What I Know

 Patricia

Jesus is supposed to have said, “Where I am, there you may be also” - as if heaven were a place.  Maybe he should have said: “What I am, you may be also.” I have just never been able to take certain religious and spiritual ideas literally. I am not against whatever might work to get people to love and focus their lives on God; that is fine and has its own grace.  I took on the contemplative mentality when I was young, and practicing Buddhism surely affected me.  So now, when I hear things about praying to Jesus or Jesus floating around somewhere above, it is like listening to a child's describe its religion. 

There is a lot that goes by the name of Christian and Catholic, things that I hear in the Church, that I can't relate to at all and never have been able to.  If you ask why I have stay in it, it is because I related to it on a different level. The Eucharist is the center of it for me, and for many others. I don't relate to God and faith on a literal, childish level, a naive level. Though it was sometimes uncomfortable, I had to be honest with myself, I couldn't be otherwise. The desire to know God moved me to be honest - that desire, and later, when I found what Bernadette had to say and what she wrote. And also, watching how she lived her life.

If you want to find True Inner Silence, start with "scathing honesty”, especially in your relationship with God.  If nothing else, it will move you away from this troubled world.