Religious Recovery

You’ve suffered at the hands of clergy who you’ve entrusted with the keeping of your very soul. You’ve pledged your allegiance to a religious order, given of yourself in service, sacrificed for the benefit of the organization, then found out it was not what you thought it was. Now, you’re in religious recovery.

Religious recovery is not to be confused with AA, which assumes that you’ve failed if you ever take a snort of alcohol again. No need to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

There is hope for you.

You have had a relationship with God, and you can keep your relationship with your higher power without having to submit to your previous religion. God is not the God of any particular religious organization. Individual religious organizations are stepping stones to a greater relationship with the source of all life.

Had you not had this experience, you might not have been aware of the existence of a higher power. Now that you have been introduced to God and started to develop a relationship, you can keep growing and expanding as you keep pursuing a greater relationship with the creator of all life on your own.

You’ve taken the first step. You’ve exited the influence of an organization whose intent it was to control you, which has held you back from moving forward and beyond the capabilities of the faction you had associated with in the past.

The will attempt to deploy all the fear-based intimidations they can to make you feel like you are unworthy, unwanted, and may even threaten your survivability, tell you you’re going to hell, or decrease your own will to live, and you may occasionally feel like you can’t go on another day.

Your initial reaction might be to rebel, and judge the organization for treating you badly, deciding,

If that’s the way God is, I want nothing to do with it.

But remember, your problem is not with God. It is with the organization run by the people who are doing the best they can to serve God in the only way they know how. They have been programmed by the generations that went before and they live within the confines of a religion based on fear. Fear of doing it wrong, fear of punishment, fear of eternal damnation.

God is not a God of fear. God is a God of love. And you know it.
Now that you’ve taken a step toward your own religious recovery, you have the wherewithal to start your own relationship with your higher power without having to succumb to the heavy-handed mechanisms of religion.

You are empowered to follow your own path to enlightenment in any way that you see fit, sort of like a modern-day shaman. The traditional path of a shaman is more structured, not unlike an organized religion, but the modern-day shaman is widely expanding and evolving along with the rest of the human race.

The times are changing, and the whole planet is evolving from a fear-based system (which is not sustainable) to a love-based system which is heart-centered and seeks peace and harmony for all.

God is loving you, so excited about your finding your own way, and waiting for your awakening.

See you at the Recovery from Religious Trauma Event in Olympia, September 21st

Spirituality and Churches

As government continues to grow in strength and power, ever expanding, creating new ways to control the masses by brute force, creating new laws, monitoring and tracking our every move in an effort to make citizens comply, or fear punishment, those who are spiritually-inclined are expanding also.

Freedom of religion in the United States has afforded us the ability to have a particularly influential role in the making of a better world for those of us who hold to the idea of a brighter future for our children, their children, and generations to follow.

We pray for a better life and a better world. People who live in the United States pray more than in any other nation, and even those who profess that there is no God, even 20 percent of those can be found in the practice of prayer.

Among the medical community, the effect of prayer for healing and recovery is unrefuted, even though it may be disregarded as “placebo effect” in study after study (even double-blind studies) the results are exemplary.

Churches have the most powerful impetus for change of the human condition. Every day the less-than-desirables in the United States, the criminals, those who helplessly succumb to addictions, abusers (both legal and illegal), and other problematic members of society incredibly change their lives with the least amount of recidivism thanks to American churches.

Churches make the world a better place by reaching out to the disadvantaged, giving them a reason to live and encourage even the least of us to reach out and help to make the world a better place.

Thanks to churches, we see the reduction in crime, divorce rates, poverty, homelessness, drug and other addictions, depression and other mental health issues.

Churchgoers have a higher sense of obligation to do that which is right, self-esteem, achievement among family members, and greater contribution to the community at large. They are more proactive, have happier, healthier families, increased immune systems, and greater life expectancy.

Spiritually-minded individuals who profess a sincere connection to a higher power that does not forsake the regular assembly of like-minded people (regular church attendance) live happier, more productive, law-abiding lives, are more understanding, compassionate and loving of themselves and others.

The statistics express markedly and exponentially higher degrees of success and satisfaction in all areas of life between those who attend or gather together three times a month over those who gather once a month or less.

Many of us spiritually-minded Americans who are ever-evolving into higher versions of ourselves may have negative associations connected to the idea of church or recognized religious gathering. The time has come for us to embrace the idea of religious freedom as part of the expansion of our consciousness.

Spiritual growth need not be a solitary journey. As we know there is greater growth and more power for a better world when we combine our abilities with other like-minded people on a similar path.

We must ever be cognoscente about proceeding with such an idea in caution to prevent the interruption of our efforts by an oppressive ruling government.

Even though the founders of our country protected freedom of religion by declaring “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” in the First Amendment to the Constitution, effectively establishing a separation between church and State, since then, there have been attempts to integrate the church and state, giving government the final say in certain affairs of the church.

The primary method to control the church was for the United States to offer the deduction of financial contributions for exemption from tax debt owed to the IRS via registration of the church by filing as a non-profit 501(c)(3) status. Churches volunteer to do so to increase the financial support of their members, but also become a corporation in the United States, clearly aborting the separation of their church from the state.

A church as a non-profit organization of the United States of America achieves the status of a state-recognized licensed church. Doing so may waive its freedom of religion, ability to remain separate from the state, and allows government intrusion.

You can see it in action, churches being violated, shut down, priests, pastors, preachers, and teachers being forced to testify in court, violating the penitent privilege. Churches, which may have otherwise been considered as “sanctuary” are now subject to having their perimeters breached in the name of the state, and so many compromises made by voluntarily making a deal with the state.

Is there a better way?

If you can look around your community and not find a church which would welcome an expansion explorer, as yourself, maybe its time to create such a venue.

Could you be a part of this spiritual awakening and expansion?

Let your church be the antithesis of all those other churches.

It is your privilege, and your responsibility, after a time of healing, if you are so-called. You might be the key to providing a safe environment for others to find themselves, do their own deep inner work, in any way they see fit while being loved and supported by others doing similarly individual work.

My wish for you, for all of us, is that there is a church where any one of us would feel welcomed, supported, without fear of not being accepted or threatened, nearby.

This is the next step.