In the Middle

I'm sometimes amazed at the diversity of my interests and experience. Sometimes it leaves me feeling very "in the middle". Spirituality and Religion are very interesting areas of study for me. I identify myself not only as a "Liberal Christian", but also as someone who believes in the metaphysical world and energy healing. So 2 weeks ago, within the space of 6 days, I attended study groups at my church (Sunday), another at a more conservative christian church that some friends attend (Wednesday) and finally another at a New Age group--the Association for Research and Enlightenment (Saturday). The Wednesday group is a Women's Bible Study. I don't attend the weekly meetings, but once a month they have outside speakers on various topics. The topic this month was "Mom Guilt"--the feeling that you're never doing enough. The speaker was very entertaining and had a good sense of humor. I attended this group as much for the socializing with women I enjoy as the speaker. The Saturday workshop had a serendipitous beginning. I have some friends who've read Eckhart Tolle's "A New Earth" and loved it. I've tried to read it, and just could not get into it. I was at my local health food store, a few weeks ago and as I was leaving the store, I stopped to check out all the flyers and workshops which were posted. I saw that the A.R.E. group was hosting a workshop on A New Earth presented by Ron Miller, a professor of religion at Lake Forest College. I'm a LFC alum, so I was familiar with Ron and his engaging, dynamic lectures. I thought that perhaps hearing Ron talk about A New Earth, I could connect with it in a different way, and actually be motivated to read the book. I was also secretly hoping that one of my girlfriends would want to come along with me for the day. As luck would have it one of my buddies DID want to go, so we headed out to a Knights of Columbus Hall for the day to participate in the workshop. The day was not exactly what I had imagined. Ron did talk about Tolle's work, but talked about it in generalizations, in the greater context of where Tolle's work fits among world religions and spirituality. This was most intriguing. One of the most powerful points which I drew from the day is that the purpose of religion is to push us to grow in three ways: conscious, consciousness and community. Of course, this made me think about where I am at in these three areas of growth. All good food for though. The book is still on my nightstand waiting to be read.

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