Grosey's Messages

It is rather unfortunate, then, that in the contemporary world, too many religions have 

emphasized their rules and regulations to the detriment of the spiritual dimension of 

their traditions, and it is, possibly, why so many people have begun to search along 

spiritual pathways that are not aligned with mainstream religious traditions. De Sousa continues: “This can, sometimes, lead the unwary and vulnerable, often young people, into difficult and challenging situations where they may be seduced by promises of 

finding a happy, meaning-filled life only to find let-down and disillusionment.”

De Sousa’s salient warning is a useful guide. Religious workers may introduce their own dogmas and religious rules which sometimes substitute for a relationship with the Creator, and do not touch the depths of the experiential. While development of the innate morality is to be encouraged, it is to be balanced with the story of grace.

Rahner wrote "every true experience of God in whatever form, makes a person less insular, less complacent, and less isolated – and more restless, more inspired and more engaged with the world and humanity.”

Connectedness with others is not satisfactorily sustained through social networking in a technologized world that promises connectedness but delivers only distance and cyber or physical bullying. Close relationships “in the flesh”, — that truly develop friendships that are connective, fulfilling and self-sacrificial — are not experienced on a computer screen, ipad or cell phone. Rather, by this physically isolated communication the tendency to self-centredness is accelerated.

The Greco-Roman world of the first century may not unfairly be described as ‘Skin 

over cracks.’ The ‘skin’ was the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire expanded its rule 

over new territories by dominating native populations through military might. They did not seek to absorb the tribal people into a full Roman identity. They tended to utilize 

existing governmental structures and different kinds of local supervision and control. 

The ‘skin’ of military dominance, law and some institutions, the network of roads, a 

common language (koine Greek) and a religious veneer of the Emperor cult covering a religious pluralism, did not make the Roman Empire a melting pot, but rather a mosaic of multiculturalism. There was a diversity of ethnicity, language, race and culture, over the top of which was imposed a ‘skin’ called the Roman Empire. Bruce Milne notes that it was in this climate that Christianity thrived and finally brought more than a ‘skin over cracks’ approach; the heart of the New Testament is relationship with Jesus Christ who makes a new quality of human relationship possible (called koinonia). The apostlePaul in the letter to the Ephesians claims that Christians are a new kind of people, part of a new community: a 'new humanity’ in Christ (Ephesians 2:15) who no longer exist in isolated homogenized cultural pockets of race, culture, gender, generation, ethnicity, colour, socio-economics and language, but may experience a transcending relationship with God and with one another. Milne contends that all Christian congregations everywhere are called to be bridging places and centres of reconciliation, where the major diversities separating human beings are overcome through the presence of God's Holy Spirit. Our tremendously diversified Australian culture reflects an exploding multiculturalism that must find a ‘skin of unity’ in our fragile world. 

Awareness of innate spirituality with innate morality provides a strength that can lead to fulfilment that exhibits itself in empathetic connectivity and participative consciousness. Not only must this be experienced intellectually, but also rationally, experimentally and with regard to the spirituality that lies deep within.