http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/0/GTWJLhc47Ro
Is Jesus Relevant for LBGT People? Click the link above for a discussion that will show how Jesus can be a relevant symbol for Queer people today.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
The Hurt Feelings Game
Healing Rays: A Progressive, Positive, Practical Weekly Reflection
Here's a game I (inexplicably) like to play: The Hurt Feelings Game
Round 1 -
Someone hurts my feelings (it happens). But instead of shaking it off and enjoying the zillion wonderful things that are happening in my life, I obsess about that one tiny, silly, moment in time when someone forgot that my feelings were the most important things in the universe. Advance to Round 2.
Round 2 -
Now, I start to remember the 15 other times this person has hurt my feelings. This is the bonus round where I suddenly win a bunch-o-self-pity! Lucky me.
Round 3 -
I start to remember when other people have hurt my feelings. Oh, I'm on a roll now!
Round 4 -
I'm now telling myself how insignificant I am, what I loser I've become, and how dreary the world is. Gloom, doom, the sky is falling. There is nothing left to do but rent myself out as a speed bump.
Fifth and Final Round -
I'm wallowing in misery, so depressed I can barely function, all the while the Philistine who has stepped on my emotional toes (in all likelihood unintentionally) is going merrily on with his or her life. Game over. I lose. Wasn't that fun? Shall we play again?
Then I remember...my happiness doesn't exist outside of myself, and if I ever pretend that it does, I'm bound to end up playing this %*&# losing game. I can desire anything, but when I become attached to my desire, I've invited disappointment into my life (and disappointment is an excellent guest, never refusing an invitation!).
So someone didn't notice I lost half an ounce this week? So a friend didn't send me a card for Asparagus month? So someone I once cared deeply for and I have drifted apart and might never be close again? So someone thinks Rev. Hellfire has better theology than my hero, Rev. Godzluv? So someone really likes a political candidate that I'm sure has an allergy to sunlight and holy water? So someone doesn't think I'm a good dancer or a good cook or a good Jacks player (they are wrong, by the way! I was the first grade Jacks champion...my Dad was so proud!)? Is any of that so important in the grand scheme of things?
The point is, if someone has been intentionally unkind or unfair, I can confront them or even choose to end my association with them. But what I shouldn't do is dwell on the past and choose to be miserable over something I can't change. While I'm playing the Hurt Feelings Game, I'm missing wonderful opportunities to enjoy life now. Maybe you're like me and could benefit from releasing the past to the past (and yes, breakfast is already the past!), refusing to play the unwinnable Hurt Feelings Game, and starting to enjoy all the blessings that are here for us right now.
.................................................................................................................................... .............................
Availabl
e at Amazon.com
Wrestling With God Without Getting Pinned is an honest struggle to apply critical thinking and practical reason to the myths and metaphors of ancient scriptures. The author believes that creative writing can be true (and in fact can offer new truths as each reader approaches a text) without being factual. Wrestling With God...is an affirmation of truth that does not demand the literary symbols of scripture be taken literally. Rather than asking religion to redeem people, the writer is asking thinking people to redeem religion so that it can be relevant in the 21st century.
by Durrell Watkins
May 10, 2010
{Healing Rays is sent to an email subscription list each week and is published in the Sunshine Cathedral weekly newsletter, the Sun Burst}
The Hurt Feelings Game
{Healing Rays is sent to an email subscription list each week and is published in the Sunshine Cathedral weekly newsletter, the Sun Burst}
The Hurt Feelings Game
Here's a game I (inexplicably) like to play: The Hurt Feelings Game
Round 1 -
Someone hurts my feelings (it happens). But instead of shaking it off and enjoying the zillion wonderful things that are happening in my life, I obsess about that one tiny, silly, moment in time when someone forgot that my feelings were the most important things in the universe. Advance to Round 2.
Round 2 -
Now, I start to remember the 15 other times this person has hurt my feelings. This is the bonus round where I suddenly win a bunch-o-self-pity! Lucky me.
Round 3 -
I start to remember when other people have hurt my feelings. Oh, I'm on a roll now!
Round 4 -
I'm now telling myself how insignificant I am, what I loser I've become, and how dreary the world is. Gloom, doom, the sky is falling. There is nothing left to do but rent myself out as a speed bump.
Fifth and Final Round -
I'm wallowing in misery, so depressed I can barely function, all the while the Philistine who has stepped on my emotional toes (in all likelihood unintentionally) is going merrily on with his or her life. Game over. I lose. Wasn't that fun? Shall we play again?
