Tonight I was listening to "Rich" by Neal and Leandra. I used to think of it as a song about romantic love, but tonight I realized it could be a religious song. It says,
"Let the world go on believing
It can dry up all my dreams
Your love is the water
And I've waded into the holiest of streams"
It reminds me of "Morning Song," which I quoted in last night's entry. "Morning Song" says "I will go with beauty round me."
To me, both seem to be about finding an inner peace, regardless of what is going on around you.
It also reminded me of a blog post I read recently regarding how people who don't believe in God as a separate, sentient entity participate in Quaker worship. Using the concept "God is love" the author substituted the word "love" for "God" in a quote from George Fox (the founder of Quakerism), "that is it which must guide everyone's mind up to love, and to wait upon love to receive the spirit from love, and the spirit leads to wait upon love in silence, and to receive from love." The blog author goes on to say, "there is no object towward which our worship is directed, toward which we proffer reverence. We're simply waiting to feel the motions of love directing our lives. Thus do we avoid the error of attempting to objectify, to reify God."
That blog post, and the two songs, explain what religion is to me. Religion is a set of practices which help us to open our heart to love. And God is what we experience when we do open our heart to love.
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