1.  I know who I am…

2.  I question everything

a. The stuff I’ve been taught to believe

b. The thoughts my mind thinks A pretty high percentage of the time, both are wrong.

3.  I do unto myself as I’d have myself do unto me Everybody bitches and complains about the world and the need for change. That in you which incessantly bitches and complains IS the world that needs changing and THAT change will only come from within.

4.  I’ve let go of my regrets (and I’ve had more than my fair share) Anybody who’s been asked, “If you could live life over, would you change anything?” and they respond, “No.” Know this one thing! They’re lying through his/her teeth. Which makes them the same people who’d steal your wallet and never bat an eye. Honest people have many regrets and, given the opportunity, would make different choices.

5.  I look for the lesson in every life experience. There really are no mistakes, said Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

6.  I meditate more often than I medicate…usually!

7.  I practice living in space, not time.

8.  I am FOR – GIVING I am forgiven; I am forgiving; As a consequence, I am FOR – GIVING – if there’s a deficit in generosity, there’s a deficiency of grace.

9.  I think about DEATH daily It is only ever the ego in you that is afraid to die. The deeper you that came from God knows it will one day return to God. How could it ever be fearful of Perfect Love out of which it merged and to which it will return. The ego, on the other hand, your illusory self, what Martha Beck calls “your social self,” well it has plenty to fear but especially death. The ego dies at death. Jesus said, however, the key to life is “to deny self” (his way of saying, let the ego in you die). Muhammad put it like this, “Die before you die or you will die a thousand deaths.”

10.  I die daily, too. I’ll show you how to do the same. This is the ONLY way to, as Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” Jesus said, “Take up your cross daily” – that’s death daily. But, death to what?

11.  I know why I’m here. The greatest disservice our culture (and that includes the church’s culture) is to teach people, and so create within everyone the expectation, that they showed up for some grand purpose in life that only they could fulfill. Almost daily new books are written on helping you find your destiny, fulfilling your purpose. It’s a whole lot of bullshit, to put it as plain as I know how. You showed up for one purpose and one purpose only: I’ll share what that is in the book.

12.  I am One with all that Is – the UNIVERSE is UNI “one” VERSE or “song” So, the universe is “one song.” This is the enlightenment or, as Christians call it, salvation that changes the world. It is the profound awareness that we are all really ONE – as long as there is the feeling of separation in you to anything or anyone, that’s your growth curve. I’ll show you how to remove the barriers and build bridges. The survival of humanity depends on it. I thought about the Unity pendant being part of the design on the cover too.

Like to know your thoughts. So, what do you think? On the right track? Dump it? Keep going? New title? Other points I’m missing? I’m open to all your wisdom. (Copyright)

Really? Like this is surprising? It is only surprising to the Evangelical leaders who have been pretending for years that their churches were gaining more people than they were actually losing.

For decades now, Evangelical leaders have gathered annually at church growth conferences where the few mega-churches that were actually growing were showcased, as well as their leaders, like sideshows in a city circus. What they were not telling the younger Evangelical leaders who enviously observed the ministerial stars with an almost desperate aspiration of being just like them one day, is that it was all an illusion. The few mega-churches that were growing experienced their numerical successes from two sources primarily, one source from those who desired a more entertaining worship experience (and, of course, mega-churches could afford the best talent in town); and the other from among the disgruntled or disillusioned members of other churches nearby.

But, this illusion appears to be finally ending for Evangelical leaders. They now appear more willing to be honest about what everyone else has known for a long time: the church is not only declining, so is its influence, along with the influence of its leaders.

But why? There are likely many reasons for the declining influence of the church. What’s certain it is not the cause of liberalism in Christian seminaries or secularism in the American culture, the two most commonly identified causes by Evangelical leaders themselves. Here’s a reason worth contemplating that comes immediately to my mind …

Evangelical leaders and their followers have made the same mistake that Billy Graham once made when he pitched his tent, so to speak, on the White House lawn under the shadow of the infamous Richard Nixon. When Nixon publicly disgraced himself and left office, Graham was so embarrassed by the debacle that he purportedly said something to the effect, “I’ll never get that close to another president.” As far as I know, he never did. The difference between Billy Graham, however, and most other Evangelical leaders is that Graham learned from his mistake.

Evangelical leaders have used the political process, as well as politicians looking for votes, in order to promote their religious and social agenda for as long as I can remember. And, in my own opinion, it is a gross error in judgment, as the history of failed organizations like the Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition clearly demonstrate.

