Rita's Reflections: Truth of faith lies between orthodox and unorthodox

Never in a million light years did I think I would be writing a column spilling my guts and talking about my unorthodox faith. I enjoy getting feedback from others. I believe we are more alike than we are different if we choose to see things that way.

It was humbling hearing that I inspired J.R. Mahon after mentioning him in a column. Besides being a Christian author, Mr. Mahon has over 2,000 Instagram followers and refers to himself as a Spiritual Shrink.

I can’t fight my intuitions any more than I can forget everything I have been taught in Sunday School. The truth lies somewhere in the middle and we would be wise to embrace that.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” — Rumi

It was assumed, I believe that everyone gets a free ride to heaven and there are no repercussions for wrong-doing. That is the furthest from the truth. The version of hell I believe in may be worse than one depicted in the bible. Hell, hath no fury like a woman scorned? Maybe hell hath no fury like a watchful God.

God is the center of everything. Meister Eckhardt, a German Catholic theologian, philosopher and mystic (c.1260-c.1328), stated, “The eye by which I see God is the same eye by which God sees me. My eye and God’s eye are one and the same — one seeing, one in knowing, and one in loving.”

Isn’t that beautiful? Just picture all that God must see.

I enjoy reading about people who have had near-death experiences or claimed to have died and were given a second chance. I research psychics and mediums like others study the Bible. I get goosebumps reading case after case that an eye for an eye may be a reality — and perhaps God’s judgment isn’t nearly as complicated as we think.

“These sparks, human souls, which come directly from God, have no end: They are imprinted forever with the stamp of God’s beauty.” — Dante Alighieri.

Reincarnation embraces the idea we come back as many times as needed to perfect for God. Each lesson we refuse to learn, we pay the price. Call it hell, karma or God’s punishment — What you dish out in this lifetime, you get back in the next. What that implies is that Sunday morning confessions are not necessarily absolved, and no court of law exonerates the guilty.

Can you imagine if everything that goes around literally comes back around? The rapist becomes the victim. The racist will be born into the body of the race he hates. Those mocking the disabled will be born disabled in another body.

Various sources claim there are several levels of heaven and several levels of what we refer to as hell. Our soul's advance according to how quickly we learn our lessons. God alone tells us when we are finished.

Rev. Michael Beckwith said, “We are either pulled by a vision or pushed by pain.” Once I surrendered my physical and emotional pain, my vision became clearer.

Carl Gustaf Jung said, “You meet your destiny on the road you take to avoid it.” In my case, I think Jung was right.

— Rita Wyatt Zorn is a wife, mother, grandmother and lifetime Monroe County resident. She can be reached at 7.noniez@gmail.com.

This article originally appeared on The Monroe News: Rita Wyatt Zorn: Truth of faith lies between orthodox and unorthodox