Raise Beautiful Children! Divorcing Spirituality From Ethics

Chapter 3

Sexuality and Spirituality

"Freedom is the birthright of every individual. Be free and be happy."

The purpose of this chapter is to help parents foster that relationship with their child where fear and guilt are not tools that the parent uses to parent. This means that the child has that trust of their parent where unconditional love can flower. Fear and guilt are not appropriate tools to foster that trust that is so important between parent and child. If a child does not trust their parent to respond appropriately to actions by the child, then such a relationship has not been built. Unfortunately there are devastating cost to children and parents who live in such unpleasant relations.

Most of us understand the impact that passion has on thought. Few appreciate that all thought has some level of energy around them. Hiding these thoughts behind this energy brings pain and suffering at some point. If one has the courage to visit these thoughts in consciousness and release the energy through being conscious, they can avoid the unnecessary pain of experiencing the results of these thoughts in form.

The concept is that all thought creates form at some level. The painful thoughts that we leave buried will take form unless we learn to visit these thoughts and let go the energy around them. Doing this released the pain and avoids the need for these thoughts to take unpleasant form. This is another of those deep spiritual concepts that hopefully this chapter will illustrate.

A Rush to the Hospital

"I have to go to the hospital. Mac just called and told me that Sharon has been rushed to the hospital with chest pains," said my mother.

"Do you want me to go with you?" I said.

"If you don't mind, I would appreciate the support," my mother said.

My sister Sharon had been rushed to the hospital and her husband Mac had just called my mother with the news. I drove and my mother sat in the passenger seat beside me. Obviously worried, I could do or say nothing to console her.

When we reached the hospital Sharon was still in emergency. I stayed in the waiting area and my mother went back into a holding area where my sister and her husband were.

Mac, my sister's husband then came out and left my sister and my mother together. He then told me what started this whole incident.

"Marcus told Sharon that Dawanna was pregnant. That news caused Sharon to react as if the world was about to end and she suddenly developed chest pains," Mac told me.

"Is that all this is about? I know that chest pains are potentially dangerous, however just the news of the pregnancy caused all this," I said.

"Well, you know how Sharon is," Mac then said.

Sharon had just been given news that her seventeen year old son had sexual relations with his girlfriend and that girlfriend, Dawanna was now pregnant. This hospital visit was a reaction to this news by my sister Sharon.

It is now thirteen years later and I am still joking with my sister about her grandson. His name is Jason and my sister adores this young man. This is the same child that seemed to cause a near heart attack and hospital visit by my sister when she learned that his mother was pregnant.

Do you get the picture? My sister really loves her grandson and this pregnancy which resulted in the birth of Jason was cause of a hospital visit by my sister thirteen years ago. Marcus, Jason's father is very close to his son and he never married Dawanna. Marcus is in another relationship now is doing very well. His old girlfriend Dawanna is married and has since given birth to another child.

One must understand that my sister at the time of the pregnancy was a Jehovah Witness. This is a very right wing religious group. Many of you reading this may have had such people ring your doorbell to tell you about their religion. The Witnesses do a door to door ministry that they call field service with an objective of growing their flocks.

By right wing, the Witnesses are a religious group with plenty of dogma and rules in their teachings. My sister being a member of this group would then have to deal with the view of her friends in the religion after the news of this pregnancy reached them.

I cannot honestly tell you what went through my sister's mind when she found out that her teenage son had started his sexual relations and had a child on the way. However, I can speculate:

• Shame ("What will my mother and father think?")
• Shame ("Am I a good parent?")
• Shame ("What will the other Jehovah Witnesses think?")
• Shame and maybe fear ("How will this affect Marcus and Dawanna's life?")
• Shame ("Who can I talk with about this?")

As it turned out, the hospital visit drew enough attention that everyone in the family knew about Marcus's situation almost immediately. Therefore Sharon was not able to keep it a secret for any length of time, nor did she have to tell anyone. The hospital visit news spread very quickly.

If you as reader have been on the planet any length of time, you can understand what is termed religious dogma. These are the religious dos and don'ts. They are also the cause of much pain and suffering. However, they can only cause direct pain to those who accept the dogma. Sharon had simply believed that her son had committed a sin and was probably feeing some guilt and shame from this experience. Since she does admit that it was the cause of the hospital visit, she was probably feeling a great deal of guilt and shame.

This story about my sister and her son has been provided only to point out what damage religious beliefs can do to a person. Imagine if you are a deeply religious person as I know my sister is, then imagine if you believe you have done something wrong in the eyes of God. What is your way out?

Divorcing Religion from Ethics

I happen to believe in a God who love me unconditionally and does not react to my actions. Admittedly, it has taken me years to reach this point and I also have many books that support this belief. What is important is that I want to teach the value of such a belief. God is unwavering in God's love. This love is unconditional. This is your way out from the wrath of an angry God. Such wrath does not exist as far as I am concerned.

