A spiritual update?

It's been over a month that I've written and the world stage has been given over to the theatre of war and the audience of hate. Oh how I'd love to see peace reign on this beautiful blue planet! Why can't we all just get along? The religions of the world all profess that their sacred writings talk of goodness, love and the betterment of mankind and they will KILL to make their point. Kind of pointless I say, but hey that's my opinion right? In fact there are two subjects on which people will rarely hear me talk, that of politics and religion. However, at this moment, on this beautiful clear Tuesday morning allow me to go out on a limb and say just this. I've all but given up on organized religion. I come from a Roman Catholic background and attended catholic church with my parents when I was younger. My mother is very religious, however, she never imposed it on me and chose to share her beliefs by example. She didn't hang over me like some stern English schoolmaster beating religion into me until it hurt, no she instead chose to live a good, honest, caring life. What she bequeaths to me was not how to read/interpret devine scriptures and blindly follow some fellow in white garments standing at a pulpit. No, she gave me the tools to discover my own spirituality, to look deep inside myself for a spark, for a toe-hold of strength. You see for too many years I observed fellow parishioners go to church on Sunday morning in their fancy clean cars, wearing their uncomfortable Sunday best, both in apparel and behaviour. I remember wondering if the almighty treated people differently if they had fancy cars or if he would punish those wearing faded jeans? To this day, that image, those thoughts and the irony are not lost to me. My opinion on organized religion has been honed by years of trying to find my own spirituality and delving into the teaching from many different established world religions. As the years went by and I grew more frustrated I eventually realized that my spiritual journey and search was my own and the end result, the final outcome would be my own as well. To this day my spiritual quest continues, sometimes at full strength and sometimes at half-throttle, yet I'm still yearning to find some spiritual meaning to my life, some way to reconcile my love of science and the hardware of living to that of consciousness and the software of living. Some might say that going solo on a spiritual search without fellow followers of a specific order might lead one to be a half-believer and to have a false belief system. Yet I wonder, what is belief? I can't possibly go into such a deep philosophical treatise in a small blog entry, however I'm left to wonder if I really need to be in a room full of people chanting or reciting phrases to truly express my spirituality? Can I not 'feel' my spirituality in the beauty of the morning dew as it reflects sunlight off the grass or ponder the

In fact as religious as my mother was, for many years while we lived just North of Montreal, we rarely went to church. My mother now lives on the island and attends church regularly as it's very close to her home. Back then my environment was much more condusive to spiritual quests as I lived across the street from a river, source of inpiration and wonder during my youth. I would love to watch the changing of the seasons and how the river would change wardrobe to follow suit. It was a slower pace of life then too as technology didn't rule my life as it has done so lately. Don't get me wrong, technology isn't the root of all evil, far from it from my standpoint, however, I have found myself drifting away from my own humanity because of my enthusiasm and love for all things 'tech'. At the same time, my technological hobby has become part of my spiritual quest. Many people who strive to find some spiritual outlet or some devine truth do so outside of themselves. Over the years I've come to look for my spirituality and the greater one through my own pursuit of knowledge. Be it from an academic pursuit or simply finding out how something works, I see my own spirituality experienced through my learning and the growth of my knowledge. This isn't easy to put into words as it is mostly a 'feeling' and not a real tangible truth. The creator, whomever he or she be gave me the potential, the ability to learn and the gift of creativity. To really experience my own spirituality, I find I owe it to myself and to these gifts that I keep a certain level of growth in my knowledge and the use of my creativity. This may all seem like rubbish to some of you and that's OK. Again, this spiritual experience is my own and as such I'm the one who must feel comfortable with the process. I just thougth I'd share a part of me that people rarely see.