Praying for Boston

Today, I send prayers to the victims of the horrible events in Boston, their friends and families, and the entire city of Boston, along with anyone who knows someone there. I pray the fallen will rest in peace, and that the rest of us will find comfort and compassion.

I don’t know about you, but I’m still trying to wrap my head around it all. I just don’t understand how someone could do it. To think that we have devolved to the point that some in our society believe that the ends of achieving their goal justifies the killing of innocent people is disheartening, to say the least. And I think I know one of the problems: we have lost our spirituality.

To me, spirituality and religion are two very different things. I believe you can be one without the other. You can be religious, in that you claim a specific theology, but if you aren’t following it to the best of your ability and trying to make the world a better place through your actions, you aren’t very spiritual. If your religion is a means of separating yourself from others (and judging them to be somehow beneath you), that’s in direct conflict with spirituality as I understand it. If you use religion to justify actions that your religion preaches against, that certainly isn’t spiritual.

You can also be spiritual without espousing a specific religion. You can recognize the connections between all things and the spiritual foundation of the universe. I see us all as small parts of the whole that is God as I understand it. (Christians – think Holy Spirit.) I believe that we are here to learn, and to serve each other in love. I believe that the more we act from love, the more spiritual our existence. When we bring good energy to the circle, we are being spiritual. When we bring negative energy, we are being the opposite – unspiritual, if you will.

Sigh… I don’t have any answers, really. The only thing I know I can do is to do my best every day to follow the teachings I have been given, and to act from love as told. I can only hope that I do well enough – imperfect as I am – that other like-minded individuals will recognize me as a brother. To hope that my own life will set an example for others seems almost too much to hope for, but I’ll be happy if I don’t set a bad example.

I hope you will join me in praying for Boston today. And I hope you might consider our loss of spirituality as well as ways we might counteract that loss. If you have thoughts, please leave a comment so we can have a conversation about them.

God Bless,

Lane