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theigive · 1 year ago

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Spirituality has been the central fixation of my human experience.

I started out in the Black Apostolic Pentecostal church.

In college, I had transformative experiences studying and learning among people who practiced or took strong interest in Jewish Mysticism and Christian Gnosticism, the Hebraic roots of Christianity (including Black Hebrew Israelites, Messianic Jews, and Sacred Name believers), a very helpful and insightful Jehovah’s Witness, Nuwabians, and many others.

I gravitated to a more Hebrew culturally appropriated view of Christianity for a while and in my back pocket contemplated the more esoteric ideas of Gnosticism and other wisdom outlooks who utilized more allegory than literalism.

When I had my break from Christianity, I left in summary bc my studies poked too many holes in doctrinal and what I believed was historical information that was essential to my belief, that the fruit of the Spirit was in poor supply among my survey of saints and other Christians (that ended up being bigger a deal than the initial heartbreak of doctrinal fallacy), and the judgment of traditional and conservative Christian based morals seemed more harmful than any form of loving.

The day Jesus Christ was no longer my God in the way that I had grown up believing him to be was the biggest heartbreak of my life. I was on the phone with a friend who I would study at length with when the realization hit me. I fell to the floor and wailed in fetal position broken bc I knew nothing would be the same. This was probably somewhere in 2005. I held on and did mental gymnastics to stay a Christian. 2012, I had become pretty secular far as practice and by 2014/2015 I had pretty much de-converted.

I don’t know when it resonated, but the Sermon on the Mount and the giving of the Great Commandment sunk deeply into my heart. If anything is actually Christian about me for real, it is that I hold the Shema as the most important scripture and is the foundation upon which I attempt to live my life and the basis for any beliefs that I have evolved spiritually.

Hear O Israel, the LORD our God is one LORD; and you shall love the LORD thy God with all thine heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy strength.

And ye shall love thy neighbor as thyself.

I prefer to translate it: Hear O Israel, YHWH is our God, YHWH alone! You shall love YHWH your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, and all of your strength.

And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

And I love the KJV translation of the last part of the Great Commandment when Yeshua Messiah / Jesus Christ says:

“On this hang ye the whole law.”

That was what struck me.

By this time, I’m DEEP in my bible bag. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 (aka The Book of Names/Shemot) is the most important commandment in Judaism. I equate Deut. 6:4-5 to be what St. John 3:16 is to most evangelicals and what Acts 2:38 meant to the Black Apostolics of my childhood.

Jesus/Yeshua was a Jew, a Jewish rabbi on top of that. Up until this point in my life, Jesus/Yeshua (and for a period of my journey Yahshua/Yahushua/Yahoshua) was not only a prophet or a religious leader, and even more than identifying him as the Messiah, the Lord and Savior, but the very God that so many of us believe we are connected to or working to connect to or have devoted our lives to his service. Jesus was it for me. Jesus was All for me.

By this time, my break with him being that level of divine had already occurred but that did not remove the magnitude of how important I thought he was to me. So when I finally departed the Christian faith, I kept love with me. The commandment of love was what made it worthwhile to me to what I considered literally risking my seat in heaven for a fiery hell grave…love.

If a commandment, a doctrine, a theology, a point of holy living contradicted love as I knew it, I would break it, forsake, and even become angry at it. Send me to hell if I cannot love.

The Jesus I came to know spent much of his time with people that society and the church continually look down upon and treat as less then. It taught me a lot about myself and my own self righteous attitude.

It lead me to do a full deconstruction of my faith.

That journey has been fascinating and significant. I have entered and traveled to many doors and portals.

I have encountered and experienced much that has shaped me.

So love was my concluding principle I keep from my experience as a Christian.

Some other tidbits I keep that are reflections of my evolution, especially utilizing gifts I obtained during my years of nerding out the bible:

God is a term translated from Semitic terms whose literal definitions are that of “power”, “might”, or “strength”.

Spirit is a term translated from Hebrew, Greek and Latin that all mean “breath” or “wind”.

Every spiritual person I admired, I admired for their Wisdom (Sophia) over their Power / Authority (God).

Every spiritual person I admired was warm, non-judgmental, down to earth, earthy, nature loving, nature living or at least nature leaning.

I concluded that spirituality should be about “breathing” for me. That Power is a resource not something or someone to covet and for me there are no messiahs, no prophets, no pastors, no gurus and no anointed ones. That “no” is a loose “no”, meaning generally speaking. Those who are “chosen” or “anointed” are less identified with the ego of stature and recognition and more by their witness, their impact, their fruit. These kinds of children of light are a lot more unassuming than loudly proclaimed either by themselves or their “following”. They often seem regular degular, blink and you’ll miss them sharing love and good will almost haphazardly along the way.

Thanks to a solid stint with my best bud I got to explore science, humanism, atheism and agnosticism at length. Coming out of Christianity (a very much literalist faith) and being kind of a literal person myself (aka I’m a dumb guy or more nicely put probably on the spectrum somewhere), I struggled to reconcile the things I could learn from evidence based research and experiments and this faith in something bigger and beyond the physical realm that gives me affinities for things that do not jive with science.

Having an atheist for a best friend, very thoughtful, knowledgeable, fun loving, good natured, empathetic atheist was a profound experience. We discussed everything at length and I tuned in to some of his favorite lectures and debates from leading white atheist speakers like Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris. These men might not be my cup of tea, but I took some real things from them that I am happy to keep.

