Last night my husband and I had dinner at the bar of our local Mexican restaurant. A friendly couple sat down next to us and struck up a conversation. The husband asked what I did for work. I shared that I was a minister and author. I got the usual follow up question.
“A minister for what church?” He looked at me expectantly, as if needing just the right answer for our conversation to continue.
“No church,” I replied happily. “I’m independent. I guest speak at different churches and centers.”
“Oh.” It was not enough to satisfy him. “What kind of churches?”
“Have you ever heard of New Thought?” He shook his head no. “Law of Attraction? Positive spirituality? Thoughts create our reality?”
He seemed to relax a bit. “I thought all that was just common sense?”
I, too, relaxed and smiled. “It is! You get it.”
The man proceeded to tell me that he had never been a fan of religion, and he complained about all the wars that have been fought in the name of God. There was nothing for me to argue with. Then he said something I found interesting.
He said, “Religion has nothing to do with faith. Faith I can get behind. It matters. Nobody needs religion.”
I found myself nodding emphatically. “I actually agree with you.”
I see this more and more in my work. I see it in declining attendance numbers, financial desperation, and the panicked decision making of many organized religions, including the New Thought movement. There is panic afoot, which seems odd to me—(shouldn’t there be faithful trust?)
I used to roll my eyes when I heard this, but now I find myself saying it too:
The awakening is happening.
It goes far beyond people choosing to be “spiritual, but not religious.” The faithful are awakening to universal truths. So many paths, so many truths. It’s happening with or without religion. This is a good thing.
All the religions can crumble if it propels humanity to a higher collective consciousness.
Right?
So my question is, to what, do you wish to be faithful?
A building? A book? A teaching? A being? A ritual? A prophet? A leader?
Or maybe…
The Unity of All Life? Your Soul? Spiritual Law? Your Divine Nature? What you know to be true deep in your mind, body, and spirit?
Humanity is discovering new choices for our faith. We’re zooming out, widening our spiritual lenses, and seeing the universal truth of our awareness for ourselves. We aren’t just becoming aware. We are realizing that we are AWARENESS itself.
It is so much bigger and better than religion.
Welcome! Come on in.
We do things differently here.