Now assuming this is true, we can then assume that God does not react to actions on the human plane. We can then divorce ethics from God. If you understand that the purpose of religion is to just get you started on a path toward God, then you can easily see the value of this. If you can do this you can learn to forgive more easily and quickly. This allows you to also love more deeply and unconditionally.

Separating religion from ethics allows one to live more freely. This means that you know that God will not respond to anything that you do. Do you feel the freedom of this? If God does not respond to your actions, then there should not be any guilt coming from ones religious views. This leaves a person free to deal with their actions within their own mind.

This leaves one to deal only with their own ego when they do something that causes ethical thoughts to come up. Have you ever heard a voice or had a feeling within you that was critical of you. If you have, you know that the ego within is sufficient enough to deal with.

For example I do something wrong. I know that I have God's love. I then have only those in my world to deal with in respect to my wrong action. I have no religious matters to deal with here. We will work with the term forgiveness in a later chapter. Right now, suffice it to say that I only have to forgive myself first. Then I deal with my world. If I can forgive myself then I can more clearly deal with my world outside my own body.

One of the ministers of my church once said that religion is just a starting point. I took this to mean that religion can be considered kindergarten. The objective of having a religion is to fall deeply in love with God. You are naturally inclined to do this because God is what you are at your spiritual core. Religion has the purpose of getting you into a prayer life wherein you will eventually fall deeply in love with God.

From this love you hopefully seek to be a God guided person. A God guided person is therefore guided not because they want to be good. They want to be guided so that they can assume their place in the creative scheme of things. This means that they are guided to a life purpose wherein they become of benefit to the earth by doing and being the person who helps move the planet forward to a planet of peace and abundance that is worldwide. One spiritual text that I often read called A Course in Miracles says that heaven and earth will not continue to operate as separate states. Heaven literally takes over earth.

According to the Course in Miracles this may take a long time, but it is a sure thing. As we fall in love with God and begin to be God directed, we naturally become better persons for the betterment of earth because we realize our primary purpose within this heavenly scheme. God will always love us because the love of God is unconditional. It does not change based upon what we do.

Can you imagine what freedom that allows? Can you imagine a child who trust their earthly parents so deeply can do if they know that this love cannot change. This gives freedom to that child.

My love for you is unconditional.

Please find a way to say this in many ways to your children. Then demonstrate this early in their childhood as often as you can. For example, if the child does something that is not pleasing to you, tell them in some way of your displeasure. Then tell them that it is past and that you still love them. You will soon find that punishments will become unnecessary. The children will consider you in what they do because they love you. There is a natural inner response to this kind of love.

IF your children are older, I suggest that you still begin to act this way toward them. This is true love. True love is such because it does not wane. It is unchanging. It is unconditional.

Please consider practicing unconditional love toward your children and grow this type of love. It heals, strengthens and promotes the building of character. Unconditional love is the way God loves. It is powerful and healthy for you and your children without measure.

The belief in the power of unconditional love is something you must grow a faith in. There is no dogma here. There is no cost here.

In college, I started smoking marijuana and was considering my earthly father's thoughts about this action. Admittedly I smoked marijuana in college and justified it by the fact that my father had drank alcohol. I simply justified my intoxicant as a drug that I believed and still believe is not habit forming. I believe that marijuana is not addictive. Alcohol is terribly addictive.

I was about twenty years of age at the time and was five hundred miles from home at college in Omaha Nebraska. As I think about many of my earlier decisions, I know that I considered my earthly father's ideas as I knew that his was a standard that I wanted to live up to. This meant that it was not my desire to please him, but my desire to just be in concert with what he would do. Liken it to the religious people who use the term "What would Jesus do?"

I no longer smoke marijuana and do not promote the use of intoxicants of any form. My reason for discontinuing the use of marijuana was because my daughter once caught me smoking it. I never smoked again for that reason because I wanted to be a better example for her. It was not my place to seek to hide my drug use. I just stopped using it.

All of us make mistakes. Yet punishment for mistakes is unnecessary unless the person is one of poor character. If that is really true, the punishment does nothing anyway. The punishment of felons who have multiple offenses does not stop them for the multiple crimes. At most is makes them work harder to just avoid getting caught. There is no improvement here.

She Kissed a Boy

We sat on the bed to discuss the matter. My daughter Shae had been caught kissing a boy in an empty room after school. My wife at this time was furious. She was actually tearing as we talked about the matter.

"Calm down dear, all she did was kiss a boy," was my statement.

"You are on punishment for the next three months. No television, no shopping, no visiting friends, nothing for three months," said Van.

"Shae, go to your room for a moment to let your mother and I discuss this," I then said.

