What is religion? If 5 different people where to sit down at an interview, and the interviewer asked them – “what does religion mean to you?” – everyone’s answer would be different.

The conservative Christian might explain it as a belief of God, our savior, the all-mighty God who created heaven and earth and everything in between. When elaborating, a Christian may mention the Holy Bible, church, communion, heaven, hell, sin…
The Muslim might explain religion to be a way to God as well, a practice, a habitual day-by-day process of praying and thanking and worshipping Allah.
The atheist may describe religion as a pointless set of rules governed by men so many years ago, they might believe there’s nothing after this.
The Jewish person would describe his idea of religion differently.
The Mormon differently.
The Jehovah’s Witness differently.

Then there’s the word spiritual, which – to me – encompasses an entirely different spectrum of people. The ones who are constantly learning how to love and nourish themselves and the world, create positive energy for themselves and everything around them. The ones who train their bodies, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. The spiritual people are focused on how to better themselves in a way that will better the world. The spiritual people are focused on becoming a part of something that creates beauty within the universe. They’re honing in on their skills and abilities, they’re loving themselves so they can give even more love back to others – so they can give love back to nature and humans and animals and oxygen and the entire universe.

I don’t mean to say that being spiritual means there is no god. Being spiritual means that God is more than one being. God is every being, God is all being, God is being.

I am God.
So is the cricket chirping outside my window & the cat sitting next to me.
So is the ocean, the rain forests, the lonely homeless man, the young boy with cerebral palsy.
Our energy – our positive energy – is God. All the positive energy in the world, all the positivity that is the voice of you and I and the birds and the flowers – the beauty that we emit is God.

Combine all the beauty and passion and good in the world and the product is a force so huge we can’t even imagine. That force is God, and that force has the power to heal. The force of God is so much positive energy and radiating love that it answers our prayers and saves us and loves us and protects us.

If I were to tell a conservative Christian this, they might offer to pray to their Jesus for me. Maybe an atheist would scoff at me. A Muslim, a Morman, a Jew…they might disagree.

And that’s completely ok.

But for people still searching for themselves and their God – or people open to any suggestion – they might entertain the thought.

I’m not an atheist. But I’m also not a Christian. I’m a spiritualist. I believe God exists but I don’t believe it’s the God that “religion” has described him to be. I believe God is all the beautiful energy of the universe, and no one should be afraid to die, because when it’s our time, we’re only going to fade into infinite positive energy and beauty.

JMS