Mainly, a term “Intellectual Honesty” or the ability to admit that one could be wrong or that at least there is yet no empirical evidence for whatever belief one may have. Growing up Christian, especially in a Black church based family, “intellectual honesty” is blasphemy, would probably get me an ass whooping (and has gotten me an ass whooping), and/or potentially kicked out of your family or community to be honest.

Niggas can’t question God or the bible for real.

Anyways, I never identified with atheism, but I do have some atheistic ideologies. I consider myself some form of a theist and held contradictory beliefs now for the last 10 years. Technically, I’m agnostic, but I prefer to identify with believing…probably bc I’m Black and that shit is law for majority of us and that same power of faith still resides in me despite my “intellectual honesties”.

In the last 5 years or so, I became fixated on my health (mostly mental health) as an extension of my spiritual angst and curiosities.

During my bible nerd days another literal definition of a Semitic term resonated with me: “shalom”. Shalom, we all know, means “peace”. “Salaam” is the same from Arabic. Well, while that is an accurate translation of the term, it has a more literal definition in Hebrew and is also translated as “whole”. As in a “whole” stone or a whole number or a whole note in music. The word “shalom” would be the Hebrew term used.

So now we are arriving to where I have come to currently…being whole.

In my bible nerd days, being “whole” meant being balanced and comprehensive. To expand the scope of my spiritual practice from simply worship, service and study, to how I engage my whole life, my whole needs, and my whole health.

It lead me to a healing journey that started in my darkest days during what I like to call “my cane and crutch era”, when the autoimmune conditions I manage were undiagnosed and running wild in my body.

I nearly unalived myself during that period…still working to not do that even now 😬

Anyways, when I was beginning that intense inner work I began to greet, toast and salute one of my friends who got down in that trench with me to help me pull myself out with “wholeness and wellness”. It was how I adopted shalom for myself.

It started in the body and in my practice. Then it moved to mental health, my own personal Normandy Beach Doomsday battle. How to help my heart and mind be whole.

I viewed all this as spiritual in nature.

I’m shortchanging the details now bc well I’m tired of writing but WHOLE is where I landed.

Whole or Shalom, also became All and One.

Throughout my journey, beginning with my dear old Gnostic friend, the Oneness of all things, the ALL that is God and the entirety of the universe began to seep into my psyche. How could we all be eternal? Even Christians sometimes teach that the human soul is eternal not only in the future but also from the past before we were conceived even.

A good friend of mine who too journeyed from my Black Apostolic past, illuminated the spiritual understanding of the Big Bang Theory. They simply introduced me to the notion that we are “stardust”. All those studies in Gnosticism, Mysticism, Eastern Thought, New Age thinking and other Wisdom traditions began firing off for me.

Long story short, I have landed comfortably with Omnism. Omni in Latin means “all” as in “omnipotent” means “all powerful”, “omniscient” means “all wise”, and omnipresence is literally “everywhere”.

We are All from One, through One, and to One.

In him we live, we move and we have our being.

The ALL from all of my esoteric and Black consciousness experiences.

Pantheism from Eastern beliefs.

Panentheism.

The Universe.

The Most High.

The Creator.

The One.

All of that began to resonate deeper and deeper over the years.

I am also a secular humanist. I am also still Christian. I am a child of god, of the light, of the day. I am from the beginning. I will be there at the end. I am eternal. I am being. I am becoming. I shall become what I shall become. I will be what I will be. I am who I am.

I am breathing (spirit). I am powerful (god). I am one with all things. I am the image and the likeness of god. I am!!!

Arm, leg, leg, arm, head (ALLAH).

Godbody.

Godhead.

Godly.

God.

Greg.

Gregory.

Give.

ALL are a Path to One.

Ancient Christians did not call their path Christianity. They called it “The Way” or “The Path”.

For I am The Way, The Truth, and The Life. No one comes to the Father, but by me.

I and my Father are One!

I am in the Father and the Father is in me.

Both And/Or.

All.

I am an Omnist. Om 🧘🏿‍♂️. Shal(Om).

All.

One.

Whole.

God.

The Universe.

Spirit (Breath or Wind).

God is Peace. Power is Whole.

I am the son of the Star. Jesus is the light. He is the “light-bearer”. I am stardust. I am a spark of the eternal flame. I am forever and ever. The first and the last. The Alpha and the Omega. I am the One.

The Big Bang is the last piece. It is where I marry science and faith, reality and imagination.

For me, fantasy is necessary as is reality.

Reality without imagination is bleak. Fantasy without reality is delusion.

For me, faith, love, purpose, imagination, creativity, expression, discovery, magic, healing, art, fantasy, make believe, joy, innovation, the mind are all the same thing.

It is the hallmark and defining characteristic of what it means to BE as a human. It is what connects us, develops our empathy, gives such exceptional talent and ability to impact our environment.

It is the birthright of humanity. Harmony, connection, co-existence (not uniformity).

I accept and embrace it all.

For we are but the chaos and violent debris of a collapsing star, forever expanding into the abyss and one day we became aware of ourselves and sought to make our short time in this vast universe worth while.

Asé

#duval #jacksonville #florida #art #spirituality #love #humanity #science #christianity #new age #faith #humanism #omnism

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