Spirituality

Spirituality is not something you can buy for a weekend’s offering of cash at your local church, temple, synagogue, or wherever you “practice” your beliefs. It isn’t for those who beat (or even murder) their wives or children and then claim to be doing god or allah’s work. It isn’t for those who strap explosives to their bodies or implant such devices in vehicles and destroy themselves along with hundreds of innocent victims. It is not for those who hijack airplanes and then steer them into buildings, either.

Spirituality is not something that you strive for when you’re told all your life that you are nothing, because you will begin to believe that that’s true. And if you’re a woman, being told that women are inherently evil and the cause of all mankind’s sorrows. Or that we’re not “good enough” to wear the collar, as if having a penis is the passport required to be ordained. Spirituality isn’t for those who spread the word of deity and then molest young children, while the church acts intentionally as an accomplice to the crime by hiding the molesters in other regions, rather then turning them over to the criminal justice system.

Spirituality is not for those who don’t question authority or challenge “the system,” or speak up and protest the actions or the laws of a country, church, or corporation when it is clearly in the wrong. It is not for those who only want to be heard but don’t wish to listen. It is not for those whose words say one thing, but whose actions clearly say the opposite.

Spirituality is not for those who would impose their beliefs and sense of morality on others, caring little for what impact that action may have on the culture or on the spiritual understanding that is already existent in that culture. It is not for those who would preach hatred, fear, or bigotry, or emphasize the differences among people rather than our commonalities. It is not for those who would claim that their “god” is the one and only “true god” or that their religion is the only “true religion” and that all other beliefs in deity are false, and therefore those of us who don’t conform are going to burn in hell.

Spirituality is not for those who don’t recognize their own divine nature and their own ability to connect with that divinity. Nor is it for those who don’t recognize the divinity within others, and indeed, within every single thing that exists, now, in the past, and in the future. It is not for those who ask god to speak to them and then cannot hear the music of the birds all around them, or that of the waterfalls, or thunder, or the wind through the trees.

Words of the People
by Chief White Cloud

Your religious calling was written on plates of stone by the flaming finger of an angry god.

Our religion was established by the traditions of our ancestors, the dreams of our Elders that are given to them in the silent hours of night by the Great Spirit, and the premonitions of the Learned Beings.

It is written in the hearts of our people thus:

We do not require churches - which would only lead us to argue about God. We do not wish this. Earthly things may be argued about with men, but we never argue over God.

And the thought that white men should rule over nature and change it’s ways following his liking was never understood by the red man.

Our belief is that the Great Spirit has created all things. Not just mankind, but all rocks…all on Earth and amongst the stars, with true soul for us all, life is holy.

But, you do not understand our prayers when we address the sun, moon and winds.

You have judged us without understanding.

Only because our prayers are different.

But we are able to live in harmony with all of nature. All of nature is within us and we are part of all nature.

My spirituality is not based on Native American spirituality. I have no wish to steal their culture from them. Mine is based on a similar tribal people, the Celts, about which very little is actually known, due mostly to the physical and cultural meddling of Romans and Christians. I have spent the better part of my life reconstructing what little I know of the ancient Celtic beliefs from broken fragments of information obtained through old texts, archaelogy, linguistics, legends and history. This, after a thorough Christian education which merely left me thirsty for something more, something personal, something really spiritual that would accept me for who I am, and touch me in ways nothing previously had. My path along this way has been very revealing, filled with the attendant obstacles, balanced with true spiritual joy and happiness that no amount of preaching or church-going could have ever given me.

I do not fear hell, mainly because I do not believe in it… but I certainly see it all around me here on earth. I do not hope for a future promised heaven in some space beyond space and time, I hope for a world where no person goes hungry or thirsty or dies from the heat, or freezes to death. If those things don’t bother you or your church or your leaders, then spirituality is not for you.