Reason To Celebrate

  Every day I step into the world with a sense of wonderment and awe. I have been blessed with a physical life and yet I have also been blessed to know with certainty that I am Spirit. I have been blessed with opportunities to be of service both in my work and my vocation. Rev Sandi and I work long hours and we have forgotten what a day off is but we are filled with joy.  At an early age we both recognized the value and worth of stepping out and following our passion. It was not always easy, as a matter of fact, there were time when it was really hard but we trusted our vision and the universe and stepped forward, took chances and learned.  We have lived and laughed and cried.  Every day we stepped into the world with a sense of joy and a desire to be engaged in life, to make a difference and to be of service.

Rev Sandi and myself  became involved in the Interfaith Ministry over 30 years ago because we were called to celebrate the simple truth that we are all children of the one light and that all spiritual traditions have their foundations in that truth.  We were also called to free people from the fear of death and guilt by sharing the absolute awareness that we are Spirit and that we are all eternal.  When we began our journey, these truths were not popular and there was much fear and misconceptions associated with being interfaith in perspective.  Today the interfaith perspective is much more acceptable but still little understood. 

We continue to work to articulate what it means to be interfaith and to follow an interfaith faith-path. When we founded the PEI Interfaith Ministry and the Open International Interfaith Ministry we felt that it was important that those who embraced an interfaith perspective have a home – a ministry where they could feel safe and secure to explore their spiritually with reverence and love.  There are those who believe that it is enough to just be spiritual and that religions have no relevance in today’s world. I cannot accept that. It has been my experience that people need community and that it is important that we have structures explore our spiritual natures with reverence and safety. The challenge is to create structures that will support diversity and self expression.  As a community we celebrate all of the world’s diverse religious and spiritual traditions and reject fear and intolerance in spiritual practice. We understand that we are spiritual beings living a physical existence. We know that God is love and that there is not just one path to the divine source.  We celebrate the fact that the God source – the ALL – is the foundation of all religions and spiritual paths.   

Once we established the Ministry, the next step was to create a seminary to allow students to become Ordained Interfaith Ministers and follow a path of service.  This was not a simple things to undertake but after several years of work the OIIM Seminary – the iNtuitive Times Institute ( NTI) was created. Through it, we offer a number of 4 year programs with the goal of creating a community of trained professional Interfaith Ministers and Spiritual Practitioners who have made a choice to be of service and celebrate diversity.

 As we prepare for our upcoming 10 day NTI Spiritual Retreat, I am filled with great joy and optimism for the future.  Our NTI students will attend from across the country to participate in the program. They will explore areas such as counseling, ministering, working with Spirit and the Interfaith movement.   They are the foundation which will shape the future of the Interfaith faith-path.  I see in them the presence of the God source, the joy of living, the passion for truth and the desire to make a difference which Rev Sandi and I felt years ago and still feel.  We have been blessed to have had the privilege to help nurture a new generation of Interfaith truth-seekers who will continue to work to change the world one person at a time.  In time, we will succeed.      

---