Will catch up with topic next time..... quickly scanned Sky's and spiritual_emergency's posts and will consider them more carefully another day.

Just a quick reaction to one thing.... the gender question.... in my teachings and study I've come to believe its an issue of respect. Acknowledging diety as diety and human as human. Relating God to one gender or another is one of those things I tend to think of as 'humanizing diety' and not a good thing. It narrows my concept of God. I avoid as much as possible... though it is a challenge in written communications especially to avoid the gender references when referring to God but I do try to avoid gender references in my verbal language.

I'm not especially comfortable with using a 'name' to describe God. Perhaps its the strong Judeo influences in my teachings. Perhaps it the religious baggage that is attached to native people and the sufferings at religious residential schools. I've had to wrestle with that one alot when examining my acceptance of Christian doctrine as a person of native ancestry. Denying one to embrace another. Honouring my traditions while being a follower of Christ's teachings. Took me a long time to sort it all out for myself. To find Jesus in my traditions.

But again.... I digress as usually..... lol