Religion is
one of those settling places. Religion
is one of those settling places that brings a level of comfort, security and
community inclusion to the individual, a shelter in life’s storms. Every continent
in our world is a religious place, every people on every continent have some
sort of religious practice or belief system.
Even those of us who laugh at the possibility of a reality besides their
own, are themselves a religion that some describe as humanism. We all are religious.
The question
that is asked over and over again throughout history is whether our religion is
merely a settling place or a means to another more important end? Revival is a word I heard during my youth, so
often that some of us were numb to the reality.
What is revival? Please allow me
to define the word my own way, “revival is an unusual awareness of a reality
beyond our own earthy reality that is felt by the individual or the group. This honest awareness allows positive change
in our lives by freeing us from baggage”.
My family
was greatly influenced by the 1906 Azusa Street Revival in Los Angeles, a
revival that gave birth to a number of new denominations, new doctrines and
practices. The result over time was the institutionalizing
of the revival awareness and ensured it's eventual demise. All I ever saw was the demising. The religionists tried to link a new
denomination, a new doctrine, a new ethic or practice to the revival atmosphere
but the truth is that true revival is, by definition, otherworldly and cannot
be manipulated.
G. Goslaw
Landers, CA
