What Does Your Spirituality Mean To You? An Interconnected Spirit Perspective
Introduction by Cole Goodwin
Welcome to The Spiritual Roundtable, an interfaith roundtable featuring a diverse range of spiritual belief systems in the Gorge Community.
Each week, spiritual leaders and learners will share their take on some of humanity's biggest questions, starting with: What does your spirituality mean to you? And ramping up into discussions about the nature of existence, the soul, the divine, and of course…a question as old as time itself: why are we here?
Roundtable writings will be published each Saturday and Sunday of the month. So look forward to new installments every Saturday and Sunday morning!
Take a deep breath… Meditate for a moment…And when you’re ready…keep reading to explore the diverse faiths, belief systems, and philosophies that exist in our communities.
This Month's Question: What does your spirituality mean to you?
Why this question was chosen: This question asks us to examine what purpose and function our (faith, practice, belief system, philosophy) can serve in our lives. As well as how spirituality can guide our actions and way of walking in the world.
About Cole Goodwin they/them/theirs
Cole is a facilitator of the CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable writers group and journalist for CCCNews. They are a deeply spiritual, genderfluid, and eclectic human, that seeks to cultivate connection where ever they go. Their spiritual beliefs center around the collective Spirit present in all beings and the Spirits ability to evolve and to connect all beings.
An Interconnected Spirit Perspective
By Cole Goodwin, CCCNews Spiritual Roundtable Facilitator
Spirituality, for me, is about recognizing that there is a part of our sentient existence-that is wholly unexplainable by logic’s standards. It is a place where up can be down and left can be right. Where contradictions of logic are left behind so that we can embrace the unknown sacredness of all that is, and hold it close to our hearts.
I believe in the Spirit. For me the Spirit is a connecting point between all beings, it is a sacred and evolving life force that lives always and perishes never. The Spirit is both a collective consciousness and individual experience.
If you ask me how my Spiritual beliefs guides my actions I will say it guides me to live from a place of curiosity, acceptance, and love.
In embracing the Spirit I have found all sentient beings to be of the same family, each life a thread in the weaving of a great tapestry. This is how I come to accept that all beings are truly of one being, one energy, one life essence, split into billions of bodies and forms, living separately, so that they may experience the joy of connection.
By dissolving the illusion of separateness in favor of a spiritual connectedness I can see others as reflections of myself and vice versa. It is through the Spirit that I learn that here is nothing I can hate or love about another person that I cannot also hate or love about myself. This understanding leads me to act from a place of curiosity, acceptance and love.
And it is through my Spiritual belief that I come to see what I share in common with all beings, no matter how different from me.
For we are connected by the Spirit, the shining spark of consciousness, the light, the breathe, the source or our sentience. When I look deeply into myself and others to the shared light of the spirit I find a secure and unshakable belonging and connection.
I am guided by the Spirit to practice loving kindness and living in the flow of my awakened self.
For loving kindness seeks to understand the complete truth of life free from judgement or delusion. Loving kindness simply accepts what is, the good and the bad. And so, everyday I practice loving all beings, including myself. I say a daily a prayer offering love and compassion to myself, to those in my life that are easy to love and to those that are not, to those that have harmed me and to those that have treated me with kindness, and to all the beings across space and time.
In this way, Spirituality serves as a connecting, stabilizing, and gentling force in my life.
It guides me to awakening. And it guides me into becoming a more curious, accepting, loving, and kinder version of myself. In this way, I come to recognize my own merit and lovability. In this way I can come to own and hold accountable my actions and their consequences with love and compassion.
It is my Spirituality that has held me when no one else would.
It is the Spirit that loved me when I felt most unloved.
It is within the Spirit that I have found wellness, happiness, ease, and peace.
Want to contribute to the Spiritual Roundtable? Read this first.
The Roundtable Mission and Vision
The goal of these roundtable writings is to:
Bring the spiritual community together.
Share ideas that elevate the human spirit.
Elevate the conversation around the spirit.
Embrace what is universal to all, while honoring what is special about each spirituality.
Center inclusivity and equity.
Promote our collective enlightenment.
Nurture civility and friendship between those with diverse belief systems in the Gorge.
Engage readers and spiritual seekers.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS NOT…
This is not a place for arguing about dogma.
This is not a place for ‘hating on’ or putting other belief systems down.
This is not a place for excluding, discriminating, or promoting fear or violence towards other people based on their race, color, ethnicity, beliefs, faith, gender, sexuality, ability.
This is not a place for hatred.
This is not a place for fear.
The Spiritual Roundtable IS..
This IS a place for hope.
This IS a place for joy.
This IS a place for comfort.
This IS a place for big questions.
This IS a place for learning.
This IS a place for sharing.
This IS a place for caring.
This IS a place for sharing what is special about your beliefs.
CCC News reserves the right to not publish any content that breaks with our mission, vision and values.
If you are interested in being included in the roundtable please email cole@columbiacommunityconnection.com
