In My Lifetime

Second Life Reflection | February 12, 2012 "Courage to Change"

 We provide the readings, reflection, and a listing of music from our service each week at Sunshine Cathedral in Second Life. If you were unable to attend or simply do not use Second Life we are delighted to share this portion of our service with you.

Join us each week at Sunshine Cathedral in Second Life.  Download the software and make your avatar at http://www.secondlife.com.  Search Sunshine Cathedral in Classifieds to find your way to us.  We meet each Sunday  at 5pm EST/ 2pm SLT  My name in Second Life is CristoferAslan Muircastle.

We look forward to having you at service!

Click on the grey bar below to hear this week's reflection:

 

Courage to Change

 

(*Text for the reflection at the bottom of this page)

The Lessons

Isaiah 40.28-31 (NRSV)

28Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. [God] does not faint or grow weary…29[God] gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless. 30Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; 31but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.

The Wisdom of Shakti Gawain (Creative Visualization)
The most powerful thing you can do to change the world, is to change your own beliefs about the nature of life, people, reality, to something more positive… and begin to act accordingly.

 

Readings 021212

Gospel Reading

Mark 1.29-39 (NRSV)

29As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30Now Simon’s mother-in-law was in bed with a fever, and they told him about her at once. 31He came and took her by the hand and lifted her up. Then the fever left her, and she began to serve them. 32That evening, at sundown, they brought to him all who were sick or possessed with demons. 33And the whole city was gathered around the door. 34And he cured many who were sick with various diseases, and cast out many demons; and he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. 35In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed.

36And Simon and his companions hunted for him. 37When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” 38He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also; for that is what I came out to do.” 39And he went throughout Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons.

 

Gospel 021212

 

 

Music

 Serenity (feat. Marc Evans)    7:05    Studio Apartment    Defected In the House Eivissa 2008    Dance      

Healing Power    6:02    Tina Turner, Dechen Shak-Dagsay & Regula Curti    Beyond (Buddhist and Christian Prayers)    New Age        6 

Healing    5:17    Dion    I Put Away My Idols    Christian & Gospel        4

Serenity    4:02    Olivia Newton-John    Stronger Than Before    Pop       

Compassion    4:44    Todd Rundgren    Healing    Rock        1

 

*Text of today's reflection

Courage to Change

As we begin our look at the readings for today I want to first go to the gospel story relating Jesus and the others coming into Simon’s home after what probably was a long morning service at synagogue where Jesus taught and debated those there. You will remember from last week’s episode that Jesus had healed a man with an unclean spirit during that service and his fame began to spread from that act.  In our reading from Mark’s gospel this week Jesus enters the home and finds Simon’s mother-in-law sick in bed with a fever. And Jesus does what Jesus does! He goes to her, takes her by the hand, and immediately the fever left her. And then the text says “she began to serve.”

I’ve heard this text preached many, many times sometimes insinuating and sometimes saying outright that Simon’s mother’s duty was to serve Jesus after the healing.  So I want to address this first so that we can begin to look more closely at the entirety of what we see in today’s readings.  I want to say unequivocally that tying this woman’s healing to some kind of “quid pro quo” for her serving them cheapens the healing miracle and sends a message to oppressed people that we do not want to mindlessly reinforce. Anytime we mindlessly or mindfully tie God’s healing and liberating action in the world to the recipient’s duty to serve those in authority we are dangerously close to reinscribing the kinds of control mechanisms that have been used to press religion into the service of empire in the form of oppressing and controlling people. 

A feminist liberation view of this passage might attempt to see her service from her point of view.  Perhaps her gratitude motivated her to want to be of service to Jesus and his friends. Perhaps her commitment to her family motivated her to make this offering. But regardless it’s important that we see her action as the result of her own agency, her own choice, and not as some divinely ordained pattern for how we are supposed to respond to help, support, healing, or encouragement from our authority figures. I choose to believe that Jesus healed this woman because she was sick, not because he needed someone to make his dinner and wait on him and his friends.

Now let’s look a little deeper into these readings in general. Jesus is acting both as the Great Physician capable of healing those around him and as someone who is taking responsibility for his own well-being.  The gospel relates that he goes our early in the morning for his own time of quiet reflection, alone, apart, and without regard for how others might “view” him. He’s unmoved by the disciples annoyance with him and simply tells them what he plans to do next on his path. Jesus is modeling for us the saying, “physician heal thyself” that we have heard.  In the midst of healing others Jesus is seen here taking care of himself making sure that his spirit gets what it needs as well.

Our reading from Isaiah also reminds us that our strength comes from God and that God is the source of our power.  This reading reminds us that even those of us who are young will become tired and falter.  We must remember to pace ourselves and look to God for our strength. The reading begins with the past tense echo of the Shema… Hear O Israel. Listen!  It says, “Have you not known? Have you not heard? This sounds like God imploring us to listen to our own truth, to listen to our own interior knowing about when we need rest or refreshment.

Our second reading today is from Shakti Gawain, one of my all time favorites. I’ve known about her for decades. Her message has never waivered… She urges us to live with mindfulness so that we can live balanced lives that keep us living in or moving toward wholeness.

