Saturday, January 7, 2017

Wrestling With Spirituals of Different Religions

   G_d certainly put me on a unique, spiritual path in life.  At 6 years old, while my mother was taking me to a Presbyterian Church, we got a flat tire.  I told Mom, "Mom, this is an omen from G_d that I'm not supposed to go to church."  She never took me to church again.
    My father believed that religion ruined spirituality.  So I learned to have my own relationship with G_d outside of any religion.  At 12 years old while on a rafting trip, I almost drowned in the frigid waters of the Upper American River and saw G_d's light as I was rising to the distant air that I would breathe once more.  Being given a second chance at life, I realized that I was kept around to do something for G_d.  41 years later I still wonder what that is exactly.
    After being a heathen in engineering at UC Berkeley and being all about me and my selfishness, my brother got me for a graduation gift a Fundamental Christian discipler to straighten me out.  I learned how to study the Christian Bible and be more disciplined about reading it each day.  The religious words gave me a moral compass, rather than relying on G_d directing me with subtlety.  Sometimes my own ego missed the subtleties, but the moral compass started helping me to deal with this enormous ego issue.
    Finally I fell in love with someone who only wanted to be a Catholic, so I did a 1.5 year long conversion to Catholicism.  I actually taught Catholicism for 6 years when G_d blessed me with two children after I promised to raise my children to love Him, if He allowed me to become pregnant.  Thank goodness He was listening to me, even though my ego was still not completely under control!  Motherhood, though it's tough is still quite awesome.
    After a major transition in my life where I had to start all over after the kids grew up, I found that my hidden Jewish ancestry was starting to become undeniable.  My closeness to G_d also meant that I needed to be more careful of error, so I needed to learn more and more about His ways.  Though I had at least 4 Christian Bibles, there were so many references to Jewish books to which I had no access.  I needed to learn the moral compass from the root of Christianity, so I wondered deeply about  studying Judaism.
     G_d made it clear to me in Jerushalem that it was now time for me to become a Jew.  It was a difficult cup to be given, since so many people hate Jews and use them as scapegoats.  But, I only reached that air when I was 12 years old, because G_d had something for me to do for Him.  So I went through a 1.5 year Modern Orthodox conversion.  This allowed me to reach the moral and spiritual compasses that I felt were there that were out of my reach as a Christian.
     One thing that made my mind wrestle during this latest conversion was why I had met some really G_d-inspired spirituals in other religions, but all the spirituals of the G_d of Abraham had to be Jewish.  This didn't match my lifetime experience.  As a math teacher, I teach a lot of Muslims, and many have a deep spirituality that transcends the confines of religion and reaches to a direct relationship with G_d as well.  I struggled with why does each religion say that it has to be exactly this way?  Why did G_d have me to Himself until I was 23 years old before I had any religious moral guidance?
     Perhaps I'm an observer for G_d, who is genetically and now halachically Jewish.  Perhaps I'm a bridge for the religions.  Today as I was reading, "Not In G_d's Name," by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, I read the most touching words by Michael Novak:
     "In a genuine pluralistic society, there is no one sacred canopy.  By intention there is not.  At its spiritual core, there is an empty shrine.  That shrine is left empty in the knowledge that no one word, image, or symbol is worthy of what all seek there. Its emptiness, therefore, represents the transcendence which is approached by free consciences from a virtually infinite number of directions."
    That beautiful statement is the connection of my experiences and the Tower of Babel story where G_d did not want us all to speak one forced language.  G_d wanted us to be our unique selves and choose to love Him in the way that we were each destined to love Him.  G_d wanted us to love Him in His truth---His emet.  We cannot freely do this if we are forced to be in a particular religion out of political, social, or family pressures.  We each have to find G_d's truth through His quiet understandings and subtleties that he conveys to us as we are ready to listen and understand them.
     We are each on a journey and in different stages of self restraint of those volatile egos of ours.  Once we start using the very similar techniques of each of the monotheistic religions to control these egos that want to possess and control, we can learn to love G_d and let G_d give to us and take care of us and take care of those that harm us.  We can learn that the beautiful sites that we all see are given to us by G_d and that we should remember to be thankful for G_d, our diversity, our unique paths that really challenge us to find G_d and to learn to love Him as we were destined to do.  We can be thankful for the fruits of this world that our given to us all and appreciate that the world that belongs to G_d.
      We must remember our past, but not live in it.  We must learn from our past, but not let it control us.  Our past was specifically created for each of us to become who we need to be to do what it is that G_d intends for us to do.  We must change our hate and anger to understanding that G_d intended us to learn something new or go a different direction at that uncomfortable moment in our life.  We must love the life that G_d has given us and others.  Life is holy.  G_d created it.  So we must put down our ideas that G_d intended there to be only one way to love Him.  The tower of Babel was pretty clear that G_d wants to be the only G_d, but loved in an infinite amount of ways with the guidance of Him. The moral codes of religion are very helpful in picking up G_d's subtleties better once we control our egos and find the monotheistic religion G_d intended for each of us.