Up until recently, I would have described myself as a spiritual seeker. While my perspective on “seeking” has changed, I wouldn’t exactly call myself enlightened. I would however say that I am fairly educated in religion, spirituality, and philosophy. Far from being a scholar, I feel like I have an untapped talent for communicating what I have learned with a fresh perspective.

But let’s start from the beginning, I was baptized at El Carmen Catholic Church and went through catechism classes. I went to church pretty much every Sunday, from what I recall, and started singing with the Church choir around the 3rd or 4th grade. There was a period in which I was the only member of my household to attend church, although not by choice.

While I don’t recall when I began to question the bible or the Missalette, I do recall a growing uneasiness with the teachings of the church, especially as I entered Middle School. I don’t remember a specific sermon or mass that touched on the subject, but clearly, there was an issue that was of great concern to me, the topic of homosexuality, as it related to my questioning self and to that of one of my first close friends, who was openly bisexual at the time. Of course, there were other factors that I will not go into at this time, but I was left with a crippling fear of making morally “wrong” choices, and this wasn’t limited to the big stuff. Everything became a moral dilemma.

For instance, I recall one childhood experience in which my grandfather and godfather took me to a Spurs game. They bought me a big Dr. Pepper from the concession stand. I took a few sips when I suddenly remembered I had given up Dr. Pepper for Lent. What was I to do? My family had gone out of their way to buy me a Dr. Pepper and a large one at that. How would they react if I told them now that I had changed my mind? What if I told them the truth? How would they react if they knew I had broken my sacrifice to God? Oh my God, it’s the Jumbo Tron! What if it catches me in the act of drinking this Dr. Pepper and then displays it to my family at home who are fully aware I have given up Dr. Pepper for Lent and are watching the basketball game right now? Worried about what to do I set the cup on the floor between my feet. At least I will not get caught on the jumbo Tron. I looked around to see if my grandfather and godfather saw me NOT drinking the soda they just bought. Finally, I accidentally kicked the soda over spilling it everywhere causing my family to be angry with me, but at least I was saved from having to decide to drink or not to drink. I felt temporary relief. That is until the next thing.

I began to rebel against the idea of being sent off to church by myself and eventually stopped attending altogether at the age of 16. I had completed first communion and confession but left before the sacrament of confirmation. After I left the church, I moved to LA for a few months to pursue my acting career. Upon my return, although I did not return to Catholicism, I attended services at various “non-denominational” Christian churches. I had a family member who was church hopping, so I was carted along to churches of various sizes from the humble hole in the wall that claimed to have a list of “every celebrity that sold their soul to the devil” and bunkered at the church during Y2K, to televised churches such as Cornerstone. I even attended my high school girlfriend’s Baptist church. Unfortunately, the message I always received was that of hate and I did not resonate with their teachings. I would say that they were more blatantly open with their hatred. The Catholic church I experienced was more reserved in comparison. Oh sure, Homosexuality is wrong. Let’s just not talk about it and then confess our sins at the end of the day.

After High School, I attended the University of the Incarnate Word where I continued my religious education. I took two courses: “World Religions” and “God and Human Sexuality”. I also took “Intro to Philosophy.” Taking these classes opened me up to new perceptions of religion, life, and spirituality.

As part of the experience in World Religions, we received credit for visiting religions from various cultures. The options in Texas though seemed limited. I visited a Buddhist temple where I observed meditation services. I gave Catholic mass another try. Then I started visiting other denominations such as Methodist and Lutheran. Furthermore, I worked at San Antonio College where I worked as a sound and lighting technician during a weekly Methodist church service and overheard some of their teachings. While I enjoyed some of the familiar rituals of the Catholic church, I felt most at home in the Buddhist temple. The other congregations: however, felt icky, a sermon that did not set right, or a congregation that looked like the children from Village of the Damned: platinum blonde hair, pale white skin, and blue or green eyes. Creepy. No diversity. This was the exact opposite of what I grew up with having come from a largely Hispanic culture.

With the further development of the internet and “YouTube,” I began traveling down a rabbit hole of all things spiritual. I have recently returned to this rabbit hole and rediscovered some of my favorite spiritual teachings. It is these teachings that I will be exploring in my blog, “Soupernatural.”

This blog does not pretend to know everything about anything. From the finite perspective, I believe “all truths are but half truths,” as related to the Hermetic principle of Polarity in The Kybalion: A Study of the Hermetic Philosophy of Ancient Egypt and Greece by Three Initiates”. I also believe that only from the God or infinite perspective can truth be viewed from an infinite lens.

I am especially intrigued by the early Christian texts that were not included in The Bible, ancient, banned books that pre-date some of the gospels that can be found in The Bible today. These books, particularly the teachings of the Gnostic Christians (some of them anyway – most especially “The Gospel of Thomas”) resonate within me and seem to hold truer to the origins of Christianity, seemingly untarnished by centuries of manipulation for power and wealth, as well as mistranslations and the removal of language from its historical and cultural context.

Let me be clear, I believe that there is truth to be found in the Bible in the same way that there is truth to be found in All that is. It is dual from our finite perspective which can lead to the never-ending conflict of good vs. evil, light and dark, us vs. them. Infinity; however, is impossible to describe. The human language is not capable of defining God as God is not definite. God is infinite. Any religion that proposes to know All that God is places limitations on God, as God is limitless, everything AND no-thing.

This was not a conclusion I reached overnight. The pursuit of my acting career led me back to LA in 2006 after graduating from college. I was looking for a job that was flexible and had seen someone boarding the bus with a massage table. At the time I was heavily into believing in signs, so I was looking for meaning in everything, sometimes to my detriment. I took this to mean I should attend massage school. It would only take me a year and I could have a flexible high paying gig that would allow me to make my schedule while not having to wait tables. Well, it wasn’t quite that simple. I do believe; however, that I was meant to go to that school, California Healing Arts College, which I graduated from around 2009, but not for the same reason as I thought. They first introduced me to concepts such as The Law of Attraction, which I still go back and forth on, but the point is that this opened me up to viewing all matter as energy in motion as opposed to the solid illusion that we see. I was introduced to documentaries such as The Secret and What the Bleep Do We Know!?

Soon after I was introduced to Nichiren Buddhism; a branch of Mahayana Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist Nichiren. I began chanting Nam Myoho Renge Kyo and for a while, I felt in rhythm with the universe. I felt that the words didn’t matter, which is arguable of course as I never fully delved into the Lotus Sutra, but again I felt that it was the intention behind the words that was important. I vacillated between selfish and altruistic thoughts about what I wished to manifest into existence. World Peace. Car. World Peace. Role. I had to tackle all my bases. The energy I started with suddenly fizzled out when I stopped getting what I wanted.

In 2011, I moved back to Texas, a predominately Christian state where discussing the foreign concepts of other religions and spiritualities was like a slap in the face to most people, met with bitter outrage that you would dare question the foundation of their existence. There was no open-mindedness or discourse to be encouraged.

To enjoy my blog or any of my other writings on this website, you don’t have to agree with everything that I say, you just have to be open-minded to hearing about other perspectives on religion, spirituality, politics as they relate to human rights, and philosophy on what this human experience actually means. In the spirit of openness, I will tackle topics regardless of whether I believe them or not.