A Religious Context
You may wonder why I have chosen to ground my work in a religious context. Religion, at its roots, is about that which binds us together and to what makes meaning in our lives. We need not go it alone, whether that refers to relationships with other human beings or how we relate to and interact with our values; to that which calls each of us into being as we rise to greet our days.
Organized religion gathers up like-minded and similarly-spirited folx, circling them around sets of beliefs and practices that serve to inform; that provide a platform, a diving board into life and being; a place to return to again and again to refresh and restore. It may be a mainstream understanding of a religion or a more loosely woven web that one may turn to. It doesn’t matter what form it takes so much as that it enables and encourages community; a safe space in which to grow and deepen.
Religious community is that which develops out of relationships fostered by shared values and beliefs; acknowledges our need for one another in this life; looks together to principles that guide us in becoming our best selves. Therein we are accountable to each other, to ourselves, and to the common source of our meaning making. We are bound together by a powerful invisible thread, weaving its way in our midst, holding us in connection.
A religious context speaks to me of the importance of an existence that tethers humanity to itself and to its rootedness in the need for shared living, while at the same time providing avenues of connection to sources beyond what is visible; tangible; concrete. From this place we explore, spiraling inward to our centers and outward into the universe; transformed by existence itself.
