What is my personal theology? I was relieved, when reading Dr. John Mabry's Faith Styles, to learn there was a name for people like me: Spiritual Eclectics.
Even as a little girl, I remember wondering how any one church could presume to dig inside a person's heart and "cookie-cutter it" into a preconceived and utterly fixed mold. I stole glances down the pew at St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Lititz, Pennsylvania, marveling that even this small handful of people could assume they held identical beliefs.
As an adult, having lived and traveled in many countries around the world, my bewilderment has only grown deeper. I honor the truths reflected in the beliefs and traditions of each culture, which I see as the shapers of the world's religions. I'd like to think that God would smile at the breadth and range of people's spiritual beliefs and practices, just as a grandparent chuckles at all the pet names uttered by his grandchildren.
I believe that God can better be understood in terms of energy. In the beginning there was only The Void and God. God, the original point of consciousness, created the world from the endless potential inherent in that emptiness of The Void.
God is in and around everything. And since he/she/it creates simply through the act of bringing together consciousness and energy, the same is true of me.
What does that mean in my daily life? It means I must stay in a place of connection with my divine, creative self so that my face is God's face and my hands are God's hands.
My journey at ChI has been an adventure—both in uncovering fears and self-limiting beliefs, and in connecting me with the mystical aspects in all religions that hold immeasurable possibilities for healing and transformation. I am learning to be a vehicle for the Divine. It is my sincere hope that by the time my ordination comes to pass (this coming September), my wheels will have given way to wings.
May it be so.