What a week!

I am having an illuminating week. I'm feeling pulses of the euphoric heaven that predict mania. Luck and coincidence are shining down on me. It's like the universe is coming to meet me, and I cannot escape the signs. I feel holy.

Nathan is keeping a close eye on me.

I went to a forum on World's Religions this week. 4 speakers: Rabbi, Baptist preacher, Muslim doctor and Buddhist. All shared thoughts on who or what is God, is there a heaven and hell, why is there evil, what comes after death. Fascinating to me. When I hear about, think about, discuss spirituality with others, a tuning fork in me vibrates. I am certainly "called", but not to preach a certain religion, certainly not. I have a voracious appetite for learning about how other people worship and tremor with joy when I can clarify and enunciate my own theology. It's very hard sometimes to express what I have seen and the future that has been revealed to me, but I am learning the words, thanks to the wonderful people who cross my path. I am grateful to all those who take time to talk with me.

Anyway, the speakers used these words to describe their own faith: "a struggle to understand", "complicated", "confusing", "unexplainable", and "unknowable." I asked the panel "If such words are used to explain the major religions, then isn't religion just the veil obscuring truth?" "Why would ultimate truth be described by those words?" "Do you all foresee a post-religion age?" One said religion is a tool that can be used for good or bad. One said learning more about religion, and our own differences, is the only hope we have for peace. One said all religions are climbing the mountain of truth on different paths, and when we all get to the top there will be no more different varieties of religion, no more seeking, no more words to divide us. I was delighted to engage with the speakers about this.

Here's what then coalesced in my brain: (And forgive me for being vain, or sounding presumptuous or holier than thou...this is just the vision that has come to me after years of contemplation about it. All I can do is share the image).

There are two rooms. One is dark and one is brightly lit. In the dark room are the world's religions. They can see the door ajar to the room that is lit. They can faintly see the light streaming into their dark room. They believe deeply in the light and want to find it and bask in its warmth. The light is truth and heaven and the answers to everything. So religions are stumbling in the dark, with tiny torches trying to light the way, seeking to find the truth but not knowing how to get out of the room. The frustrating thing is that the room is right next door but the religions cannot even see the proximity because of the profound darkness. In this struggle, under the veil of darkness and doubt, in this pursuit of truth, religions are at their noblest. They are all the same in that regard. They all see flashes of light at times in their courses, but none have been able to leave the dark room. They are still largely in darkness and the world is thus still in chaos.

I am in the room that is lit. It's where I am when I have walked in heaven.

I struggle mightily with how to open the door and shine the light into the darkness. I want more than anything to break down the door. I veer towards preaching or urging people to see the light, to come into heaven on earth. I get frustrated that I cannot just run a video clip of exactly what I am seeing and feeling in the lit room. Words must suffice for now, and they do a lame job most times. I know preaching is not the right way, and I don't want to disparage any faith out there. I am sure others have been or are in the lit room too, and I would love to hear about that experience for you.

I am not always in the lit room. I go back and forth between darkness and light. I feel darkness and fear and frailty many times but I always know right where the light is and how to walk back through the door. How I can help release the light and warm those who shiver in the dark is just now being revealed to me. It's a journey for me, and I fail as much as I succeed. But I am always learning. I am terribly optimistic.

Religions seem to be the map as we stumble in the dark. The sad irony is that the map is upside down. We've thought for thousands and thousands of years that we were on the right trail, and now I see we've been misled. And I see exactly what the problem is. I have found another map.

Religions have tremendous merit in doses and offer numerous clues about how to get back on the right trail and what the light will feel like when we all revel in it. Those flashes of lightning and clarity resonate with all of us. But I do think religions are on the way out. They have exhausted themselves, and you see this in how tired and pessimistic many devout believers are. We've all been running on the same hamster wheel for so long. As they say in Clark County, "We've tried the same old thing for 75 years and it's not working, so let's try something different." The time for a new way to think is upon us, if we are interested in that sort of thing.

One thing I can say for sure is that the light is real. Heaven on earth, Nirvana, union with the eternal creator, world peace, whatever you may call it, that is all as real as can be. All religions know the light is real. You are born glowing with that light, that soul, that essence, that knowledge. Unveiling it, rediscovering it, unteaching the darkness...that's where I feel my gift. And that's what I will continue to work on as long as I take breath.

If you can help shine light on me or others, please post your thoughts. You are a bright and beautiful light!