Category: Spiritual Practice

Even if you are an atheist you have a spiritual practice. I and many others would argue that atheism is a religion, the way its adherents profess it with dogmatic emphasis. I am not an atheist and freely admit that I depend on a Higher Power to guide me through my life. Acknowledging something bigger than myself and all of the mysteries intrinsic to that experience gives me insight and peace into every situation. My native cultural context for a Higher Power is Christianity. I was raised a United Methodist but am now a practicing Catholic, I’ve also studied a lot about many other faith traditions. That has helped me to better understand my own faith tradition, recognize the ways that we are all more alike than we are different, and that God is so creative that s/he is able to reveal him/herself to every single person in a way that they are able to receive it. Although I am a Christian, when I visualize God I don’t see God as a him or a her; I visualize God (symbolically) as Ganesh from the Hindu pantheon. Ganesh is the man/woman/elephant whose defining divine characteristic is that s/he is the remover of obstacles. That includes ALL obstacles, including those that divide male/female, human/animal, physical/spiritual, light/dark, atheist/believer, good/bad, etc. My Christian God does all those things, although many of the adherents of the Christian faith tend to pigeon-hole God as someone who looks and acts like them. I do not — God is much, much bigger than inability to imagine the possibilities of the infinite.