Naturally Speaking

Every afternoon there is an event that takes place at my house that I really enjoy!

In fact, I find myself anticipating it, and get bummed out when I’m too busy and forget to witness this marvelous thing.

You would think that perhaps it was my family all sitting quietly around the dinner table, using great table manners and not arguing with one another. Yeah, right.

Or perhaps it’s a television show that a really love like “Alias”, or “Survivor”. Nope.

This is even something I can influence a bit, but have really no control over it happening.

Every afternoon, like clockwork, a covey of quail move from East to West through the backyard. On their way to who knows where. Perhaps I will follow them someday, and solve the mystery.

My influence on this covey is that I provide a feeder for them. The difficult part is keeping food in it since the deer think the feeder is for them too.

Soon I plan on buying these battery operated electric zapping deer stick things to keep the deer away from my feeder. I don’t mind the deer roaming the backyard, fertilizing my lawn, or nibbling my shrubs (most of which are of the anti-deer variety anyway). I just don’t want them stealing the food from the quail.

The quail are a very cool bird to watch, and they are so skittish. When we moved here to Spokane the goal was to get some land so we could watch deer and other wildlife around our property, but we settled on getting a track home so the kids had a better place to play and go to school.

Luckily, we don’t have a fence around our backyard, and neither do many of our neighbors, so the wildlife can still migrate through the property. One thing I don’t want to do is feed the squirrels. Although they are fun to watch as well, I don’t want to encourage the little buggers. If we lived out away from others perhaps I would have a feeder a ways from the house, but squirrels can get a little out of control.

My other wild bird feeders are suspiciously vacant so far. It’s probably because our sprinklers are broke and they have not been on to help attract the little feathered friends to bathe in our water.

So far we have not acquired any pets at our new home. I am content in watching nature in my backyard, and feed the wild critters as I have time and money. The nice thing about this arrangement is that when you go on vacation you don’t have to have a house sitter for your pets, or lock them up in a shelter someplace.

We wanted to try our hand at chickens, but I fear the city life will prevent this from becoming a reality. For now we’ll just have to enjoy the quail running through our yard and nibbling at the seeds and corn we place out for them. When the time comes for babies, a whole new level of cuteness arrives.

It’s a beautiful warm day today. The sun is shining bright, the sky is clear, clean and blue, and it’s Friday. The weekend promises to be the same. I love this time of year, the wildlife, and the good life.

To round out this romp through nature, I saw a giraffe being born today on animal planet. What a sight to watch a baby giraffe come out and fall what appeared to be eight feet to the ground with a thud. Then to watch instinct take over and the little guy begin to try and try to get to his wobbly feet. He finally made it, and staggered around the pen. It’s amazing to wonder what drives a baby giraffe to instantly start trying to stand.

Years ago I was studying to become a veterinarian. Of course computers came along and seduced me away from that goal. Today I still have a love for animals, and the natural world never ceases to intrigue me with its many wonders.

I was reminiscing with someone at work today about things I have seen in nature. One field trip came to mind when we went to Kelso Dunes in Southern California. Jumping off the edge of the dunes you could hear a low rumbling noise that I was told was caused by the granite flecks in the dunes making a vibrating noise.

Another natural phenomena I discovered while doing night SCUBA diving was something called bioluminescence. It’s the light that is produced from within an organism. As fish swim by under water they leave little light trails from the algae that they disturb. It is the neatest thing you have ever seen.

From a covey of quail and a baby giraffe, to deer and squirrels, and noisy sand dunes and the light trail of fish. How can anyone not be completely in awe of nature and the fantastic things that are all around us to explore. Every time I learn something new it humbles me to think about how much more is out there that I don’t know about.

Nobody can absolutely know everything about everything. Does it bother you that there are things in this world you have never seen, learned or experienced? You should make it a point to try and go on one or more adventures this year. Pick a national park nearby your home and go explore its wonders. While you are there, actually take a tour with a guide and learn something cool about the area.

