As I work regularly with the Sevenfold Peace Path, I have found it very healing, reconciling with my families religious lineage of Christianity. Fortunately, growing up, I did not experience any form of fundamentalism. And yet, I always desired a place to belong. With my mystic lens, I always found it hard to be contained within a dogmatic system. At the same time, I longed for something that offered deeper roots, spiritual guidance, culture, and tradition than I was finding in spiritually fluid communities. I began to contemplate how I might restore some traditions that have been woven throughout my ancestral line. This line does not run straight. It weaves through the Judeo-Christian line as well into the earth-based practices of Germanic Druids or the Scottish Celts. I’m curious to know if any of you have found a similar call? One towards a reclamation of ancestral lineage? There’s a lot of work here to restore peace in this area. Blessings to all on the path. May it bring an abundance of LIFE. From this personal exploration, this writing was inspired for HOLY CROSS DAY, September 14th: For centuries we have been taught to look upon it as the instrument of our salvation. That humanity’s sin created a debt which could only be satisfied through blood, and that God offered the Son as the sacrifice necessary to reconcile creation to its Creator. But what if we looked again? What if the Cross does not reveal a God who required death, but a God whose Life could not finally be overcome by death? I find myself returning to a simple question, would the Source of Life require death in order to give Life? Would an all-loving, all-powerful God need the killing of the beloved Son before mercy could be extended to creation? Or might the Cross be telling us something very different? Perhaps God did not demand the Cross, perhaps we created it through empires, fear, violence, domination and religious certainty. The Cross was a Roman instrument of torture and execution long before Christians placed it upon our altars or wore them around their necks.