Simple Spirituality

Healing Rays: A Progressive, Positive, Practical Weekly Reflectionby Durrell Watkins
February 8, 2010

Simple Spirituality
"I have an everyday religion that works for me. Love yourself first, and everything else falls into line." Lucille Ball

There was a time when I thought complicated religion was a sign of sophistication. Knowing creeds, memorizing prayers, knowing the rules, the rubrics, the stories, the traditions, the symbols made me feel smart and accomplished. But none of that really made me happy. At some point I realized that spirituality should be easy. In the 4th Gospel Jesus simply breathes on his disciples and says, "Receive the holy Spirit." Just relax. Let it happen. We can hear the spiritual message of hope in a song or poem. We can experience the spiritual power of love in a conversation. We can feel the comfort of spirit as we sit quietly and just breathe. As we love ourselves enough to simply be ourselves, we find that we are spiritually enriched in ways that complicated religion never offered. As we learn to live lovingly, generously, responsibly, compassionately, we'll find we experience divine Life in ways that are perfect for us. Religion then becomes not a way of knowing the Sacred, but of celebrating the Sacred that has always been expressing in, through, and as our lives.