Years after the adventure is over, you’ll be telling the stories, and thinking about how much fun it was. You owe it to yourself. Take the family, take some friends or just take yourself if they are all sofa spuds. Explore, have an adventure, then tell others about the journey you made.

I Know What You Believe

For twenty years I have been speaking to many different people about what they believed in, religiously speaking. This fascination on the spiritual path of others was due to my own longing to understand what attracted others to organized religion.

As I have mentioned before, I grew up going to church and Sunday school. My parents did everything right to indoctrinate me into their Christian beliefs.

About the time I graduated from high school something just didn’t seem right to me about the whole religious experience. A few years later I found myself questioning things even more. Not because anyone was talking to me about it, or trying to lead me astray. In fact, I didn’t want to tell anyone because I thought nobody would understand.

I prayed for guidance. I began to feel like I was the only one who felt like this, and could not figure out what the heck was wrong with me? I found out much later, once I started sharing my feelings with others, that I was not alone in this confusion.

Not one to be shy, I decided it was time to speak to someone about what I was feeling. When you want the correct answers, I knew you went straight to the source. Going to my church and making an appointment with our pastor, we sat down and had a long talk about Christianity, and religion in general.

Unfortunately, by the time I was done asking questions, and he was finished trying to answer them, I had my answer. It’s not his fault, he gave the standard answers I have heard from many people for the next twenty years.

Okay, since you’re now wondering what I mean by the standard answers, it pretty much boils down to this, “We take these things to be true on faith”.

Funny thing faith. It allows the wielder to not be accountable for the information. Taking something strictly on faith, leaves you open to all manner of misdirection.

Take the followers of Jim Jones, and the “People’s Temple.” The followers of Jim Jones thought he had all the answers. Many of them even followed him down to Guyana, South America when things began to get too hot for their religion in the United States. Their faith ultimately ended in them all drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid. Well some drank it willingly, some were forced, and some were just shot. All-in-all 914 people died for their religious faith.

Next, we all remember the group called, Heaven’s Gate, and their leader Marshall Herff Applewhite. Around March 26th 1997, 39 men committed suicide over several days by drinking a lethal cocktail of Phenobarbital and vodka. Their faith was that an alien spacecraft traveling behind the Hale-Bopp comet was coming for these men as they shed their earthly bodies.

Sure you read these things and think these are extreme cases, but how many of these followers were doing so on faith? I would say pretty much all of them.

An example that is closer to home, are the people now killing our soldiers in Iraq based on their faith. It is their belief, their faith, to kill everyone who does not follow their understanding of their religion.

Where am I going with all of this? These examples are exactly why I don’t follow anyone based on faith.

Does this mean you should not follow your religious beliefs? Certainly not! I do not want you to do anything based on your faith in me. I won’t ask you to drink Kool-Aid, but I also have no right to tell anyone what to do with their spiritual path. I’m the last guy you should be listening to!

What I would recommend that you do, is to study your religion. I’m willing to bet that you believe what you do because that’s what Mom and Dad believed, and you just grew up in the same religion. What do you know about what you believe?

I find it astounding that many people will argue with me until they pass out defending their religion, but they have no clue about how their religion came to be. They are arguing from a position of ignorance.

If you decide to research your religion, do so outside the official documents of your religion. Don’t read the Bible for your research, read the works from many scientists and theologians who have studied every aspect of Christianity.

Here are some ideas on places to start your search.

Mormons. You know that Joseph Smith started your religion on 6 Apr 1830. I encourage you to do some research on documents about Joseph Smith that are outside the Mormon control.

Wiccans. Did the modern Wicca religion began in 1954 with Gerald Gardner’s book, “Witchcraft Today?” Was it always being practiced in England as he claims? What proof does he offer? Are the Gods and Goddesses called upon for their help real, or just focal symbols?

