This post is going to require a few confessions:

No. 1  – On long car rides alone I sometimes listen to country music… Just for a good cry.

That’s how I heard this Tim McGraw song “Drugs or Jesus”. Yes, Tim! Exactly! Even if it’s not exactly “Jesus” – it can be another word like God / Enlightenment / Allah / Stillness / Consciousness / Buddha-Nature / Goddess / Universal Oneness / Presence / Life / Spirit / Love / Awakening.

No. 2 – I tried lots of drugs in my lifetime… and smoked my share and your share of pot.

I liked pot, a lot. Hey, drugs (including alcohol) work!… for a while. They alter our state. If you are in a state that is uncomfortable, they are one option for changing that. Problem is they don’t last very long, cost a lot of money, lead to poor judgement, can make you act and look like an idiot, and then wreck your health just as a bonus.

I stopped smoking pot when the high started to feel less good than my natural state. I was as surprised as anyone! I had started doing yoga, dabbling in meditation, reading Gary Zukav and smoking less just because I wasn’t living in a college culture of Wanna-smoke-a-joint? anymore. So then one day when I had an opportunity and no obligations and joined in a little circle, I felt “Meh. Not a better state anymore.”

The Drugs or Jesus song’s message strikes me as a very loving perspective. I have seen and felt in the “spiritual” community a distaste and even disdain for drugs, alcohol, and people who use them even occasionally. Like opposing political parties both want peace and happy lives for their families, and like parents raising children with different methodology all want to foster healthy adults, and like people eating different diets can all want optimal health and planetary wellness… We’re all looking to feel better, function in the world, love ourselves, fit in, be content and relax. We’re just trying different paths at the moment.

As Tim says at the end of the song:

Everyone’s just looking for the truth.

May you find Truth and Love and Contentment 

on a path that is healthy for you and good for the world.