December 18, 2023- A spiritual leader among First Nations peoples referred, at a meeting this evening, to the difference between religion and spirituality. He noted that spirituality comes from within a soul. Religion, as it is often practiced, is an external force that is either voluntarily adopted by the soul or is imposed on it, by prevailing social forces. He further noted that it does not have to be this way, pointing to those religious teachers who stress leaving the adoption of their Founder’s teachings up to the individual, through an emphasis on individual investigation of truth. This places the responsibility, in my view, where it belongs. Force only works as long as it is applied. When it is removed, those who have lived under a yoke, so to speak, will go off on all manner of tangents-including campaigns of force all their own.

It took me nine years of investigation and internal wrangling, before I recognized the Baha’i Teachings as the Divine Message for this Day. Others are free to follow their own path, and I count, as dear friends, men and women of all faiths-from Fundamentalist Christianity to Wiccan, and in-between. Baha’is tend to know my heart better than most, my Christian siblings being an exception. My point here is that, like a house that is built by its owner, the spiritual fortress of a soul is best which fits the soul’s true needs-and only that soul can really know what those needs are. 

As we move forward, through a time that is fraught with challenges, and filled with opportunities, both scheduled and serendipitous, let’s remember to show reverence for one another’s dignity and worth. Let us be open to knowing another’s true heart-inside and out.