The Unclad Soul

For as long as I can remember Christianity has been in conflict with itself. I grew up a Southern Baptist and I was never encouraged to respect or trust other Christian denominations. The Methodists and Presbyterians were both liberal and didn’t really believe the Bible. The Lutherans were started by Martin Luther and somehow that meant they weren’t really legitimate. They followed a man instead of Christ. The Catholics weren’t really even Christians because they believed in and prayed to Mary, and their priests heard their confessions and offered them absolution, not Jesus. Of course in the Baptist Church you just walked down the aisle at the end of the church service and told the preacher you were sorry for something you did wrong that day or during the past week. He prayed with you. You asked God for forgiveness. And all was well. What the hell difference was there in that and what the Catholics did? I had no idea. Then or now. And the Episcopalians were just a step down ...

Yesterday ended another month. The year has nearly reached its final days. Here is a brief essay to help us move on to tomorrow's experiences: Transition

“Truly powerful people have great humility. They do not try to impress, they do not try to be influential. They simply are. People are magnetically drawn to them. They are most often very silent and focused, aware of their core selves. ... They never persuade, nor do they use manipulation or aggressiveness to get their way. They listen. If there is anything they can offer to assist you, they offer it; if not, they are silent.” ~ Sanaya Roman, Author/Mystic

Do you feel with me a growing dejection among people today? That somehow we have lost something of our greatness as a nation; that the luster of our society has been replaced with a sort of dismal dullness. The political climate in America is about as bad as anyone could ever imagine. These endless elections seem to set the tone for how the whole country is to operate all the time. They have created an attitude and atmosphere in which we deal with one another with a cold indifference to people’s feelings; where we display ferocious and ruthless acts of competition, mistrust of others, unmovable bullheadedness, and a win at all costs in nearly everything we do. There have always been two corrupting forces in every society that finally fails its people and makes democracy almost impossible: money and power. Those forces seem to be driving our nation in nearly all of its institutions whether they be political, commercial, religious, entertainment, or otherwise. I think they ma...

"I have frequently seen people become neurotic when they content themselves with inadequate or wrong answers to the questions of life. They seek position, marriage, reputation, outward success of money, and remain unhappy and neurotic even when they have attained what they were seeking. Such people are usually confined within too narrow a spiritual horizon. Their life has not sufficient content, sufficient meaning. If they are enabled to develop into more spacious personalities, the neurosis generally disappears." — Carl Gustav Jung