial integration. Everyone else sat there in, what seemed to me, placid acceptance (found out after the event that he was prone to do this).

Suddenly, the other black man challenged him to put up or shut up (his words, however, were mild as milk) and dared him to go the next day to those civil services and do, at least, some investigation of the problem.

Everything calmed down and the man who'd been ranting praised the other guy for being extremely positive! [ Hey, I mean, these were people seeking unity, right? ]

So what happened? Was this mere coincidence--writing about conflict then experiencing it so Dramatically?

Has there been some deeper Spiritual Reason for my week of apparent synchronicity?

My jury's still out on this issue:
but...
please, submit some "evidence" or give some "testimony" in the Comments...
Or, take your concerns over to our BackYard...

So Who's Right ?

Here's my Supremely Obvious comment for the day:
"There sure is a lot of conflict in the world !"
From disagreements between friends to bloody sectarian war, it's all around us. Something else that may be obvious to you is that there are a lot of ways being touted to "manage" or "reduce" or "eliminate" conflict.

Image Credit

I'm reading a book now, The Anvil of the Spirit by Morris Taylor, and I came across a fascinating comment about understanding conflict (seems to make sense that we must understand where it's coming from before we can manage, reduce, or eliminate it...) This quote may seem as Supremely Obvious as that other one up there but if you slow down and think about it (try feeling your way into it, too...) I think you'll find it as helpful as I did:

"Every individual is following a sensible strategy for getting along in the kind of world he thinks he lives in."

This blog really isn't about offering solutions, though I will point to quite a few as time rolls on. It's a place to give spiritual perspective to what we all are living through. Still, I want to offer these results for "conflict" from the B.I.D.E. Custom Spiritual Search Tool.

Many folk will tell you that conflict is inevitable. What matters is how we "deal" with it.

Just to indicate how inevitable it is (and, indirectly, how important it is to learn how to deal with it...) here's a closing quote from a Supremely Spiritual man:

"The shining spark of truth cometh forth only after the clash of differing opinions."

What do You have to say about conflict?

Just a Moment of Peace

Just as a spaceship slowly lifts from its launch pad before it roars blazingly toward the heavens, this blog is barely at the beginning of its travels.
"Spiritual Commentary on Current Events" covers a lot of territory and we need some grounding experiences before we can fly free...
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* I've made an Opening statement and presented another site that I'm working to integrate into the experience here.
* I'm lining up a number of "Email Reporters" who will contribute material for the main posts.
* And, with the rush of launching this craft into the blogosphere, I seek just a moment of peace, on a regular basis, so I can deal with current events with a spiritual attitude.
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Check It Out:
Go to Peaceful Earth and explore the resources.
And, for this moment, pause to feel a bit of peace...