Christians. When did Jesus live? When was the Bible written? Were there other versions of the same stories found in the Bible? Who put the Bible together? How did the people who wrote those stories know exactly, word-for-word, what Jesus and God had said?

If your religion isn’t listed here (with thousands of religions in the world, that’s a strong possibility), you should get the general idea from what I have presented above.

If you have so far believed in your faith because that’s what your parents believed, don’t you think you should learn about what you have patterned your entire life around? Heck, I’ll bet you're diligently indoctrinating your kids the same way your parents indoctrinated you.

My hope is that you just find more things to strengthen your belief. At the very least you will learn a little something about just what exactly you believe in.

Once you have researched your own religion, why stop there? Take a step back and look at what others believe, and possibly why they believe differently then you.

What were other people in other countries believing in when your religion was first started? If your religion broke off from another, why did they break away?

Just like learning about your country is important, learning about your belief system is equally important. The two major things that mold who you are, and what you do are the country you live in and the religion you follow. Don’t you think you owe it to yourself, and your family, to learn all you can about both?

There Just Is...

In the past I have written little poems here and there, the majority of which were to my wife. Nothing done well, mainly little silly rhyms centered around my love for her.

I have spent some time recently on a poetry website by accident. It was during research for my "50 States Under God" article.

Doing my job I often travel through the mountains of Washington, Idaho and Montana. While driving there is time to think about many things, and on one such recent trip I considered writing a poem.

Following, is the result.

= = = = = = = =

Evil dwells in the darkness
Trying to surface
The walls are high and steep
Seemingly insurmountable

To evil, there is no right
There is no wrong
There just is…

Light is pure and good
Some even say it is Holy
The walls are high and steep
Seemingly insurmountable

To light, there is no right
There is no wrong
There just is…

Between is gray
Touching light and dark
The walls are high and steep
Seemingly insurmountable

Within the gray, there is no right
There is no wrong
There just is…

- Rick Henderson

= = = = = = = =

If you'd like to share your own poetry, I have set up a category in the forums for just that purpose.

We The Christians

The following was posted as a reply to a message thread on the Starlight Cafe website. A nice site devoted to poetry. Check it out.

Any way, I stumbled upon one of my pet peeve topics and had to thrown in my usual 20 cents worth. When I was finished, I realized that this was basically another article. So here it is for all of you to read.

Okay, let’s get things back on track here shall we?

The pledge.

I get so tired of hearing how Christian our founding fathers were. Many of them were Deists, and almost all of them warned, and were greatly concerned about mixing religion and government.

During the mid 1950’s, and the height of the McCarthy Era, was when most of this God nonsense showed up on everything. We were fighting Communism at the time, and a large majority of Communists were Atheists. So the Christian cults (yes, cults) saw the opening and took it. This is when “In God We Trust” replaced “E Pluribus Unum (One From Many or One From Many Parts)” as the countries motto. It is also when that motto was placed on all paper currency, and coins (although it did appear on some coins earlier on).

It’s a common misconception that all of this God stuff we see today began when the country did. This is fundamentally, and across the board, not true.

The original pledge, which was crafted by a Baptist minister, contained no reference to God.

"I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Although the pledge had undergone other changes throughout the years, “under God” was not added until 1954 when Christian cults petitioned to have it added. Again, during the McCarthy Era nobody dared speak up against God for fear of being suspected as a communist. It was not spiritual revelation; it was fear from a people at war! A cold war, but war nonetheless.

Some other tidbits to consider…

The U.S. Constitution does not refer to God.

The FIRST Amendment, read it!

U.S. Treaty with Tripoli states, “…the government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion…”

And I could go on and on.

I have many articles on my website covering what this country WAS founded on, and that’s freedom for everyone. There is no mistaking why the Constitution begins with “We the people…” and not “We the Christians…”

I suggest you all actually learn about this country, before you try to argue the points with your own misconceptions.

