SPIRITUAL ESSENCE:

Focusing on the essence of spirituality from all times, places, cultures…and beyond. Serving and cultivating the innate, inherent spiritual nature contained within all: the religious, the non-religious, the spiritual but not religious, the atheist, the agnostic, the mystic; whatever one does or does not consider oneself. We are beings at many different levels with many different aspects: physical, energy/life force, mind, intellect, emotion; but at our deepest common core, we are all spiritual beings. We all yearn to love and be loved, to nurture and be nurtured, to express and serve and realize each of our unique destinies. We can all help each other along our individual journeys, united by our common needs and yearnings.


Quote of the Week #156 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance

Quote of the Week #156 - Listening/Hearing for Non-material Sustenance


Every one who is thirsty, come and drink. He who has no money, come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good. Let your soul delight in abundance. Incline your ear, and come to Me. Hear, that your soul will live…


--Isaiah 55:1-3, The Living Torah translation by Rabbi Aryeh Kaplan

Sunday, January 19, 2020

Quote of the Week #145 - Happening: The Will of a Good and Loving God?


Quote of the Week #145 - Happening: The Will of a Good and Loving God?

Question: I believe everything that happens is God’s will. My problem is reconciling a good and loving God with all the horrible things that happen. Can you help me make sense of this?

Answer: Yes: Stop insisting God is good and loving. I too believe that everything that happens is God’s will, but I don’t believe that God is good or loving or that God wills freely. God is Reality, the Happening happening as all happening. God’s will is that everything happens because the conditions for it happening are such that it must happen. God’s will doesn’t make things happen, God’s will is what happens. When you know that all happening is God and God’s will, you are free from the distraction, “Why did God will this to happen,” and free for engaging with what happened. When a tragedy happens, don’t ask, “Why?” ask, “What can I do to alleviate the suffering happening with this tragedy?”

--Rabbi Rami Shapiro, from his column, “Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler” in Spirituality & Health magazine, January/February 2020


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