I'm standing here in my kitchen making a savory bowl of curried hummus for my children to enjoy with a hodge podge of veggies and crackers, thinking, as I work, of a poem that has recently come to mind.

BECAUSE HE GAVE BIRTH
So
precious
is a person's faith in God
so precious;

never should we
harm that.

Because He gave birth
to all

religions.

~St. Francis of Assisi~
Translation by Daniel Ladinsky
in
Love Poems from God:
Twelve Sacred Voices from the East and West

Hmmmn. I love St. Francis...his words are rich and insightful, springing from a life of contemplation and compassion. That doesn't make him infallible, but his words merit thought. At first read, I embraced this poem for it's lovely ideal. And yet, the more that I contemplate it, the more I have this uneasy feeling.

I want to say "Yes!" but my heart is only half way there. I do not believe that religion was birthed from God in a pure sense. I believe religion was birthed out of man's longing and seeking after God. Humankind reaches out to God and God reaches back, opening our hearts to truth and wisdom. What Aldous Huxley called the perennial philosophy are the eternal truths found at the core of most religions. Sacred writings for thousands of years have reflected man's longing to know God and understand the universe and are laced throughout with these eternal truths coming straight from the heart of God. However, they also reflect the belief systems and traditions different groups of people have attached to these eternal truths in their attempt to explain the nature of God. Some of these traditions have been beneficial to mankind's journey, some have not.

Over time, religion has been used to put God's approval on any number of atrocities and to control masses of people with fear and indoctrination to the point of brainwashing. I know from personal experience the power that fear of eternal punishment and discouragement of thoughtful questioning can have over a person. Not only that, but the exclusive mindset that creates an "us" and "them" division. "Us" being the saved or the chosen, "them" being lost, sinners, the world. Anytime a belief system controls the way people act and think, overshadowing perennial truths, it has reached cultic magnitude.

This is why I say that God has birthed in our hearts eternal truths. Mankind, in his longing, wakens to these truths within himself, permeating creation, so we find this very philosophy throughout sacred texts, from the Bible to the Tao Te Ching, the Dhammapadda, the Upanishads and Gita and other ancient texts. In my studies, I've found that the mystics of every faith-tradition, even in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, have become awake to the eternal truth and risen above the boundries of religion.

I have to quote the Holy Rascal Rabbi Rami Shapiro again:

"A Jew cannot meet God; nor can a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian or Taoist. No labeled person can meet the Unlabeled and the Unlabelable. Each religious tradition must be self-transcending. Each must lead it's students to a point of departure and help them make the leap from tradition to Truth, God, the nondual reality that is the Source and the Substance of all things."

love love love this quote...I can't think of a better way to sum it up.

Anyway, that's what I think about in my kitchen.

Huddled Beneath the Sky

"Life is a journey from hypocrisy to sincerity, from self-centeredness to other-centeredness and love, from self-deception, ingnorance, and illusion to self-honesty, clarity, and truth. We are all immersed in these struggles, whether we realize and accept them or not. Even if we reject them, we have made a choice."
" We can only judge others if we can fulfill two conditions: that we know the other's heart totally, and that we love them unconditionally. Only God can possibly meet these two conditions, therefore only God can judge......."
"The spiritual journey only begins in earnest when we no longer experience the need to judge others, when we begin to take responsibility for our own inner development."
---Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart

Huddled Beneath the Sky

The sadness I have caused any face
by letting a stray word
strike it,

any pain I have caused you,
what can I do to make us even?
Demand a hundredfold of me--I'll pay it.

During the day I hold my feet accountable
to watch out for wondrous insects and their dwellings.

Why would I want to bring horror
into their extraordinary
world?

Magnetic fields draw us to Light: they move our limbs and thoughts.
But it is still dark: if our hearts do not hold a lantern,
we will stumble over each other,

huddled beneath the sky
as we are.

~Rumi~
(translated by Daniel Ladinsky, Love Poems from God)

First posted October 18, 2006 on A Path to My Woods