I Have a Dream
copyright 2009 Lauri Lumby Schmidt |
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I want to thank Myles Strasser for his insightful column in the Sunday, October 18th, Oshkosh Northwestern. He illuminated an important truth. Religion and spirituality are not the same animal. In my own profession as a healer and Spiritual Director, (and my former life as a Lay Minister in the Catholic Church) I have witnessed the tension between these two pursuits daily. As Myles so eloquently reminded, it is our spirituality that unites us. Religion, on the other hand, often serves only to separate - ordained from non-ordained, saved from damned, denomination from denomination, sinner from saint. When I look at the message of those men and women from whom religions claim their inspiration, I find myself confused. Isn't the primary message of the major world religions one of love?
In my own experience, growing up in the Roman Catholic tradition, this message was sometimes apparent and sometimes not. When I looked at the Jesus message through the lens of Catholic doctrine it seemed as if this love was conditional - conditional on our ability to obey the law as it was laid out for us. This love, however, was apparent when I looked at it through the Church's tradition of spirituality and mysticism, prayer and devotion, sacrament, art and architecture and the Church's stand on social justice. The Vatican II Council served to further illuminate to me that the Church was making an attempt to more closely reflect Jesus' teachings about unity and love. Living in the midst of the tension created by these conflicting messages (and knowing that people of all faiths also experience this tension), a dream has emerged. This is my dream:
- I have a dream.
- I have a dream that all men and women would know that they are One with God and with one another.
- I have a dream that all people should know the sacredness and holiness of their true nature.
- I have a dream that all would realize that they are made from love, of love and for love - that they are the very expression of God, expressing God's self.
- I have a dream that all wounded men and women be treated as delicate pieces of china in need of healing and love - that all "sin" be recognized as a mere expression of a more deeply held spiritual wound.
- I have a dream that we all reach out in love to our brothers and sisters in pain, helping them to remember the love that they are.
- I have a dream that all people be honored for their own expression of their spiritual beliefs whether they honor Jesus or Mohammed, or Moses, or the Buddha or any other spiritual leader who they have claimed as their teacher and source of inspiration.
- I have a dream that all religious separation fall away and that we live in the message of a God that is love, unconditional love, healing love, compassionate love, merciful love, joyful love, love that does not have to be earned or cannot be taken away. God is love, pure and simple. When we remember this truth, all judgment - all separation shall then fall away.
- I have a dream that Jesus' prayer for oneness be remembered and fulfilled:
Jesus prayed, "And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you love them even as you loved me." John 17:22-23
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