The school had called and my wife was told that Shae had been caught in a deserted classroom after school kissing a boy. Shae was twelve at the time and was in middle school. Again, I cannot tell you everything that went through my wife's mind. However, I did know her well enough to make a few educated guesses:

• Shame ("The school must think that we are bad parents.")
• Shame ("Shae is only twelve years of age.")
• Shame ("How will I face the parents of that young man as I know them.")
• Shame and fear ("I hope she hasn't gone any further in her sex life.")
• Shame ("I will be seeing these parents each day as I drop Shae off at school.")

I really do not believe my wife Van had any religious dogmatic feelings of my daughter having sinned, however the anger she exhibited suggest a great deal of shame and fear. We had been members of a religious science community for some years and that really did not seem to matter. The fear and shame were still there. Fortunately I said little to her after my daughter left the room because I had never seen her so angry before. I have never seen this in her since.

It is necessary that I tie this story to a concept mentioned earlier. We are always looking in mirrors. My wife was seeing herself as a younger child. She was afraid that her child would grow up to be like she has been in her earlier years. This is her own guilt and past that she was afraid of. I am not being critical of her. This is simply my belief. There is no absolute right or wrong that I can definitively pronounce as true. This is something I believe from the childhood she told me that she experienced. To keep the peace I decided to stay out of the matter and not even attempt to protect my daughter. There was enough good in this household that peace would prevail and win.

These two stories suggest that sex has some consequences that must be dealt with. Yet, we must start with what I believe about the spiritual matter. What does God think about sex outside the marriage contract? Here I am speaking specifically about sex before marriage.

I really believe that we must now begin to delineate the difference between spirituality and religion.

I did take the time to look at various definitions in the dictionary, however let's make this very simple. A religion is a set of beliefs that make up a system of thought. A religion is a belief system that makes some assumptions about God.

Spirituality on the other hand is simply a belief that there is such a thing as God. Spirituality makes no assumptions about what this God likes or dislikes.

The difference that I must add for the purpose of this writing is that religious persons tend to fall in love with their doctrines and put emphasis on the doctrines. Spiritual persons allow themselves to fall in love with God and leave it there. A spiritual person seeks to have integrity because they believe that integrity is important, however they do not seek to tie their integrity to any religious doctrine. This is because the spiritual person without religion must somehow stand away from doctrines that create such things as dogma and requirements.

Please understand what dogma is. It is simply the requirements of a religion. They tell you what is right and what is not right. Have you ever been around an opinionated person? Well these persons have dogma which may not be related to a religion. Please also see the difference between falling in love with do's and don'ts as opposed to falling in love with God. These requirements make it hard to really enjoy life.

As stated at the beginning of this chapter, my purpose in writing this chapter is to attempt to free the parent from seeking to use guilt and fear as tools to direct the relationship with the child. In order to do that I want to start by helping the parent divorce guilt and fear from their relationship with God. Please start by just considering that God has no ability to either be pleased or be made unhappy. God is an ever flowing joyous presence that is that way always. There is nothing you can do to make God happy or sad.

Therefore, please separate religion from ethics for a moment. It is only in doing this can we begin to see the benefit of it. You want to be a good person simply because this is what you desire to be. You love and appreciate that there is a presence called God, yet since this God does not either punish or reward goodness you love God only because God is God. You do not do things to make God happy because God will always love you and be happy because this is the nature of God.

With respect to punishment, we must spend some time with spiritual laws in order to understand how the universe governs itself. There are laws of the universe that keep the universe in order and these laws do seem to punish a person if that person consistently violates these laws. Understand that the laws are there to keep the universe in order. They are not laws of punishment. They are laws of mind.

For example, suppose we bring up that opinionated person again. Most of us understand that opinioned persons are highly judgmental. Being judgmental they believe that they know what is right and wrong. One of the universal laws requires that a person not judge. Thus a judgmental person is consistently breaking the spiritual law that ask that one not judge. There will be physical cost of consistently breaking spiritual or mental laws. Usually the costs start with the person being somewhat angered. Then the cost of breaking these laws does damage to the physical body of the judgmental person. This is usually in the form of an illness.

Most of know that stress does serious damage to a body. This stress is a result of the breaking of spiritual laws. Believe this or not. Make the choice to let persons be as they are as opposed to being too opinionated. You can then free yourself of unnecessary pain.

Near the end of the chapter on practice, you will notice what seems to be a minor comment about a gay individual. Please take note of this. Again there is a point about judgment and freedom that is of import. Sexuality and freedom are related. You cannot be free if your mind has chains on it.

You may also be aware of the large number of gay individuals who are hiding in the "closet" to keep their secrets while the pain of these secrets is burning their lives in ways many are aware of and many are openly working to correct. Passionate secrets burn and bring pain.

