I've been going through a spiritual mid-life crisis of sorts. My spiritual path is lacking something. I'm
not sure what. I explained it to my parents (both Pentecostal missionaries) as, "Making soup and missing one ingredient." Don't get me wrong, I'm not prepared to convert to another religion. I like my spiritual path. It's just that it's not speaking to all of my spiritual needs. My parents' solution was for me to return to church and give my life to the Lord. I'm not as convinced.
It's not that I have anything against Christianity. At its best, I think it's a beautiful religion with an
abundance of blessings to offer its followers. It's just that I'm happy with my path. Over the better
part of the last two decades, I've had the opportunity to craft a spiritual walk that is uniquely my own.
Part of my path is a belief that all religions embrace the same source of the Divine - whether you call that source God, the Goddess, or something uniquely your own - I personally believe that it's all the same. For me, God is too big to be correctly identified with one religion; the Divine is something that religions seek to understand, not something that they have exclusive access to.
For me, religion isn't about changing what you believe, but about finding the tools to explore your own spiritual beliefs. So I started attending church with my parents. I'm sure I'm the only witch in their
congregation. I've been reading the Bible and a book called "Buddhism for Dummies." And I'm going back to the roots of my practice, trying to welcome the sun each morning and the moon each night.
The process feels much the same as going to a department store to purchase a new pair of jeans.
This one is too tight in the butt. The legs are too short on that pair. The only difference is that I'm
trying on religions to see how they fit my heart.
Somewhere in the process, I think I discovered what I'm missing. That something is a deeper relationship with the divine. The only problem is, even after all of these years, my definition of who or what the divine is could be described as cursory at best. I know of covens that are dedicated to a certain goddess, but none of the deities speak to me. After all, what makes Aphrodite a better choice than Diana? Why should I choose Hermes over Ares? In the end, for me at least, I see the myriad of gods and goddesses as aspects of the divine, not a clear picture of how I see completeness that I perceive the divine to be.
So I'm searching. I'm exploring other religions, not with the intention of converting, but to see how they approach things differently than I do. As I sit in my parents' congregation, I'm learning of worship. I'm learning how to humble myself before God and allow the divine to flow through me. Buddhism is teaching me how to let go and how to love unconditionally. For me at least, even if I find I'm still missing that one ingredient, there are still many blessings to be found in the journey.