On a recent NPR Morning Edition (April 9, 2024), two stories caught my ear as examples of what the “new thought” teaching/philosophy/religion of which I am a member and minister–The Centers for Spiritual Living–has to offer:
- No person, place, or gender identity is outside of God. The Vatican’s report this week, tragically entitled “Human Dignity,” declares a separation of trans people from God. For details, listen to NPR’s take on Vatican’s “Infinite Dignity”Report; or read Vatican calls gender fluidity and surrogacy threats to human dignity. This is all you need to know, though: we at the Centers for Spiritual Living (Center for Spiritual Awareness in West Sacramento) know that it is impossible to be outside of or separate from God. Trans people are part of God simply because they exist. Our report on human dignity (written on our hearts and minds) knows this truth that there is no place where God/Spirit/Infinite mind/Consciousness is not. The unlimited power of the one is living out its perfect life as everyone and everything. Therefore, because we are all assigned a sex at birth and some of us realize that our gender is not the same as that physical sex assignment, the realization of that truth is part of the ever-evolving, ever-growing love and dignity of Spirit in us. I, therefore, trust that just as the Vatican once placed same-sex marriages outside of God, it will, in time, realize what we realize now, that we are never outside of God (or if it never recognizes that, perhaps it ceases to have human legitimacy). It’s simply not possible. But in the meantime, there is a worldwide teaching/religion/philosophy that welcomes all and that is the Centers for Spiritual Living.
- Let’s revive an ancient ritual of sibling bonding. While the Pope was placing Trans people outside of human dignity, NPR reported on a pair of friends and scholars who found themselves in Syria as the subjects of a forgotten ritual called Adelphopoiesis whereby two friends are bound together as siblings for life. NPR: An Ancient Christian Practice Turns Friends Into Family. That just sounds so cool to me! For some reason, I especially love that, in their case, they didn’t even choose it, this Orthodox Syrian priest that they were visiting just saw that they were sisters and didn’t know it and performed the ritual and it worked. I don’t have a blood sister (that I know about) but I AM blessed with two wonderful loving, interesting, fun brothers. I think I’d be terrified of “choosing” the “right” sister to go through this ritual with. I have SO many beautiful chosen sisters, how would I decide. I love that in this story the universe chose for them. In a way that’s happened for me in a few of my spiritual support groups where circumstances just put me together with women, often very different from me, and I 100% consider them spiritual family. Many people I know are either estranged from their blood siblings, or simply don’t have any (alive) any more. I’d love to create a “new thought” version of this ancient sibling-binding ritual where we see what happens if we take a friendship to a higher level. I bet it would be amazing.