Our reading today speaks to our call to do something to change the world.  I speak with some degree of confidence in assuming that this is the animating principle behind every one of our ministries… the desire to do something to leave the world a better place.

It’s shocking to have this very short reading today that teaches us that the ONE thing we can do to put us on and keep us on the path to changing the world is to change our beliefs about the nature of life, people, and reality to something more positive…. More hopeful, expecting the best and then acting accordingly. 

It reminds me of the reality that the only thing I really have the power to change is my own attitudes.  Many times changing these attitudes changes my behavior. But to be sure changing my attitude must precede any attempt to change my behavior if I expect it to have lasting results.  And most of us are well aware that trying to change others is something that simply cannot be done.  But changing our own attitudes can model for others the kinds of changes that we hope for and seek in them.

With all of this in mind I would like to end today with the Serenity prayer.  This little prayer by Reinhold Neibuhr is the recipe for a successful and happy life in my opinion. It is well used in 12 step groups and certainly is a formula for happiness, success, and ministry.  So as I say the prayer today I invite you to join me using your own voice, wherever you are, whatever you are doing.  Speak it out loud so that you can hear it’s wisdom in your own voice. Speak it aloud with me so that we can together affirm it’s simple beauty together as an act of corporate prayer. In so doing let us be reminded that the one thing we can change is our own attitude and that knowledge is the key to freedom, happiness, and service. Let us say the Serenity Prayer together. 

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

The courage to change the things I can,

And the Wisdom to know the difference.

Amen.

 

Second Life Reflection |Christmas Day, December 25, 2011 "The Reason for the Season"

 

It's Christmas at Sunshine Cathedral on Second Life. Below are the readings, my reflection, and some music selections for this holy time.

Join us each week at Sunshine Cathedral in Second Life.  Download the software and make your avatar at http://www.secondlife.com.  Search Sunshine Cathedral in Classifieds to find your way to us.  We meet each Sunday  at 5pm EST/ 2pm SLT  My name in Second Life is CristoferAslan Muircastle.

We look forward to having you at service!

Click the grey strip below to play sermon audio:

The Reason for the Season

(*Text for the reflection at the bottom of this page)

The Lessons

Psalm 98.1-2, 4-6

O sing to the Lord a new song, for God has done marvelous things…God…has revealed divine justice in the sight of the nations. Make a joyful noise to the Holy One, all the earth; break forth into joyous song and sing praises. Sing praises…with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the Eternal

The Wisdom of Eric Sevareid

“Christmas is a necessity. There has to be at least one day of the year to remind us that we’re here for something else besides ourselves.”

Readings Christmas 2011

Luke 2.15-20

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let us go now to Bethlehem and see this thing that has taken place…So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger. When they saw this, they made known what had been told them about this child; and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen, as it had been told them.

Gospel Christmas 2011

Music

Joy to the World    2:06    Johnny Cash    Christmas With Johnny Cash    Holiday   

Light These Lights    4:28    Debbie Friedman    Songs of the Spirit: The Debbie Friedman Anthology    Pop   

Ave Maria    3:52    Wynonna Judd    A Classic Christmas    Holiday   

O Little Town Of Bethlehem    2:11    Ella Fitzgerald    A Christmas Tapestry    Holiday   

Earth and All Stars    3:30    The American Boychoir    Harmony: American Songs of Faith    World   

Universal Child    4:14    Annie Lennox    A Christmas Cornucopia    Holiday   

Love Came Down At Christmas    3:04    Shawn Colvin    Holiday Songs and Lullabies    Easy Listening   

* Reflection Text

The Reason for the Season 

Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah!  This year those two greetings coincide in a very real way.  Today is Christmas Day, the day we celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth who revealed to us the presence of the Christ in the world.  And tonight is also the sixth candle of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights that continues for eight days.  So today let’s talk a bit about both of these religious “holy” days.

Hanukkah is a beautiful tradition of lighting candles each night for eight days.  It originates in a group called the Maccabees restoring honor to the temple and refusing to capitulate to the Roman empire who demanded that they stop their religious practices and conform to government decreed practices that mirrored their own religious traditions. 

Hanukkah is about religious freedom. And there is nothing more beautiful or more moving than the candles of a menorah lit fully in the dark night of winter on the eighth night of Hanukkah. It’s a beautiful symbol of light in the darkest days of winter and the triumph of the human spirit exercising it diversity and its right to liberty and freedom.

Today we have here in our midst a fully lit menorah.  We bring this symbol into our midst today to honor and celebrate the fact that it is our responsibility to learn about other religious traditions so that we can honor religious freedom for ourselves by learning about others’ traditions and honoring their right to express their traditions just as we have a right to express our own.

So now let us go to Bethlehem and see the baby lying in a manger there. Let us fully appreciate that his parents were traveling under duress.  They were mandated to travel to Bethlehem, the place of Joseph’s birth, to register for the Roman census. This count of people was used to determine taxes on the occupied people.

It didn’t matter that Mary was pregnant and nearly ready to deliver. It didn’t matter that the journey was long. It only mattered that the empire mandated that the people be counted in a certain way for the purpose of taxing them and keeping them oppressed and living under occupied rule.