Many of these leaders mistakenly believe that Jesus’ command that they “go” and “make disciples” of all nations means that they are to convert everyone to Christianity and the western version of Christianity at that! This is not only a misreading of Jesus’ words in Matthew 28:19-20 but a misapplication of their meaning as well.

Here’s how.

Jesus was not commissioning the church with these words. At the time he uttered these words, there was no church to commission. At best, he spoke to a handful of disillusioned friends whom he had every right to feel were his enemies, since they had all deserted him just days before. And, why did they desert him? It is precisely because he turned out to be a big disappointment to them. They wanted a leader who would launch a rebellion against Rome. Instead, he compassionately submitted himself to service and suffering. The way of submission has never been too popular to the church at any time in its history.

What Jesus was instructing this group of deserters to do was to learn from their debacle and then go about teaching and preaching his path to knowing God, living compassionately, and pursuing a Divine and ethical life. It would be decades later, even centuries, before Jesus’ teachings would be institutionalized by a Church that all too quickly became more interested in preserving itself and canonizing its doctrines, dogmas, and demands or, better, controls over people.

I’m not suggesting that, with the birth and development of the institutionalized church, everything about it has been wrong or misguided. It has not. While it is true the Church has done much harm throughout the centuries, it is equally true the church has done much good. Just try to imagine this country without the benevolence and generosity that has motivated countless people and congregations to compassionate activity here and abroad. The church’s concern for the well-being of people, for example, has given birth to many of the hospitals in this country, as well as abroad. Furthermore, virtually every great educational institution in this country owes its gratitude to Christian ministers and Christian people.

Some readers of my blogs mistakenly conclude I’m a disgruntled former churchgoer whose only interest is pointing out the problems within the Christian Church. Well, I do that, of course. But it is because I’m qualified to do so. I love the church and I remain hopeful for comprehensive change within it.

I’m also quick to remember not only the good the church has done but to remind others of it, too. And whenever I do, I intentionally remind the critics of the church, particularly educated ones who received their degrees from the likes of Harvard, Princeton, Yale and other such notable institutions of higher learning, that there’s a good chance none of them would be in existence today were it not for Christian ministers and benevolent Christian people committed to educating the masses.

So it is highly disingenuous for any critic of Christianity to fail to exercise respectful restraint when the inclination wells up inside them to bite the proverbial hand that’s fed them — or, at a minimum, made possible their dining at some of the finest educational tables in the world.

The church has done much good. Only a fool would say otherwise. It seems also clear to me that, throughout history, the church has been at its best, not when it has mistakenly thought Jesus’ mandate was to convert the world to Christianity, but when it has simply gone about, as Jesus did, doing good to and for all people (Matt. 9:35).

The good Jesus went about doing was preaching and teaching that all people are loved by God, welcomed into her family, and deserve the opportunity to live a joyful, peace-filled, and abundant life.

What Evangelical leaders have preached, however, has often been the very opposite: that everyone is wicked and deserving of suffering in an eternal inferno. Furthermore, had it not been for the cosmic Superman named Jesus, they would. He showed up to take the wrath of his psychotic Father whose rage was so out-of-control it had to be vented on something or someone.

What’s good about this? Not a thing. Yet, it is this narrow-minded misreading of scripture and the consequential theology that grows out of this kind of mindset that has contributed to the declining influence of Evangelical leaders and churches. It is also this theology that, when carried to its extreme — and it always does — gives birth to radical fundamentalist thinking, whether Christian or Muslim, as demonstrated in persons like Anders Behring Breivik and Osama bin Laden.

So again, I say, the church is at its best whenever it is behaving like Jesus … when it is caring for the sick and infirm, founding and funding educational institutions, providing clean water and purification technologies, creating more sanitary living conditions for all, teaching people to farm and improve their living conditions, serving meals to hungry and displaced people, speaking out against the political and social structures that dehumanize, demoralize, or discriminate against people, and, ultimately, modeling for all what it means to walk with God and live a compassionate, ethical, and joyful life.

Now, when Evangelical leaders and their congregations decide to return to preaching and teaching Jesus’ real mandate — that of learning, living, and loving — then you’ll see the church and its leaders restored to a place of influence.

There is something I must say:

I abhor your actions and, as a devout follower of Jesus Christ, I am embarrassed and ashamed that you would tarnish the larger Christian family with actions so obviously contrary to both Jesus’ spirit and teachings.

Were he here now, I have no doubt but what he would show love and compassion to you in spite of your hateful behavior. But I’ll confess: I’m struggling to find much forgiveness or tolerance for you whatsoever. I’m working on it and I’ll get there. But I don’t mind admitting that, at this juncture, it has been difficult for me.

