Yours, Mine And Ours - A Personal Viewpoint

By, Pamela J. Leavey

In relationships, acceptance is the key to love. When two people make the conscious choice to enter into a relationship with opposing spiritual viewpoints, acceptance and unconditional love become the key to making such a relationship work. We must be willing to not only accept our partner’s spiritual path, but also to love them unconditionally. Unconditional love is not an easy task. A parent can love a child unconditionally, but as adults we have a difficult time loving another adult with out restrictions.

We have the picture of the perfect partner in our minds eye, yet we meet someone who does not fit that portrait and we are attracted to that person anyway. We must throw away the picture in our mind and allow ourselves to see the other person for who they are with no judgments. When we do this we begin to paint a new picture, a picture that expands our limitations on love.
In loving someone whose spiritual path is different from your own, you must be willing to expand your viewpoints on spirituality, and to hear the views of the other person. You must respect that to the other person, their views are what work for them. You must not try to change the other persons views. You must honor their spiritual beliefs and traditions, and be willing to share in their beliefs and traditions, out of your love for them.

The subject of making a relationship work with differing spiritual views is close to home for me. After years of studying varying spiritual paths and melding them together, I put a label on who I am spiritually. I call my self a Pagan, Wiccan. I have beliefs firmly rooted in the path of the Goddess, yet I believe in the One Divine Force, the One Higher Power, God. To find someone with views like my own, or someone who could accept and try to understand my beliefs, was a concern indeed. I began to see that an ordinary man would not stimulate my interest enough intellectually or spiritually for me to maintain a relationship. I gave up seeking someone who could understand me and accepted that I might not ever find that.

And then he came to me, like a bolt of lightening in a clear blue sky, a man whose views were so different from my own, yet in many ways were similar. The paths we followed were so diverse that at first I felt, how can I date this man, what could we possibly have in common. This man, that I have come to love deeply, had been a practicing Mormon for fifteen years. Given the freedom in Paganism to just be, the restrictions of Mormonism seemed unfathomable to me. Yet, I saw that God had brought us together for a reason, something much bigger than the both of us and our spiritual views. As I began to know this man better, I found a man who respected that views I held were different from his own, yet he accepted my views and took interest in what I believed in. I in turn took interest in his and listened with an open mind to his experiences with Mormon church and beyond.

Together we have shared our knowledge and our views. We have listened with open minds and open hearts. We have come to the understanding that our beliefs are our own perspective, and that those beliefs contributed to our attraction to each other in the first place. We have learned much from each other. There is a sense of  knowing that we will continue to share our knowledge and our love. It is not an easy path we follow, such diversity of spiritual views can be hard to be with. Yet, both of us have a strong spiritual foundation, and we are able to each see that this was meant to be.

I am grateful that our paths our different, for the opportunity to learn is abundant in our relationship. Although we may not have all of the same points of view on religion, we both know that all paths lead us to the same place. For the two of us, our views led us to each other. The initial attraction we had for each other was so far beyond the normal physical attraction we generally feel to someone, it was rooted in a deep sense of intellectual desire. Were I to have not followed my intuition and stepped with open heart into this relationship, I might have missed so much. For truly having this man in my life is a gift from God and the Goddess alike.

Fear is the antithesis to love. We fear what we do not know, we fear sometimes what we do. Spiritual differences can cause a great sense of fear in the strongest of women and men. Yet, love conquers fear. And, unconditional love is the greatest conqueror of all. When love knocks on your door, accept it with open arms. Do not try to change the person whom you love, do not fear their beliefs if they are different than your own. Listen, share, communicate. Create new traditions in which you meld your two beliefs and traditions together. Be willing to learn, willing to bend and willing to take on new views if necessary.

Open your mind and open your heart. Throw out the picture you have held for so long of the perfect mate and paint a beautiful new one. Let your relationship become a work of art in progress. Together you can create a masterpiece. Life is filled with infinite possibilities and love opens the door to those possibilities.

Love if it is meant to be will follow it’s own path, the path of whatever Higher Power it is that you believe in. Relationships are assignments, it is said in the Course In Miracles. Two people are brought together by God to create the maximum possibilities of learning and expansion. In the context of a loving relationship, we go forth together and do the work of God, the work of our own Higher Power. That is the divine purpose of relationships, that is the divine purpose of love. It is my belief that two people with strong spiritual views have an edge on relationships, for they both know the power of love. There is no higher power than love, for God is love, the Goddess is love, Buddha is love, we are love.

Suggested Reads On Love and Relationships -
A Return To Love - By,  Marianne Williamson
Soulmates - By, Thomas Moore
Journey Of The Heart - By, John Welwood Ph.D.
The Sacred Fire - By, Henry James Borys

This article was originally published in The Crystal Oasis Ezine,
June 1999. Not to be reprinted with out permission of the author.
For permission to Reprint this article or excerpts of this article, or comments - email LadyPamela@aromatherapygoddess.com

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