Spirituality complex

         Spirituality complex is a terminology that I am using to challenge persons who might say that there own way of doing religion is the only one that matters. I am wanting a concept that embraces everyone and everything in a way that invites persons to a place that they can want to be with others rather than apart from them. I considered spirituality when I was hurt by persons who said that my depression was an indicator that I could not be a "Christian", after all Christians are supposed to be happy. I can recall too often the language that said once you were saved that was all that mattered. This was a turn off to me. Spirituality that I wanted for myself had no back bone. It was a matter of manipulation and trying to convince myself and others that they desperately needed to have what I knew to get to heaven. After all I did not want to be the only one there. I was also reacting to a language that had me wondering about the difference between making a mistake and sinning, guilt and shame, being self centered and other centered. I am more concerned about dynamic which means I am inviting others into the conversation and allowing for the fact that God is someone worth knowing. This became a much more "complex" layered task as I watched the word religion move out of what it meant to be a Christian with so many denominations and cult influence, to determining to sort out what it means to be a Christian in a pluralistically religious world. As a new Convert to the faith I saw that some people believed and others didn't. The longer I have lived I have needed to decide that others can teach me about God as I learn about their religion and what we hold in common. This invites the fact they want to know me and the God I worship, so that we can become all that "God" means for us to be.
         I moved this over time from world views into the arenas of practice that involved me. I am just recently in a job where I work with persons that intellectually disabled. Before I set foot into the new job, I decided that it was from them and the environment that I would enter that I would learn more about God, what it meant to be human, and in connection with others that wanted the best experience for these persons. My experience up to this time taught me that it was not right to impose my perceptions of God on persons who did not have capacity to think of God as I did. Thus I found myself looking up what it meant for there to be a "retarded spirituality". I was merely looking for how to minister spiritually to this population and the word of understanding came to me. It was a world view that said we needed to slow down and cast of pretense. Instead of thinking about how much we needed, it was a call to consider a simpler time when we did not need as much. My spirituality Complex will not end as long as I seek out to reach out to love others that would not otherwise not know God. And in the quest to get into the spiritual worlds of others, I learn more and more that it is only by the grace and mercy of God that I will get into the God space called heaven. And hopefully I will take many with me who would not have come otherwise.