Then I remember...my happiness doesn't exist outside of myself, and if I ever pretend that it does, I'm bound to end up playing this %*&# losing game. I can desire anything, but when I become attached to my desire, I've invited disappointment into my life (and disappointment is an excellent guest, never refusing an invitation!).
So someone didn't notice I lost half an ounce this week? So a friend didn't send me a card for Asparagus month? So someone I once cared deeply for and I have drifted apart and might never be close again? So someone thinks Rev. Hellfire has better theology than my hero, Rev. Godzluv? So someone really likes a political candidate that I'm sure has an allergy to sunlight and holy water? So someone doesn't think I'm a good dancer or a good cook or a good Jacks player (they are wrong, by the way! I was the first grade Jacks champion...my Dad was so proud!)? Is any of that so important in the grand scheme of things?
The point is, if someone has been intentionally unkind or unfair, I can confront them or even choose to end my association with them. But what I shouldn't do is dwell on the past and choose to be miserable over something I can't change. While I'm playing the Hurt Feelings Game, I'm missing wonderful opportunities to enjoy life now. Maybe you're like me and could benefit from releasing the past to the past (and yes, breakfast is already the past!), refusing to play the unwinnable Hurt Feelings Game, and starting to enjoy all the blessings that are here for us right now.
.................................................................................................................................... .............................
Availabl
e at Amazon.comWrestling With God Without Getting Pinned is an honest struggle to apply critical thinking and practical reason to the myths and metaphors of ancient scriptures. The author believes that creative writing can be true (and in fact can offer new truths as each reader approaches a text) without being factual. Wrestling With God...is an affirmation of truth that does not demand the literary symbols of scripture be taken literally. Rather than asking religion to redeem people, the writer is asking thinking people to redeem religion so that it can be relevant in the 21st century.
Should We Convert the Ones We Love?
Question: I am dating a non-Christian. I didn’t expect to fall in love with her, but I have. Now I’m concerned that our difference in religious outlook might become a problem. I grew up believing that Christians had the only true path to God. I don’t want to insult my girlfriend, but I feel like I should try to convert her too. What would you suggest?
Answer: Let’s consider the Golden Rule (treating others the way we would like to be treated). What if your girlfriend decided she needed to convert you to whatever her faith tradition is? Would you appreciate that? What if someone who claimed to love you had prejudged your entire faith experience as insufficient and tried to take it from you? You probably wouldn’t respond warmly to that.
Sometimes in our insecurity, we try to convince ourselves that we know all there is to know about the infinite, universal, eternal Principle of life (often referred to as “God”). We make ourselves feel better by pretending we are “in the club” and only people who agree with us can be in the club, too. This imaginary, exclusive club makes us feel “safe” or important or even superior to those who have different experiences and beliefs. We even find a proof-text or two from our scriptures (usually horribly out of context) to justify our “Christians are in and everyone else is out” attitudes. But the result is that those who don’t share our experience and views find us to be judgmental, unkind, arrogant, and sometimes even mean. Can that be the best way to honor the God that our tradition says is Love?
God, being omnipresent, is surely able to embrace us all. Our humanly constructed religions can help us feel and trust this closeness to the divine Reality, but the grace of God cannot be limited to our human understandings, scriptures, traditions, vocabularies, motives, or experiences. I would suggest that you continue being Christian because Christianity is the path that helped you believe in yourself and experience the goodness of God in your life; and allow your partner the joy of celebrating her tradition which has offered her the same gifts. And maybe, on occasion, you can even worship together…not as a way of changing the other, but as a way of sharing something important to someone you love.
Q&A with Pastor Durrell is a column in Sunshine Cathedral's newsletter, The Sun Burst.
Answer: Let’s consider the Golden Rule (treating others the way we would like to be treated). What if your girlfriend decided she needed to convert you to whatever her faith tradition is? Would you appreciate that? What if someone who claimed to love you had prejudged your entire faith experience as insufficient and tried to take it from you? You probably wouldn’t respond warmly to that.
Sometimes in our insecurity, we try to convince ourselves that we know all there is to know about the infinite, universal, eternal Principle of life (often referred to as “God”). We make ourselves feel better by pretending we are “in the club” and only people who agree with us can be in the club, too. This imaginary, exclusive club makes us feel “safe” or important or even superior to those who have different experiences and beliefs. We even find a proof-text or two from our scriptures (usually horribly out of context) to justify our “Christians are in and everyone else is out” attitudes. But the result is that those who don’t share our experience and views find us to be judgmental, unkind, arrogant, and sometimes even mean. Can that be the best way to honor the God that our tradition says is Love?
