So often people think that getting right with God is manifested by how often they attend church services or how much money they put in the basket as it is passed around each service.  Most well meaning people think that living a religious life gives them a free pass to enter the pearly gates.  While living a religious life may or may not keep us out of trouble on this earthly journey, it certainly does not give us a “get out of hell free” pass, if in fact, there is a hell.  Religion, in my humble opinion, can be recognized by a set of rules that identifies a particular belief.  Each religion, be it Catholic, Methodist, Baptist, etc., has a dogma that is followed to be identified as being a part of that religion. 

Spirituality proceeds from the heart and does not have a set of “rules” that must be followed to enter a place of perpetual peace.  Spirituality gives the believer a “peace that passes all understanding.”  The crazy thing about spirituality is that anyone…..ANYONE… can live a spiritual life if they have a belief in a Power greater than themselves.  That’s right, a Buddhist (gasp) can be a spiritual being along with a Catholic, Methodist, or Mormon.  Even a person who does not believe in any organized religion can be a spiritual being.

So, in my mind’s eye this is what I see.  There is a huge round banquet table in heaven (or any place you’d like to call a place of perfect peace).  Sitting around that table is a person of every organized religion and some who have no organized religion. There are rich men and women sitting at the table next to the homeless.   At the place of honor is the God of our understanding; however we choose to see Him.  All of us are praying and nobody is praying incorrectly.  There we all sit, with the God of our understanding; all of us praying in perfect harmony. 

What is amazing about this vision?  We are all praying to the same God, we just choose to call Him by a different name.