Category: – Organised Religion

The Burning of the Notre Dame – Disaster or Messenger of Truth?

In light of the recent fire that devastated the Notre Dame cathedral in Paris on April 15, 2019, there were many things that occurred in response to this event that felt very disturbing to me and highlight both the current and historical hypocrisies that exist in our business and geopolitical landscapes.

Soon after the blaze was extinguished and the damage was assessed, there was a groundswell of support to fund the rebuilding of the structure after the French president Emmanuel Macron promised to rebuild the structure within the next five years. Continue reading “The Burning of the Notre Dame – Disaster or Messenger of Truth?” →

The Catholic Church and Sexual Repression

I was brought up by a Catholic mother and a Church of England father and the main religion of the house was the Roman Catholic faith: we went to church every Sunday and I went to a Catholic Convent Boarding school in the UK, which was run by nuns. I was a boarder there from age six to thirteen and continued as a day girl until I was seventeen.

There’s one aspect of my upbringing that is really only now sinking in, and that is the sexual repression. Continue reading “The Catholic Church and Sexual Repression” →

Being Gay

I grew up in a Catholic environment and at the age of 4 (yes, as early as that), I knew I was gay and that if I were to ever be in an intimate relationship with another, my natural expression was to do so with a woman. There was nothing sexual in this knowing as a young girl, just a simple knowing and that it felt super OK and natural, from inside of me. This was a beautiful time for I allowed myself to simply feel and be me for me. Continue reading “Being Gay” →

Marketing Religion

It’s 1000 BCE and the tribe living across the mountains is considering its future. It was a simple village that lived in harmony with the seasons and each other. Everyone in the village took responsibility for themselves but was also generous in their support of others. They knew that life had meaning when it was lived in connection to the ‘all.’ An onlooker would have called this balance between the practical and energetic elements a ‘religious way of life.’

But change was afoot… Continue reading “Marketing Religion” →

Breaking up with Organised Religion 

Weekly church, regular confession, fasting at lent, praying for forgiveness and generally trying to be a good person dominated my religious life from when I was old enough to understand it until organised religion and I broke up when I was 35. The break-up wasn’t long and drawn out; in fact it was short, fast and relatively painless for me.

If you had asked me when I was in the thick of my regular organised religious practices if I would let it go, I wouldn’t have believed you, as I have always known there was God and I was taught throughout my childhood that God equated to religion and church.  Continue reading “Breaking up with Organised Religion “ →

Why do we put God in a Box? 

I recall that as a little girl I used to feel a great sense of wonder, joy and magic in nature – in the sound of dry leaves under foot, the sound of the waves, the perfume of flowers, the beauty of a butterfly, the birds singing in the morning, the feeling of a gentle breeze on my skin and much more. In nature I could feel a connection to a grandness, to something more than just the physical world and more than just me. What I also recall as a little girl was that no one else, or at least the adults around me, seemed to experience the same level of wonder or sense of magic – or this was not expressed. Continue reading “Why do we put God in a Box? “ →