In this episode, I peel off the bandage so we can look at the ways religion has hurt us and how we can truly begin to heal. The moment we make the decision to forgive our religious upbringing is the moment we begin to see its gifts. Only then can we work creatively to heal the religions of the world and ourselves in the process.
Duration: 32 min 21 sec
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Excerpt
“Many of us remember quite well how our religious upbringing failed us. The memory of those failures is vivid. If words like God, scripture, heaven, faith, church, prayer leave a bad taste in your mouth or just make you want to tune out—that’s a strong sign that your relationship to religion carries unhappy memories.
And the effects of those memories not only burden us throughout our lives but also block our ability to talk about religion gracefully, to see any meaning or value in it, and especially to work creatively with it.
So when I talk about religion in a positive light or try to share some ideas on how religion can be upgraded with some new words and new ideas and new perspectives, since your teacup is already full of those painful unhappy memories, some of the ideas I’ll be sharing won’t have a chance of getting into your teacup. You’ll block those new ideas or you’ll tune out because on some level you have a deep belief that religion is just out to hurt you and nothing good can come of it.
From my perspective, that I shared with you in the first episode, it doesn’t have to be that way. Religion can become a force for good, but it needs our help. When we remain unforgiving, religion remains unforgiving. When we become forgiving, religion becomes forgiving. We’re linked, you see. So that’s why we want to look at our religious upbringing and start to identify those things that disappointed us or hurt us and we want to start to forgive them. And one way to start the process of forgiving is with an apology.”