Now how does one release buried thoughts that are festering within their minds? This chapter has illustrated two examples of guilt feelings that persons allowed to bring unnecessary pain. Simply learning about a pregnancy brought forth unnecessary pain in one instance. In the other the kissing of a boy by my daughter brought forth the other.

In each case the person was horrified by some buried thoughts about what is right and what is wrong. In an earlier chapter the case of my nephew committing suicide is a most painful circumstance. A later chapter will bring a little of this truth forward. The important thing is that these buried thoughts come forth at times and this pain is usually unnecessary. I am not suggesting that everyone go to an analyst to find their buried demons. Yet, this is what I am suggesting. Most of us have these buried demons and they are just that: They are demons. They have tremendous ability to bring pain.

Somehow you must find them and release the erroneous thoughts or at least take away some of the energy they have around the thoughts they conceal. A buried erroneous thought is like a demon. It really does not have a life of its own. Yet it can have power unless you find it and just become aware of it. Just your awareness releases some of its power.

The first step is gaining some idea that this thought does exist. Secondly to visit the thought and release its energy is the answer. There was a book I once read that had a chapter in it that was entitled "Naming the Demons." This was the idea. If you name it, you have at least found and become aware of it. That way it cannot come to fruition and totally surprise you with its power. Each time you become aware of these thoughts you take some energy away from the idea. In this way you are releasing the power that demon has.

Maybe you have a problem with the idea that you have a demon within you. That is OK. Call it an erroneous thought. It really doesn't matter what you call it. Some of the examples given in this writing are minor things. Some of these thoughts can become dangerous.

The "rush to the hospital" is a safe example to use. Notice the guilt ideas that were mentioned after the incident. These were just thoughts. If my sister had been aware of the guilt ideas "the demons," she need not have given them the power to send her to the hospital with chest pains. I say that this is a safe example as at this point there was no negative consequence. The chest pains subsided and she was able to leave the hospital. However, heart attacks and unnecessary illnesses can result from such demons.

These erroneous thoughts are festering within each of us. Bring them to awareness by naming them and you take away their power. I use the area of religion to bring up a most common example. Many are afraid of what God will do or they harbor guilt just because of the dogma of some religious teachings. In either case they are harboring ideas that have tremendous power. This is the reason why some do visit psychologist on occasion. This is one way to find the erroneous idea. Yet these visits to the doctor come about for the same reason. I am saying that all illness including such simple things as colds and the extreme as cancer are the result of these demons. Please do not belittle these statements. Yours and the health of your children hang in the balance.

All thoughts have energy signatures around them. Bringing such thoughts to awareness is the result of meditation techniques or many spiritual practices that do the same. For example if you meditate you are slowing the process time between a thought and your action. A meditator learns to "see" their beliefs around many areas of their lives. In this seeing, you learn about this demon and you release it. This is really very simple, but profound. You have seen the thought and can then consider the consequences.

Do you want to keep this or release it? You must see it first. This is your chance to spiritually grow and emerge with a more powerful mental stance. Yet you can ignore it until it takes a form for you to deal with it. Deal with in consciousness and avoid the necessity for this demon to take form. This is the answer. Keep it from taking form and you have grown. If you cannot understand this, you have no concept of how powerful your thoughts are. Therefore simply await the formation of your demon in form and deal with it then.

Most must await the formation to believe this. I am not criticizing anyone. This is how most of the world operates in my humble opinion. Why go to church and learn about spiritual ideas unless you learn to appreciate the power of thoughts and emotions? I have grown though the same process of learning these truths too late. This writing is simply assisting you in avoiding some pain. Hopefully you get it. Maybe you don't. You have choices to make here. Make them.

Another example is the concept of low self esteem. Suppose you experience such a thing. Now you have at least named it. It is called low self esteem. Feel it. When you need to make a decision to do something, you hesitate because you do not feel that your decision will help. You make the decision anyway and proceed. You do not make decisions from low self esteem; you make decisions in spite of them. That way you avoid procrastination and other self defeating ideas. That way you decide that "I am strong." Then make a decision from strength. Feel each of these thoughts and make your decision from strength. Then you have a better chance of growing confidence from the outcome.

You have given a concept within you some thought. You have decided from strength. From this strength you continue your growth. You decide to make all decisions from strength. You can grow from here.

In the Bible in the 5th book of Matthew Jesus makes the statement "the meek shall inherit the earth." What are the meek? These are the people who have this outrageous concept that God is with them. They operate from what is often termed meekness. Yet this is the type of meekness you want. If you believe you have this loving and powerful companion called God and you have the outrageous idea that this power is for you, then you can calmly proceed in your endeavors. You operate from an idea that keeps you calm and collected. Sometimes this is called humility. Yet it is a strong humility. It is a gracious humility.

It is from here you make all your decisions. Some will work out to your benefit. Some will not. You are free to make good decisions. Again, freedom is the birthright of every soul. Be free and be happy.