- Rick

Do Rabbits Lay Eggs?

Image Credit

At the risk of being taken out back and once again thrashed by the Christian readers, I find Easter to be an interesting holiday. Because I love to study the origin of things, the Easter Bunny, has always intrigued me.

All through my life, and up until probably just a few years ago, I too happily celebrated Easter Sunday with most of this country. In fact, I still help with the obligatory Easter egg hunt, and Easter Bunny basket purchases and placement. It’s also one of those times where you feel that you should attend church, even if you do not go on a regular basis.

Along comes my curiosity and WHAM, it all goes right out the window.

As I have discussed in previous articles, early Christians had a struggling religion. They did not have the prominence that they now enjoy. I have also shown how many Christian holidays and symbols were once, and still are, pagan holidays and symbols. It seems in order for Christianity to grow, it had to pretend to be part of the pagan celebrations.

In the olden days, people were killed for their beliefs. Actually, killing people who do not believe as you do is still going on in some parts of the world!

Let’s start by taking a general look at the modern Christian celebration of Easter. There are sunrise services, Easter egg hunts, and this weird thing about the date being moved all over the calendar. I don’t feel I need to go too deep into the Christian slant on Easter, because we have all grown up with it and lived the lie for so long we can recite it by heart.

Now don’t start writing me hate comments, the lie is on the symbolism, I’m not slamming the resurrection of Christ. Lighten up will ya?

Easter is celebrated as the resurrection of Jesus. All of the symbols of Easter have meanings that link it to the resurrection, but I have always wondered, Why a rabbit that lays colored eggs? What the heck does that have to do with the resurrection of Christ? Once I did some digging, the reality became obvious, and Easter is no longer such a mystery to me.

When early Christians wanted to celebrate Passover and the resurrection of their savior, they once again did so by adopting pagan symbols and holidays to cover their tracks and to prevent themselves from being drug through the streets and crucified.

Pagans are big on nature worship. After all, it is common practice in early religions for people to create gods and goddesses out of things they did not understand. Heck, in those days they didn’t understand very much, and even when they began to figure things out, the religions were established and the fanatics would guard the symbols and religions...well...religiously. People would be afraid to go against a religion, even if it began to seem somewhat silly.

Many religions of the world worshipped the sun. Indeed, almost any religion you study has some form of sun god that they would pray to. After all, they knew how important the sun was, and never wanted to make it angry. Pagans were no different. They worshipped the sun in many ways. Again, to keep this short you can Google sun god worshiping and read on it for years.  Rah!

Part of the Christian adaptation of pagan rituals was the sunrise service. This is clearly a leftover from the pagan worship of their sun god. It’s interesting to note what the Bible has to say about sun worshiping, which can be traced to the very god that was part of the pagan holiday.

"So He brought me into the inner court of the house of Jehovah; and behold, at the door of the temple of Jehovah, between the porch and the altar, were about twenty-five men with their backs toward the temple of Jehovah and their faces toward the east, and they were worshiping the sun toward the east. And He said to me, Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger..." (Ezek8:16-17)

This in itself makes you wonder what is going on here. Are the inmates running the asylum now?

What about the name of the holiday? The term Easter is derived from the Saxon goddess of fertility who was called Eostre or Eastra. It is said that the goddess had a bird who she turned into a hare (the rabbit link came along later), and this is why the Easter Bunny lays eggs. Eggs are a huge fertility symbol in many religions. Now through the years people have had many off-shoots of this tale, for example the Germans have a story that their equivalent of the Easter Bunny is magical, and that’s why it lays colorful eggs for the children.

So here we go again. Celebrating Easter, with all of the trappings that honor the goddess Eastra, it is probably a bad thing to do as a Christian. Last thing I checked the Bible pretty much forbids the worship of all things that are not God. This includes idol worship and false gods.

