It’s Friday night, the kids are hungry, and you are exhausted. The last thing you want to do is cook. You go to the drawer of old menus and everyone starts shrieking a preference. Your husband yells pizza, daughter wants Chinese, and your son begs for the Colonel’s famous fried chicken. You want to stick to your healthy, all-veggie diet from the new organic place.
OH! So many choices. How do you decide? They are all food and will nourish everyone. Just like religion. All religions are different but serve the same purpose. God loves variety.
As an Interfaith Reverend, I participate 75 % of the time in my home faith, Christian. I grew up in this faith and it is the most comfortable for me. Like a warm piece of Grandma’s pie. I know it, I trust it, and I believe it with all my heart. Oh, but do I love the taste of a different menu. All serving God.
Just like food, some just taste better than others to me. I love Mexican food, but I am not a bean fan. Rarely, will you ever see me eat beans. So, when I order Mexican, I leave off the beans. Religion is also relative to taste. You have a choice. If you do not like the taste of worship with a congregation singing with hands in the air like they just don’t care, drunk with the Holy Spirit, then evangelical Christian is not for you. If you want a calm atmosphere for your mind and soul while you contemplate the wisdom of ancient words, then Buddhism might be your cup of tea! If you see mystical energy in all things and how all those things are connected, from plant to sky like a big bowl of magic soup, new age spirituality might be your main course.
God is there, in each religion. In the Hindu religion, you will hear, “Many paths to the same summit or many rivers to the same ocean. Both the ocean and summit are God.”
All of the major sacred texts of the world share many common parallels. The most obvious is universally referred to as the Golden Rule. “Do unto others as you would have them do to you” is from the Bible, Luke 6:31. In Hindu, “This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you.” Mahabharata, reflected in Islam, “Not one of you truly believes until you wish for others that which you wish for yourself.”
When God sits at the dinner table, he welcomes all the menus. Full of love and flavored with a dash of forgiveness. When you come to the table, bring your manners, if someone does not look like you, dress like you or worship like you, swallow your ego, and remember the Golden Rule. Love as God loves, serve each other, and try some variety. Even if there are beans.
Misty Tyme is a Speaker, Reverend, Death Doula, and Author of the book The Forgiveness Solution.