And, frankly, I find it strikingly ironic that other Christians in this country, many of whom are constantly calling on moderate Muslims to denounce the bloody actions of the extreme elements within their fold, are so seemingly silent in publicly denouncing your actions as an extreme element within the Christian fold.

Maybe it isn’t entirely their fault. Perhaps the media bears some of the responsibility for this. Mr. Jones, I travel all over this country consulting with church and parish leaders and speaking to religious groups of virtually every faith tradition imaginable. Most people of varied faith traditions that I meet, and none more so than other Christians, are repulsed by your actions and they wish the world to know that you represent neither the best in Christianity nor in any of them.

So it may just mean that the media is giving too much attention to the extreme behaviors of people in our culture. I’m clueless, too, as to whether anything can be done about it. But I want to go on record as voicing my disapproval of your actions and my deepest desire that your intolerance of other faith traditions and the violence you are perpetrating cease and cease now.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ. But, like many other believing people in this country, I am open to and respectful of all spiritual traditions. Furthermore, I am an ardent student of Buddhist philosophy, as well as that of Lao-Tzu and others. And I stand side by side with the streams of tradition they and others represent. Furthermore, I stand with Desmond Tutu, Thich Naht Hanh, Gandhi, the Dalai Lama and other contemporary spiritual masters whose calls for peace, justice, tolerance and cooperation have been heard and are being heeded by many of us.

Mr. Jones, this world cannot tolerate your hate. It may be your Constitutional right to express yourself as you do, but it is anything but appreciated. You may think you are justified in doing so, but you are not. You may feel you’re helping usher in the “end of the world” or some kind of apocalyptic notion of armegeddon, but you will not. It is time that you, and the minority fringes in every religion like you, end your madness of believing, “We’re right! You’re wrong!” “We’re in! You’re out!” “We’re the chosen ones, you’re not!” The survival of humanity is at stake.

If you would but take time studying the religions you so hatefully abhor, you would discover there is far more that unites us than distinguishes us. So I would plead with you to end this madness. You actions are clearly contrary to Christ, whom you claim to represent. This kind of insanity must end. The Dalai Lama is right. “Until there is peace among the religions, there will be no peace in the world.”

You’d have thought I just made off with the Mona Lisa from the Louvre.

I promised to protect it, to handle it with as much care as a paleographer would an ancient text—no bending of the edges, no underlining, circling, or writing in the margins—things I typically do with my own books.

Negotiations failed, however. “Put it back,” she ordered, “and get your own.”

So, I did. Wasn’t expecting much, either. “What could Eat, Pray, Love contain,” I asked myself, “that would cause her to guard it like it was the Holy Grail?”

I barely arrived at the first scene, however–the one where Gilbert is sleepless, sprawled across a cold bathroom floor at 2AM–and I was hooked. In a failed marriage, she cries out to God, the first of many conversations the author, Elizabeth Gilbert, has with God.  From there, she acts as a guide on a journey the two of you take through Italy, then India and Indonesia, in search of her soul, in search of a life that matters. There’s no pretense with Gilbert, which is why I like her. You’re invited to peer into her soul, and your own as well.

Sitting in a corner cafe; sipping the finest wine made of the Sangiovese grape; sharing secrets and disappointments, readers feel like they’re best friends with Gilbert. That’s because it’s easy to believe in her. When she describes her marital failings, not those of her spouse, she’s brutally transparent. When she talks about her love affair with David, even before her own divorce is final, she hides nothing. It is this honesty that makes what she says about faith, about God, just as believable.

In an era of religious dishonesty, corruption, and cover-up, where the morning news is as likely to reveal the latest religious scandal as it does the political or economic ones, it is understandable why westerners are weary of the dishonesty in much of organized religion today.

Weary enough to leave, that is. According to the American Religious Survey, thirty-four million Americans  want nothing to do with religion, a system that has repeatedly demonstrated a far greater interest in saving itself than in saving the world.

Still, there are many spiritual seekers. All they really want is an uncomplicated relationship with Transcendence. What you call God is irrelevant to them. So are the doctrines and distinctions that divide instead of unite people.

What’s most amazing is that religious leaders still don’t get it. Instead of softening their rhetoric, their endless dogmas, doctrines, and distinctions, they become more fixed, rigid, separated and exclusivist. Meanwhile, scores are leaving this insanity, perhaps to protect what little remains.  In exchange, they read Eat, Pray, Love, where insanity meets Sanity, where respect and inclusiveness are actually practiced, where they can relax, take off their shoes, enjoy themselves, others, and God.

