Cleaning the House of the Mind and Spirit"

In today's East Coast Living magazine there is an article about downsizing from the large family home to a smaller house or apartment. Deciding what to keep, what to throw out, what to donate or sell. "Sentimental items are the hardest to p;are down, especially photos, awards and memorabilia," says the author, Heather Laura Clarke.  Familiar furniture, one has lived with so long, are hard to give up, even though too unwieldy for the new modern residence. One may be reluctant to give up pictures, beautiful dishes or figurines, not because you really want them any more but because they are  associated with beloved relations. But, says Clarke, if one can let things go without feeling guilty about it, one can feel a new freedom in one's new home.

Just as large, old-fashined homes may need a clearing out when life situations change, so too do religions need discerning eye, and a decision on what to keep, what to relegate to the dustbin.

There is nothing that impedes spiritual progress more than the weight of dead myths and outmoded concepts in religious thought. Rather than continuing carrying the burden of concepts left over from the pre-scientific age - indeed, from the legends of paganism and primitive civilizations, --  large numbers of people at the present time have turned away from religion altogether.

When religion is identified with the preposterous myths of the early ages the valuable part of religion
 --the part that teaches us values, respect for humanity, and how to live -- may be lost, too.  Before that happens it is time to houseclean the mind and the spirit - to take a discerning look, and ask ourselves, "What do we want to keep in our faith? what to put in the back of the drawer, as a historical memento, and not an eternal truth."

Keepers, for me, will be humane values; the golden rule; love one another; help the children, the old, and those in difficulty. Share.  The spiritual does not need the supernatural to hold it up.  Modern religion does not need sacrifices, atonement, personal gods and half-gods interfering with the laws of nature.  People can act according to their conscience, according to what the spiritual inner voice tells them to do,  without needing to posit a god with a personality monitoring their every act.  We can be led by the spirit within us, towards what is right for us to do.

Without having to maintain a structure developed in the distant past of classical and medieval times. we can respond to the world around us now.  We can distinguish the good, and the right path, without resorting to imaginery rewards in a questionable heaven or imaginery punishments in a dubious hell.