In just the past few months we’ve seen a real drift towards acceptance regarding our fellow human beings. Let’s see, we’ve witnessed a man’s body transform to match his soul, a white woman change her appearance to feel at ease with her black soul and the Supreme Court ruled that it is the spirit that loves…not the body.

I am sure that if my Grandma Maggie was alive today she’d say “There was never any of this shenanigans going on when I was growing up.” My reply to her would be “Yes there was, you just never heard about it.”

Back when news traveled by what the local paper printed, what the two TV channels told you and the proverbial word of mouth you didn’t hear about ( as Maggie would put it “such things.”) Of course this is a woman who referred to gay men as “light in their slippers” and although she never used the “N” word, she did call black people “darkies”. Let’s just say it’s a good thing she’ll never have a Facebook or Twitter account.

Before I share my thoughts regarding the above mentioned “news” items I think it is important that you are aware of my spiritual beliefs. I was raised Catholic (recovering) and have been involved in with the Lutheran religion.  I guess I have always questioned some of the Doctrines of these and others religions. For example, if God is ALL FORGIVING why is there a Hell? Stuff like that got me 20 minutes staring at a statue of The Blessed Virgin Mary in the corner. And, if just writing a J.M.J. at the top of your paper got you 157,804 years out of Purgatory…what kind of place is it?…and where is it? Can’t be Heaven, can’t be Hell, has to be somewhere in between. YIKES! Earth is Purgatory!

Speaking of Heaven, Paradise, Eden, Olympus, Nirvana….whatever you call it, I believe we are all looking for roadmaps to the same place. I have personally decided to follow my own inner map based on what I truly believe. I recognized that there is a common denominator between the infant years of my life and religions. Anything I tell you about them falls under the category “I’ve been told.” It’s up to me to decide what to believe from what I’ve been told. The “factual” beliefs I have regarding my religious based teachings are another blog.

I do believe in a God. I believe that there is a great spiritual being. I call it God but that’s my name for what others call Allah, Buddha, Jehovah, Krishna, OM, Shiva, Yahweh and many more.  It’s all the same Spirit and I’m comfortable with the white haired bearded guy.

Now I’ll get a little Twilight Zone meets Touched By An Angel. In just the past few years I’ve given myself the freedom and challenge to come to grips with my spiritual beliefs. Recognizing the society that we live in, I have this disclaimer. These are MY beliefs. In no way am I writing this to convince, convert or tick off anyone. This is what I believe, not necessarily what I know since there’s a big difference between know and believe.

Here’s what I’ve come up so far. Every person has an equal spirit. This falls under I know. How these spirits are distributed falls under I believe. Actually, everything from here on out falls under the believe column. A spirit does not die with the body. Our bodies are just vessels that two people created to carry a spirit. It is, in reality the luck of the draw. I have an image of the spirits (or as my daughter calls them orbs) being scattered to fall willy nilly where they may. These are spirits that have left a vessel and time in history and are coming back to a whole new vessel and time in history. The goal of each spirit is to make their world a better place each time they are in a new vessel. The spiritual goal that I believe we’re all challenged with is to practice “The Golden Rule” until it’s achieved universally.

That brings us back to the recent news items I mentioned. Although I have neither scientific proof nor logical answer it’s obvious there are spirits that landed into bodies that didn’t fit. Another category in my spiritual belief is “I don’t know but I’ll find out when I die”. I don’t know if spirits have gender. I don’t know if spirits have ethnicity. I do know that every body has a spirit and that is what I embrace. The packaging is not as important as the cargo it carries.

I think we’ve moved closer to that goal of The Golden Rule.