God, being omnipresent, is surely able to embrace us all. Our humanly constructed religions can help us feel and trust this closeness to the divine Reality, but the grace of God cannot be limited to our human understandings, scriptures, traditions, vocabularies, motives, or experiences. I would suggest that you continue being Christian because Christianity is the path that helped you believe in yourself and experience the goodness of God in your life; and allow your partner the joy of celebrating her tradition which has offered her the same gifts. And maybe, on occasion, you can even worship together…not as a way of changing the other, but as a way of sharing something important to someone you love.
Q&A with Pastor Durrell is a column in Sunshine Cathedral's newsletter, The Sun Burst.
Saturday, May 08, 2010
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
A New Thought
Spirit & Truth
Today is Wednesday, May 5, 2010.
A New Thought
“...your mind is a center of divine operation.” Genevieve Behrend
So much of religious thinking seems to promote a sense of victimization. People are taught to believe they are innately sinful and can only be “saved” by believing that God required a violent, atoning sacrifice (which only seems to work if people believe the story). What if instead of being innately sinful, the truth is we are innately good? What if there is nothing to be saved from other than our own fears? What if God is as close as our breath and by focusing on God’s goodness expressing through us we find we are actually persons of great potential, dignity, and power? Maybe we can change how we understand religion and thereby change how we understand ourselves!
God’s goodness is my Truth. God’s unconditional love is my experience. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins, Sunshine Cathedral
Today is Wednesday, May 5, 2010.
A New Thought
“...your mind is a center of divine operation.” Genevieve Behrend
So much of religious thinking seems to promote a sense of victimization. People are taught to believe they are innately sinful and can only be “saved” by believing that God required a violent, atoning sacrifice (which only seems to work if people believe the story). What if instead of being innately sinful, the truth is we are innately good? What if there is nothing to be saved from other than our own fears? What if God is as close as our breath and by focusing on God’s goodness expressing through us we find we are actually persons of great potential, dignity, and power? Maybe we can change how we understand religion and thereby change how we understand ourselves!
God’s goodness is my Truth. God’s unconditional love is my experience. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins, Sunshine Cathedral
To subscribe to Spirit & Truth magazine, send your name and address along with a donation of any size to Spirit & Truth, c/o Sunshine Cathedral, 1480 SW Ninth Ave, Ft Lauderdale, FL 33315. S&T will then be mailed to you monthly for a year.
Power of Clear Intention
Healing Rays: A Progressive, Positive, Practical Weekly Reflection
by Durrell Watkins May 3, 2010
The Power of Clear Intention
Clear intention works. When I get really clear in my mind about something, it's like I'm saying to the Universe, "Let's do this!" And things begin to happen.
One New Year's Eve I wrote goals for the New Year. One of my goals was to write a book. The book didn't happen that year, but in years since, I have written one-act plays, vignettes, three graduate theses, and six books. I love writing, and now I write all the time. But it all began with the clear intention, "I want to accomplish X."
Once I was clear about wanting to be ordained, the path to ordination unfolded. Once I was clear about wanting a Master's degree, I found myself in graduate school, and actually earned both a Masters of Arts degree and a Master of Divinity degree. I said out loud once that I wanted a doctorate degree by a certain age, and within two years of that stated goal, I had my doctorate.
For years I imagined living in New York City, and in my 30s, I did in fact live for almost 5 years in the New York metropolitan area (including 3 years in Manhattan itself). I always wanted to travel, but finally decided to do so. I have now been to 12 countries so far. I even attribute the power of intention to finding the person with whom I now share my life. There are some goals still in the works, and there are new goals to be formed. There are even previous goals that turned out to be little more than wishes, and they did not turn out as well (it would seem a committed goal is far more powerful than a mere wish). Lesson learned.
Your goals are as achievable as mine. Maybe instead of degrees, you want a career that makes a lot of money (why didn't that ever occur to me?!). Maybe instead of living in a particular city, you want to stop smoking. Maybe travel doesn't appeal to you, but learning to play an instrument does. Whatever your goal, once your intention is clear, opportunities begin to show up in support of your goal.
Do you have a worthwhile goal? Write it down. Speak it in prayer. Affirm that it is possible. Once you set those powerful forces in motion, something good is bound to happen.
The Power of Clear Intention
Clear intention works. When I get really clear in my mind about something, it's like I'm saying to the Universe, "Let's do this!" And things begin to happen.