Based on this, the entire holiday of Easter should be shunned by Christians, yet they embrace these trappings willingly because of tradition. Sure they have changed the meanings to fit their view, but when you get to the meat of where it all came from, it’s the worship of a sun god and a fertility goddess from the world of the pagans!

Okay, so we now know where most of these strange traditions come from that make absolutely no sense to most normal Christians. Do you feel at least a tiny bit silly yet?

Why the heck does Easter move all over the place as far as dates are concerned? If it’s the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus shouldn’t it be celebrated on the actual resurrection date? It turns out that the date Easter is to be celebrated on goes back to AD 325 when Emperor Constantine decreed that Easter would be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox. How’s that for specific?

It’s amazing how things like the date of Easter were decided so long ago and since then we have all just went, “Okay, why not?.”

I’m almost certain that many of you will read this and get downright upset with me on the information here. The intent has not been to abuse the holiday, but to try and shed some light on all of the seemingly out-of-place symbols of this Christian time of year. 

Are you mad?  Then go ahead and you explain to me why a rabbit delivering eggs is part of your celebration?

I have purposely left a ton of things out, just because most of it is commonly known, and the rest can be researched yourself if you really want to learn more on the topic. There is a certain length I try to keep my articles in, and this one is already running over the mark.

So today go out and celebrate life, fertility, spring, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. No matter how you celebrate, or what you worship on this day, you now know where this egg-laying rabbit came from.

Happy Easter!

Hindsight

We have a phrase in our vernacular that says, "Hindsight is 20/20." Although somewhat cliché, it is so true. The reason this one phrase is used so many times is basically because it's easy to analyze a situation after it has happened.

Everyone's an expert on things after they happen. The unfortunate thing is that when it comes to legal cases, or politics, hindsight can be used as a terrible weapon against innocent people.

Someone who made a decision based on their current situation and facts should not be made to justify those decisions unless it where demonstrated that those decisions were indeed done with forethought and malice.

After a football game we can sit back and watch all of the recorded footage and say that a coach or player should have done this or that. During that game, however, in the heat of the moment you don't have that luxury.

Watching "Survivor" last night, for those of you that follow that show of social interaction, we saw that Lex did a friend, "Boston Rob" a favor and spared the ousting of his girlfriend, "Amber." In hindsight, he realized that it was a very bad move and Rob led the charge to vote Lex away from the million dollar prize.

In the case of 911, we're not talking about losing a game, we're talking about losing many lives, and the security of our country. Although the stakes are higher, and what had happened was devastating to many families and our country, is a witch hunt really necessary?

Regardless of whether or not you're a Democrat, or a Republican, do you seriously believe that former President Clinton, or President Bush had any idea whatsoever that something like 911 was going to occur? More importantly then that, if they did know, that they did absolutely nothing to try to prevent it? I highly doubt it.

Thinking of 911 in this way, what the heck is this 911 commission trying to accomplish? From the reports I am seeing, it appears to me that they are trying more to find someone to pin the blame on, rather then to truly study what happened, and how it might be prevented in the future.

The general consensus from just about anyone who has been asked from the Clinton administration to the Bush administration, is that even if they had an idea that something might happen, it may not have been easily prevented.

Once we got word of it we would have had to shut down every airport for weeks, or perhaps months, to implement a fraction of the security we now have. Again, using our hindsight we would say that it would be worth it, regardless of what it takes. While the game was on, we all know there is no way in heck that the steps to prevent 911 would have been tolerated by the American people.

Up until 911 we could not even imagine an attack that horrible an unprovoked, much less come up with a giant national plan to thwart it. If we were to shutdown our shipping, transportation, monetary, and government every time we caught wind of a possible terrorist activity we would be a crippled country held hostage by thugs.

I plan on living my life how a usually do, and if I die in some terrorist attack I hope the country hunts the bastards down who are responsible for it and makes them pay the price. Until that day comes I will gladly take my chances with the rest of you no matter what happens. I will not cower like some little whipped puppy hoping it does not happen to me.

