Should You Design Your Own Religion?

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Sheikha Fariha al-Jerrahi
Sufi, Order of the Jerrahi Worldwide

God alone exists. Our life is His life. He embraces us in love and reveals Himself to us through messengers and chosen people of Truth, calling us to return. These divine effusions of love become the great religions. We stand in awe before these divine edifices, amazed by the majesty of knowledge and tenderness of love they embody and by their power to guide billions of souls on their return to the Source. What more could we realize by taking apart these awesome revelations and mixing them together to make a new form? It is like taking apart the human body to make a better body, when it's already the perfect vehicle with which to reach the goal of conscious immersion in God.

Frederica Mathewes-Green
Author and khouria (spiritual mother of the parish),
Holy Cross Antiochian Orthodox Mission
Linthicum, Maryland

One of the best pieces of spiritual advice I ever received came early, while I was still in college. It was that I should give up the project of assembling my own faith out of the greatest hits of the ages. I encountered this idea while reading Ramakrishna, the 19th-century Hindu mystic. He taught that it was important to respect the integrity of each great path, and said that, for example, when he wanted to explore Christianity he would take down his images of the Great Mother and substitute images of Jesus and Mary.

We are so indoctrinated by our culture that we can't trust our standards of evaluation. We can only gain wisdom that transcends time by exiting our time and entering upon an ancient path -- and accepting it on its own terms. We can only learn by submitting to something bigger than we are. The faith I was building out of my prejudices and preconceptions could never be bigger than I was. I was constructing a safe, tidy, unsurprising God who could never transform me, but would only confirm my residence in that familiar bog I called home. I had to have more than that.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print