One New Year's Eve I wrote goals for the New Year. One of my goals was to write a book. The book didn't happen that year, but in years since, I have written one-act plays, vignettes, three graduate theses, and six books. I love writing, and now I write all the time. But it all began with the clear intention, "I want to accomplish X."
Once I was clear about wanting to be ordained, the path to ordination unfolded. Once I was clear about wanting a Master's degree, I found myself in graduate school, and actually earned both a Masters of Arts degree and a Master of Divinity degree. I said out loud once that I wanted a doctorate degree by a certain age, and within two years of that stated goal, I had my doctorate.
For years I imagined living in New York City, and in my 30s, I did in fact live for almost 5 years in the New York metropolitan area (including 3 years in Manhattan itself). I always wanted to travel, but finally decided to do so. I have now been to 12 countries so far. I even attribute the power of intention to finding the person with whom I now share my life. There are some goals still in the works, and there are new goals to be formed. There are even previous goals that turned out to be little more than wishes, and they did not turn out as well (it would seem a committed goal is far more powerful than a mere wish). Lesson learned.
Your goals are as achievable as mine. Maybe instead of degrees, you want a career that makes a lot of money (why didn't that ever occur to me?!). Maybe instead of living in a particular city, you want to stop smoking. Maybe travel doesn't appeal to you, but learning to play an instrument does. Whatever your goal, once your intention is clear, opportunities begin to show up in support of your goal.
Do you have a worthwhile goal? Write it down. Speak it in prayer. Affirm that it is possible. Once you set those powerful forces in motion, something good is bound to happen.
....................................................................................................................................
Watch "Do Progressive Christians Believe in Jesus?" on Sharing the Light, Sunshine Cathedral's Webcast Talk Show.
.......................................................................................................................................
Wrestlin
g With God Without Getting Pinned is an honest struggle to apply critical thinking and practical reason to the myths and metaphors of ancient scriptures. The author believes that creative writing can be true (and in fact can offer new truths as each reader approaches a text) without being factual. Wrestling With God...is an affirmation of truth that does not demand the literary symbols of scripture be taken literally. Rather than asking religion to redeem people, the writer is asking thinking people to redeem religion so that it can be relevant in the 21st century.
Watch "Do Progressive Christians Believe in Jesus?" on Sharing the Light, Sunshine Cathedral's Webcast Talk Show.
.......................................................................................................................................
Wrestlin
g With God Without Getting Pinned is an honest struggle to apply critical thinking and practical reason to the myths and metaphors of ancient scriptures. The author believes that creative writing can be true (and in fact can offer new truths as each reader approaches a text) without being factual. Wrestling With God...is an affirmation of truth that does not demand the literary symbols of scripture be taken literally. Rather than asking religion to redeem people, the writer is asking thinking people to redeem religion so that it can be relevant in the 21st century.Available at Amazon.com
Monday, May 03, 2010
Sharing the Light: Progressive, Religious Webcast
Sharing the Light
Watch these episodes (and others) of Sharing the Light on the Sunshine Cathedral You Tube channel. Sharing the Light is a 10 minute talk show where spiritual, theological, ethical, and social issues are discussed by Sunshine Cathedral ministers.
Watch these episodes (and others) of Sharing the Light on the Sunshine Cathedral You Tube channel. Sharing the Light is a 10 minute talk show where spiritual, theological, ethical, and social issues are discussed by Sunshine Cathedral ministers.
Do Progressive Christians Believe in Jesus?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/0/rQhosYQSroM
The Danger of Biblolatry
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/0/tnbtFgkwe-g
The Danger of the Closet
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/0/gdxKVYosB9Q
Why Isn't Everyone Healed by Prayer?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/7/dHRhNSJ-23E
Can We Agree to Disagree About Same-gender Love?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/16/PnhCZtdO8ls
Hate the Sin...Love the Sinner?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/12/UOWckl38qjw
Gay & Christian
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/5/jOesUDnJp7o
Affirmative Prayer
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/6/q9SvRqRX-1U
Why Does God Allow Evil?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/8/74p1k5cNTB4
Does Positive Thinking Really Work?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/9/L5DjW2NhS9U
Where Do We Go When We Die?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/13/3MHEolRsbWQ
What Does Atonement Mean for Us?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/23/o1jN3GGVS3I
Why Healthy Religion Must Confront Heterosexism?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/48/J3nhm7sr6HY
Is the Bible the Word of God?
http://www.youtube.com/sunshinecathedral#p/u/57/RZEe0o2q4_E
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