The people in this country and this 911 commission seem to be using hindsight to go after individuals and trying to find a scapegoat. This sort of thing is crap in the workplace, and on this grand of scale it looks even worse. How embarrassing for us as a country to appear like we're playing childish games trying to place blame on an unforeseen act of terrorism.

The commission needs to focus on things like why we were not aware of what was about to happen. Why we did not have enough agents in the FBI and CIA to see this coming? How the FBI, CIA and any other agency should work together in the future so that we may be able to prevent another 911.

The world is different for the United States. We can no longer live in the fantasy that nobody would dare attack us again after Pearl Harbor. The reality of it is that we were complacent, and ignorant to the fact that we are just as vulnerable as those countries who deal with this every day.

Our collective faces have been slapped by the gauntlet of terrorism. The time has come to answer the challenge, not to run around accusing each other of past inadequacies.

Nonsense!

There are times when something happens that just doesn’t make sense to me. Little things like thinking about someone and they either call, or show up at some place where you are.

This happened to me last night. I was at a restaurant and for some reason I began thinking of the woman that cuts my hair. Now I’m certain my wife will think this is something horrible, but I assure you, I don’t go around thinking about her on a daily basis. In fact, I normally only think about her when my hair begins to look bushy. That's what makes this so strange.

It’s not like the person magically showed up out of thin air, but they were there in a crowded restaurant, and I began thinking about them. I think this is significant. This seems to me to be proof that our minds are capable of sensing, and interacting with others in ways different then the obvious verbal form of communication.

Was this communication? Did I only begin thinking of her when she saw me at the restaurant? I was not thinking about her until about ten minutes before she came over to say hi and that she had seen me there.

I have had this same type of experience with my father. On numerous occasions I had suddenly started thinking about him and the phone would ring and guess who it is? Many times I tell him that I was just thinking about him.

This type of thing does not happen to me all of the time. I’m not saying here that I am some sort of psychic, or that I have any special powers. This latest incident, however, was really weird. I sort of felt like I was in an episode of the Twilight Zone.

Regardless of the cause, it is a fact that it happened to me, and up until last night it normally has only occurred between me and my father. Either that or it does happen more frequently but not as obvious as this time made it seem.

We have all heard stories of people saying they had a feeling something was going to happen, or other such things, and I know when I hear those tales I am always a bit skeptical. Now, I seem to be the teller of the tale. Do you believe me?

April first has past, and I assure you that what I am telling you really happened. So what does this mean to you? Have you had these types of obvious experiences in the past? Perhaps you have had an unexplainable link with a close member of your family, or with a friend?

Could this be the proof that the “Force” that I feel interconnects us all really exists? If not, it is sure a strong example that something is going on, and if not the Force, then what? What is your explanation on how we can sense someone else from across a room, or across the world?

The events happened, and are true. They cannot be said to be a coincidence or simply made up. For a long time we have heard that we only use a small portion of our minds capability. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to enhance the ability to communicate with only our minds?

Just a little food for thought.

Strength In Numbers

Ah. The sun is shinning, the birds are singing and you can just tell that spring is in the air. This is a good time to start a membership drive for “Life In A Handbasket”.

If you read this website regularly, please use the “Recommend Us” selection from our menu to send our link to your friends, or enemies for that matter. You don’t have to agree with my views to get others reading the Handbasket. In fact, maybe you can all gang up on me in the forums. Strength in numbers you know.

I constantly get e-mails sent to me about many different topics. Instead of forwarding jokes, why not send a recommendation for my website to others in your address book? The more folks that join the website the better the reading will become.

If I were to debate my own stance on many of the issues I have written articles about there is a lot that could be said against my point of view. The forums are a ghost town, but this is probably due to a very small membership to the website so far.

There needs to be fuel to keep my fire burning. I crave interaction and different opinions and views. Without a large reader base, and fresh information, my articles will continue to keep their current flavor. How can I change without opposing views to mold my thought process?

