Recipes for the soul

I took another opportunity to voice my displeasure with organized religion. As much as a part of my mind wants to inhabit the mystical world, I have yet to find an organized religion I don't have a problem with. Every one of them has, in one way or another, severely abused their power. I would trust none of them with any part of who I am, least of all my soul.

I'm sure there are some people reading this who are part of an organized religion. I'm sure most of you try not to abuse or oppress people, and I'm sure you have your reasons for living your life the way you do.

There are probably some people reading this whose paradigm does not include a spiritual world at all. I get what you're saying, but my mind stubbornly refuses to live in that world. And it becomes very distracting and unproductive when I try to make it.

My husband is familiar with my feelings, but it came up again in a conversation earlier this week. He asked me, if that's how I feel, how would one build a spiritual community without organized religion?

I think that's an important question, so I gave it some thought. I started thinking about food. Food preparation wasn't well understood at first. We had a few things that worked, and some aspects of it were heavily codified. Now we have millions of recipes that we exchange among ourselves. And I don't think the sense of community that cooking evokes has been diminished.

Perhaps we should start exchanging "recipes for spirituality." We could even throw pot-luck blessings for our family and friends.

Next post: Wednesday, 24 October, 2018 (ish)