Answer to Guess the Religion: Fasting

Well, if you guessed it was Christianity or Judaism, you were right because they do indeed have share these beliefs. But this information was taken from the Muslim World League Canadian Office website.

More to come...

Guess the Faith: Fasting

Before you read this, please read the entry below so you know what I am up to here.
Ok, started my research on fasting. Here were some really beautiful points that I read:

--Fasting is the one thing that we can do that is for God alone. And He recognizes that.

Fasting helps the faithful to:

--learn sincere Love because the person fasting does it out of a deep love for God. And the man who loves God truly is a man who really knows what love is.

--develop hope and an optomistc outlook on life because the purpose of fasting is to please God and to seek His grace in one's life

--show the genuine virtue of complete devotion to God because the fast is for God alone.

--develop true inner strength and a sound conscience because the person fasts in private and does not have anyone making him/her stay on the fast. It is completely up to that individual.

--strengthen their patience and selflessness because the fasting person endures the pains of deprivation patiently

--develop a transparent soul, clear mind and light body. The results of fasting can be truly life-changing!

Now tell me what faith believes that the above are true.

Beginning a Journey

So, I have been wanting to really begin a journey to delve into faith. Mainly from a religious aspect because I feel called to do this and know that I will gain the added benefit of increased faith through my exploration. But also from a somewhat academic perspective at times, because I want to try to take on a skeptics attitude and figure out why it is that I believe in God outside of my own personal encounters (which I believe true skeptics would try to explain away anyway). I also, as I have mentioned before, want to explore the common ground of various religions in hope to bring a more unified view of the faithful in our world. (And I mean faithful Jews, Muslims, Christians etc. Not just one faith) So, my journey will be twofold and may jump back and forth between my two objectives.

In case there are others out there who share my curiosity, I have decided to record my journey. I have no specific plan right now, but am going to follow where my path leads me.

My biggest request is that if I am coming from the perspective of a faith that you do not share, that you open your heart and mind and do not let fear or pride stand in your way of hearing the message.

So, I am just jumping in. The past couple of days, the subject of fasting kept popping up to me. I was reading a book about the people of Medjugorje who have visions of Mary and receive messages from her. Several of the messages are on the importance of prayer and fasting. Then I was reading a random verse in the bible and it was also on fasting. So, I felt that I should do a fast. Though I had private intentions to focus on during the fast, I also began to think about the fact that many religions really do believe in fasting, so there must be something to this. So, the first stop on my journey is to delve into the importance of fasting in various religions.

More to come...

The Big Question

As I mentioned, being a Christian married to a Jew and having Jewish kids opens one up to a number of comments and questions. But the one big question that I am asked most often is this: "How can you read John 14:6 and not understand that your husband and children must accept Jesus as their savior in order to go to Heaven?" (or some semblance of the same question) For those of you who do not know what the verse says, let me tell you. Jesus is telling his disciples that he is about to leave them to go back to his father, but he is going to be making a place for them. He doesn't go into details about when or where or any of that, so they are distraught and ask him how they will be able to find him. He answers, "I am the way the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Many Christians, if not most, have taken this to mean that if you do not accept Jesus as the Son of God, you will go to Hell. When really, he doesn't say that. He never once says that he will be sending people to Hell who do not accept him as their Lord and Savior. It is a fact that during this time, there were lots of other rabbis (remember that Jesus was a rabbi) out there professing to know what God wanted. Most of these guys were pretty crooked and none of them had it right. In my opinion, Jesus is saying, "Listen guys, you want to know how to get where I am going? Then follow what I am teaching you. Not these other dudes. I am the one who knows the way, I am the one who is telling the truth and I am the one who is going to get you eternal life. The only way to get there is to follow what I have taught you." I am NOT saying that Jesus does not say he is God's son, I am saying that Jesus is not threatening to send people who don't believe that to Hell or even to keep them from Heaven. In fact there is only one passage I know of where Jesus is asked directly how to get to Heaven: Luke 10:25-28. In it a man specifically asks Jesus, "Teacher, what do I need to do to get eternal life?" Does Jesus say, "You must accept me as the Son of God?" No! He says, "What is written in God's law? How do you interpret it? (please note that even Jesus mentions scripture as being "interpreted")" The man answers, "Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself." Jesus tells the man, "You have answered correctly. Do this and you will live." I just do not understand why THAT is not the passage that Christians have held onto. The bottom line is LOVE! That is what it is all about. Love God and Love everyone else NO MATTER WHAT! That is how Jesus Himself said we can get eternal life. So why do Christians today insist that it is only by accepting Jesus as the Son of God that we can gain eternal life? My friend Jessica pointed out to me that in The Message's intro to Hebrews there is an explanation of the letter: "More often than not we become impatiently self-important along the way and decide to improve matters with our two cents' worth. We add on, we supplement, we embellish. But instead of improving on the purity and simplicity of Jesus, we dilute the purity, clutter the simplicity. We become fussily religious. We get in the way." Is it possible that some where very, very early on, the true, simple and basic message of Jesus --to love God and love one another--got embellished? Food for thought.

In the Beginning...

Why am I here? And what the heck does that title mean? Well, let me explain. Throughout my life, I have encountered a number of people who question the existence of God. In so many cases, I have found that these people were raised in a particular faith and told that they must hold a certain set of absolute beliefs or live their lives in one particular way. If they did not fit into this particular "box", they were not a true Christian, Jew whatever. Which also seems to imply, "If you do not live inside this set of beliefs, God does not love you and/or you are going to Hell." Pretty alienating! One of my favorite quotes to illustrate this is from the book, "Sweet Dates in Basra" by Jessica Jiji. Where a young Jewish boy recalls being told something to the effect of "Jesus loves all of us unconditionally. Even you, Jew. But if you don't believe he is the Son of God, he will send you to Hell." Now, how is that unconditional? I loved that because that is virtually what I hear all the time. Being a Christian who is married to a Jew, I get all kinds of comments. But I also want to point out that I am not knocking religion. I do think that religion is important. The idea of God is so huge that it can be difficult to get a handle on unless one is given a framework. Religion to me is that framework that guides us in how we might worship God, think of God, include God within our lives, that kind of thing. The problems arise when people begin to get too caught up in that framework and lose sight of the Big Picture. The Big Picture is that we are God's children and He LOVES us. Like the way you love your kids x 100. We are God's children and He made us all--He made us individuals. He made us so that the way you see God and include God in your life may be completely different from the way I do. And that is ok. He still loves you. He still loves me. He is Love--Love Unconditional.