That’s why this book, now a major motion picture, is so popular. In the end, it matters not whose religion is right, especially if it doesn’t guide you to live in this world, or with yourself, or help you to get along with others.

It is away from this kind of religious madness that seekers of the Sacred are walking.  Today, their paths are taking them toward something real, toward that which connects them to others and to God, and away from the labels and differences that have divided people for eons.  To many, Gilbert and writers like her have become unique spiritual gurus on this path toward what I think of as “the sacred art of knowing God.”

Jesus said, “The way to life is narrow…and few there will be who find it.” If that’s true, Eat, Pray, Love is the quintessential promise that seekers of the Sacred will find the narrow way–even though it’s off the beaten path.

Admittedly, there are some dramatic differences.

For the most part, my spiritual life is a whole lot less about beliefs and a whole lot more about faith. There is a canyon of difference between the two.  Like most religious people, I had confused belief for faith for decades. For example, there are many people who believe in Jesus but, in terms of living by the way of Jesus—that is, living by the example and teachings of Jesus—they do not.

Take this one example, although there are really many examples I could give you.  Jesus said, “Love your enemies.”  What that really means is “Have no enemies.”  Yet, many churchgoing people—perhaps even the majority of them—who would vigorously defend the US war in Afghanistan and in Iraq.  There was a time when I could have, too.  Now, however, I find it very difficult to live by Jesus’ teaching and try to justify war, any war, at the same time.  I suspect that’s why most Christians throughout history have looked to St. Augustine and his “Just War Theory” as a way to circumvent the rather clear teaching of Jesus.  For me, now that I regard myself as more Christian than ever before, feel, if I am going to say I’m a follower of Christ, then I must truly follow Christ and his teachings, instead of looking for some clever way to explain away his hard teachings.

For most of my adult life, I thought that being a Christian was about believing certain things about God, Jesus, and the Bible.  That being a Christian was about living a certain way – which usually meant ordering your life around some arbitrary but cultural standards somebody concocted as a definition as to what it meant to be Christian.  For Baptists in the south, where I grew up and with whom I attended church, being a Christian meant you walked a church aisle – hopefully soon after reaching the “age of accountability”—whatever that is, said you believed in Jesus and renounced your terrible sins (which were many at the age of seven when this “salvation” event occurred for me), and then promising you wouldn’t “drink, cuss, smoke, or chew or run with girls who do.”

There were a few other things that defined the “right” or “good” Christian—attend church regularly – the really, really good Christians came on Sunday night, too, and again on Wednesday—be patriotic, salute the flag and don’t cheat Uncle Sam, and, of course, pay your tithes and offerings.  If you did not do that…well…you might not go to hell but you’d smell like you’d been there.

Now, however, I know, as Deepak Chopra once put it, your “beliefs are a cover-up for insecurity. You only ever believe in the things you’re not certain about.”

Faith, on the other hand, is the capacity to live in ambiguity; or, to step confidently in the face of uncertainty.  It is to live with an inner sense of security, knowing that, since nothing could ever surprise the Divine, you can live without fear, without stress, worry, or anxiety.  You can live without religion, too.  That being a person of faith has very little to do with what you believe and a whole lot to do with how you live.  To be a person of faith is to not just to believe in God or Jesus, or even to know a lot about God.  It is, instead, to actually know God for yourself, as yourself, and to walk in the joy of her ineffable Presence.

As an educated scholar, theologian, and religious leader, I knew much about God. I could argue and debate with anybody about what I believed. But, in terms of those beliefs making any real difference in my life…well…I cannot say that those beliefs made any difference.  You can’t argue God’s presence into your life.  Clinging to a set of beliefs, no matter how correct they may be, won’t change the human heart.  Jesus said as much to the religious leaders of his day who, like many today, believed that they had to believe the right beliefs to be right with God.  It was insanity then and it is insane today. You only argue and debate about the things you do not know.  When you really know God, what is there to debate?  Or, to put it another way, when people set out to prove that God exists, it could only ever mean that they do so because they secretly fear she doesn’t.

You don’t believe in the sun, do you?  You don’t argue and debate whether it really exists.  The notion would be absurd.  What’s there to believe in or to debate about the sun?  You know the sun. You see it hanging in the heavens, feel its warmth by day, and observe its effects on earth.  Similarly, when you know the reality of the Eternal Presence—and that inner knowing could only ever occur when you exchange beliefs about God for faith in God—then you cannot but see God everywhere, in everyone, as well as in everything.  All of life becomes to you the sacred sanctuary of God’s eternal presence.