Bonus post this week, inspired by a response I received to my post yesterday.

A friend from high school, a nice fellow with whom I stay in touch through Facebook, reached out to me last night, offline, to very respectfully and compassionately suggest the answer to my searching is to find God through the Bible.

This made me take pause and realize how I must, at least may, come across to readers.  Feedback is invaluable, and I thank this friend for his note.  Because I focus my posts on my “search for enlightenment,” I may come across as a lost soul, a stray lamb.  Unhappy and incomplete.  That’s not the case.

Please know…

I am happy and complete.  I have a very good life.  A beautiful mother who loves me unconditionally.  A loving husband with whom I am very happily married.  A dream son with whom I share unconditional love.  A nephew who feels like the brother I never had.  A great group of friends to lean on and support.  A solid, even stylish, roof over my head.  Excellent health.  A passion.  A rock solid internal moral compass.  I could really go on forever.  And I thank God every day for my blessings.

If I were to die tomorrow, and I don’t fear death, I would die complete, fulfilled, content.

I believe each of us is entitled to our beliefs, religious beliefs included, as long as we don’t bring harm to ourselves or others.  I believe much of the strife in this world, now and since the beginning of time, is a result of people either trying to force their beliefs on others, or people being deprived of their right to their beliefs.  Again, the underlying requirement is that those beliefs don’t bring harm.

I have deliberately avoided bringing religion – or politics – into my blog posts, for the reasons above.  I knew I was going out on a limb yesterday by sharing my experience.  I understand that reincarnation, which, by the way, I was not espousing (even said so), isn’t in line with certain religious beliefs.

If you’re curious – and I am not espousing Christianity here, but just FYI – I was Baptized in the Presbyterian Church as a child, then chose to convert to Catholicism as an adult.  I completed the 9-month RCIA program at the Church and was fully initiated into the Church.  After that, I sponsored another woman to become Catholic though the process.  I believe in God, but not some third-party God (envision old, bearded man in the sky) who sits in judgment of us, but the God within each of us.  The Light of God within each of us.

I know many Christians who regularly attend Church, check the box, then go along with their daily lives, but are not Spiritual in the least.  That’s their choice, and I respect that.

But as a thinking person with an open mind, I like to explore new things, new experiences, even explore other religions and avenues of Spirituality.  I just want to know more (and it’s fun).  But that doesn’t mean I am incomplete or unhappy.  Quite the contrary is true.