{"id":522,"date":"2009-08-22T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-08-22T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=522"},"modified":"2016-05-11T12:39:59","modified_gmt":"2016-05-11T16:39:59","slug":"can-spirituality-be-inherited","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=522","title":{"rendered":"Can Spirituality Be Inherited?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is a philosophical question that I often ask myself, “could I have inherited my spiritual feelings from my mother’s distant parental lineage?”<\/p>\n

Where I am coming from is that I grew up in a religiously divided household. My maternal grandfather was a Methodist missionary who went to Oklahoma to “save the heathens,” and married a full-blood Choctaw (Native American Indian). She converted to being Methodist, and that is the religion that my mother observed.<\/p>\n

My father was Roman Catholic. He grew up in a strict Italian Catholic family. He was required to bring up his children Catholic in order to get permission to marry. However, by the time I came along, they sorta had forgotten that. My oldest nine siblings were baptized in the Catholic Church, and the other six of us are a mix (some are more observant of organized religion than others. For example, my twin brother eventually went through training and became Catholic. I was not baptized in any church, nor have an interest in doing so.)<\/p>\n

I attended both Methodist and Catholic churches until my parents stopped forcing me to go. Growing up in a predominantly Jewish neighborhood, I also attended a number of Jewish religious services (Bar- and Bat-mitzvahs and weddings). I had always questioned what religious leaders said about certain things. Later in life, when I acknowledge that I am gay, I had a lot of trouble listening to the statements made by the Catholic Church about homosexuality.<\/p>\n

I love my man. I am no less in the eyes of the God in organized religion because I love someone of the same sex. However, hearing all that negativity and being subjected to shunning by the UltraCatholic branch of my father’s family just drove me more away.<\/p>\n

But that does not mean that I do not believe in a greater spirit. I truly think there is something bigger and more powerful out there that is guiding me. I can’t call this higher spirit, “God,” but I can refer to spiritual leadership.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As I was exploring my feelings of spirituality, I had some long discussions with some Choctaw Tribal Elders. I learned that how I think and feel about a Great Spirit is consistent with their form of Spirituality. I believe in the importance of maintaining harmony with nature and fellow humans. I believe a lot in the Light of the Sun, as the Choctaw do. What is odd to me, though, is that I was never directly exposed to any form of spiritual teachings from my mother’s People. I only knew my grandmother and some distant cousins. My grandmother had become an avowed Methodist before I was born.<\/p>\n

I have been wondering for a long time, “can spirituality be inherited?” I think there is something to that, but I don’t know. Meanwhile, I will keep smiling, because I remember and continue to employ this quote by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.: Today, give a stranger one of your smiles. It might be the only sunshine he sees all day.<\/i> Sunshine, be it from our nearest star or from light on another’s face, is clearly a major part of my spirituality.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a philosophical question that I often ask myself, “could I have inherited my spiritual feelings from my mother’s distant parental lineage?” Where I am coming from is that I grew up in a religiously divided household. My maternal … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}