Fire Within Me

All humans are religious beings. We are all open to this great mystery that surrounds us. Some use the word God. Whether or not we do, we all confront this great mystery. In that sense religiousness is very close to spirituality. Out of this religiousness humans have historically created these social bodies called religions. A religion usually begins with a founder that is a particularly spiritual person. Then it kind of gets a life of its own. It freezes as it ultimately evolves to become institutional and imperial, losing its fire and its spirit. To use the metaphor of Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast, all religions are like volcanoes. At one time they were spewing fire and were a wonderful spectacle. But then the lava hardens and we begin to forget that at one point there was fire. Here and there someone comes along, like Mother Teresa or Oscar Romero, who makes a little crack in the hardened lava and out comes this live fire again to reignite our hearts where the core of every religion is to be found. This is where the spirituality of the individual keeps ideas about our take on the great mystery alive. While religions come and go, the spiritual sense of our place in the great mystery remains.