  Spiritual
This week: Your Journey Is Unique Edited by: NaNoKit  
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Every spiritual journey is unique. It has to be.
This week's Spiritual Newsletter, then, is all about following your own path.
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There are two churches in my village. One Catholic, one Protestant. I confess that the only time I visit the Catholic church is when they hold their jumble sale – loads of books for £0.10 – and the only time I visit the Protestant church is when it's used as a place to vote during elections. Normally, anyway. Today, for some strange reason, I felt like going in and just sitting there for a while.
I chose the closest one to my home, which is the Catholic church. There was a group of people holding a tea and cake morning, and I asked if I could go in for a few minutes. They said that that was fine and kept offering me a cup of tea. Very kind of them, but I declined.
I love the cool, peaceful atmosphere of a church. It may not be the kind of peace I feel when I wander around in nature, but it's got a quality of its own. You can simply sit there and be, and center yourself.
I knew, though, that if I accepted that cup of tea, religious discussions were likely to happen and that's where I have a problem – I am not a Catholic, nor a Protestant. My beliefs are a tangled mishmash that I don't think fit in anywhere.
Readers of this newsletter may know that I used to struggle with that. If you have a community of people who share your faith, it can help you learn, and grow. It offers support. I saw that with my grandmother, who was a member of the Salvation Army. Her faith community was a second family to her. Even after she could no longer attend due to bad health – which was years after they'd pick her up by car when she struggled to walk – her friends would visit her. First at home, later in the care home. Such care and support has value.
I don't think I'll ever find that, but nowadays I think that that's okay. Each person's spiritual journey is unique. It's your own. It's got to be. Only you know how you feel about the big questions in life. Only you can decide what chimes with your morals and values, and what doesn't. There is no point joining a religious community if the beliefs that community stand for are not in accord with your own. That would be disrespectful on my part, and not helpful for either myself or anyone else involved.
Most of all, your relationship with God/Allah/the higher power or powers you have connected with is uniquely your own. Just like your relationship with the people in your life is a different one to anyone else's, so it is with this one. It is something distinctly personal that nobody else could or should come between.
No spiritual journey is easy. It's one that continues throughout a person's life. There can be detours, there can be breaks, there can be parts where you feel completely lost and wish you had a map to guide you. You can ask for advice from other travelers, but only you can make the decisions of how you're headed towards that final destination.
Don't let anyone tell you differently. Faith should always be free from pressure, and especially free from force. As long as you don't cause harm, there is no wrong path. Follow your heart, reflect, question, reflect more, and it will come to you. Or so I hope, as I'm still occasionally hoping for that map, or a GPS system, but I think I'm getting there.
In the meanwhile, I am grateful to those who allow a wandering soul into their place of worship for a while, and even offer a cup of tea. That is a touch of kindness that I will always appreciate.
NaNoKit
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Spiritual: September 07, 2016 Issue [#7846]
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