The number of hits for the website has continued to grow, but the membership is still low. Some of this is from the increase of search engine hits. Ultimately this will also help to draw a larger audience, but until that time, word-of-mouth will be the biggest help.

If everyone who reads this website tells five people about it, then hopefully some of those folks will spread the word, and the wave will begin to spread farther and farther.

In addition to reading my articles, take a few moments to look through the web links that I have found. There are fun things, strange things, and hopefully some helpful sites for you to explore. I will always be expanding the web links section, so check in often for links to some interesting places.

Another thing to do while you visit the site is to scroll down the left side and look at the topics that are being pulled from other locations. Some may not interest you at all, but every once in a while I tend to find a neat story or website to check out.

Do you have some thoughts that are on your mind? Would you like to share them with others? Let me know and I’ll give you the space as a visiting author to place your thoughts here for everyone to read. It can be anything from fiction to fact. Whatever you are interested in feel free to join in the experience.

If you forward the website address or articles to your friends I thank you. Hopefully, with all of your help, this website will see a significant increase in its readership this month.

May you all have a very enjoyable Spring and Easter!

My Spiritual Quest

Religion is a huge part of somebody’s life, and therefore must be thought of deeply, and honestly. Many people automatically take on the religion they have grown up with. It makes sense that whatever they have learned from their parents would equate to how they believe and eventually hand down to their children as well.

There are also those who feel that the path their parents followed does not seem right for them. These people then go on a spiritual quest in hope of finding something that they can believe in and that encompasses what they truly feel and believe.

After all of my searching for the right religion, I have finally found one that I can believe in! The religion I have chose offers hope, spirituality, goodwill, and most of all, a sense of adventure. For those who have been reading this website regularly, this may come as a shock to you. Yes, you heard me right. My spiritual quest has ended, and my spiritual journey has just begun!

Years ago a film came out that offered a different view of religion, and created a universal view of life and how it all interacts within the biological matrix of the universe. The religion that sprang forth from this film, although made up at the time, has grown into a viable alternative to the usual choices. This religion is Jediism.

There is a movement ongoing that is working hard to make Jediism a recognized religion in the world. You can visit their website at www.jediism.org and see what they are trying to achieve.

I am eager to begin my journey along the path of the Jedi, and bring even greater illumination to my understanding of the spiritual path I have chosen.

Jediism not only sprang from the motion picture industry, but has found that the belief of the Force is anchored firmly in the Eastern religious disciplines. Who knew that Hinduism, Confucionism, Buddhism, Gnosticism, Stoicism, Catholicism, Taoism, Shinto, Modern Mysticism, the Way of the Shaolin Monks, the Knight's Code of Chivalry and the Samurai Warriors would be the foundation that was later to become Jediism?

I can’t begin to express the joy I am now feeling knowing that there are others in the world who believe as I do. I can’t wait to embrace my Inner Jedi, and to begin learning the ways of the Force such as Jedi Budo, the martial art of Jediism.

There are 21 Maxims of the Jediism Code. When studied and truly taken to heart, they make up all that a student of Jediism should be. I have begun doing various meditations that have been explained in detail on the Jediism website. Already I am feeling at one with the universe.

If you are feeling that the spiritual path you have been following is going nowhere. I invite you to come and check out Jediism with an open mind. I don’t want to hear any snickering about how the term Jedi came about. We have transcended the origins of Jediism and have brought it to an entirely new place. That place is where we can be one with the spiritual universe that encompasses all living things.

Master Yoda said, “Do, or do not. There is no try”.

It’s time to stop trying to fit into the religion of your family and friends, and time to do something about it. Do join those of us who believe in the power of the Force, and soon you too may be able to lift a box, and rock while standing on your head. Above all, you should know that I could not resist writing a little something for April Fools Day! Did I get ya?