 

But the baby came in the baby’s time… the way babies do.  And so they needed privacy for the birth but could not find it in human accommodations. And so they end up in a stable with fresh hay in a manger, a feeding trough for the animals.   When he is born he’s wrapped in strips of cloth and laid there as his mother rests and his father watches over them.

But shepherds in the field saw a light in the sky and heard the angels singing.  They were told of the birth of this child. And they came, as we do today, to the manger in the stable to visit the child and wonder at God’s goodness in the face of a newborn child.

Every year we celebrate this birth as the symbol of the value of every human life.  And every year we are moved to acts of charity and goodness that otherwise throughout the year we decry as foolishness.  But this is not the message of Christmas.  This holy day that we celebrate with gifts and goodness is the essence of what we are called to live our every day of the year as Christians. 

We are not called to celebrate only the birth of the child Jesus but to be concerned, vitally concerned with the wellbeing of EVERY child born on this earth.  Every human baby comes into this world made in the image of the creator we say we worship. But we act as if some images of God are more valuable than others…. Those who have light skin, those who speak English without and accent, those who identify as Christian rather than some other religion.  It’s ironic that some who call themselves Christian and insist it is the ONLY way to experience God forget to remember that the baby Jesus was born a Jew, circumcised on the eighth day after his birth and presented to God in the temple as was his parent custom.

As we close the curtain on yet another Christmas Day in this year of our Lord 2011 let us agree together to endeavor to keep Christmas not only today but every day of our lives in 2012.  We will need to help each other.  Old habits die hard.  But we can develop an attitude of gratitude and an outlook of love and grace just as easily as we have cultivated pessimism, greed, and judgementalism fueled by the media manipulations of our modern culture.

The great Albert Einstein said, “Either nothing is a miracle or everything is a miracle.” I choose the later.  I’ve been in the room when a baby was born. I’ve felt the burst of psychic energy that comes forth with the cry of a newborn child.  I’ve felt the space in my own heart open where just a moment before there was no space to love another.  All of these things are miraculous to behold.

Just as miraculous as the birth of the baby Jesus, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. Let us now go to Bethlehem to once again behold the miracle and hear the angels sing.

 

Amen.

 

Second Life Reflection | April 24, 2011 Easter "Falling in Love"

The music and  lessons for this week are listed below the audio.  Join us each week at Sunshine Cathedral in Second Life.  Download the software and make your avatar at http://www.secondlife.com.  Search Sunshine Cathedral in Classifieds to find your way to us.  We meet each Saturday at 5pm EDT/ 2pm SLT  My name in Second Life is CristoferAslan Muircastle.

We look forward to having you at service!

Falling in Love

 

Music

Resurrection by Nicol Sponberg on Resurrection (Bonus Track Version)

Easter Song by 2nd Chapter of Acts on Encores 

Earth and All Stars by The American Boychoir on Harmony: American Songs of Faith

Holy Week  by Jess Hawk Oakenstar on Your Heart Will Show You

The Strife Is O'er by Saint Michael's Singers on Christ Triumphant

 

The Lessons

The Wisdom of Rabindranath Tagore  (Sadhana)

“Every morning the day is reborn among the newly blossomed flowers with the same message retold and the same assurance renewed that death eternally dies, that the waves of turmoil are on the surface, and that the sea of tranquility is fathomless.”

The Wisdom of Max A. Coots     (found in Singing the Living Tradition)

“We need a celebration that speaks the Spring-inspired word about life and death, about us as we live and die, through all the cycling seasons, days, and years. We need the sense of deity to crack our own hard, brown, December husks and push life out of inner tombs and outer pain. Unless we move the seasons of the self, and Spring can come for us, the Winter will go on and on.”

Matthew 28.1-11 (NIV)

 1After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb. 2There was a violent earthquake, for an angel…came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like [corpses]. 5The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6He is not here; he has risen…Come and see the place where he lay. 7Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.’ Now I have told you.”

8So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell  [the others] to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

 

 

Second Life Reflection | April 16, 2011 Help Us! Save Us!

The music and  lessons for this week are listed below the audio.  Join us each week at Sunshine Cathedral in Second Life.  Download the software and make your avatar at http://www.secondlife.com.  Search Sunshine Cathedral in Classifieds to find your way to us.  We meet each Saturday at 5pm EDT/ 2pm SLT  My name in Second Life is CristoferAslan Muircastle.

We look forward to having you at service!

  NOTE! There is a "mis-speak" in the audio this week. When I say that Hosanna is from an Arabic word I MEAN to say Aramaic word. Big difference. Very sorry.

Help Us! Save Us!

 

 

Music

Palm Sunday Processional by Gary Daigle, Rory Cooney & Theresa Donohoo on This Very Morning

In the Palm of Your Hand by Alison Krauss on Now That I've Found You: A Collection 

Holy Week  by Jess Hawk Oakenstar on Your Heart Will Show You

Lessons

The Wisdom of Jeffrey Moses  (Oneness: Great Principles Shared by all Religions)

 “In today’s world, it is vital to understand that disagreements and conflicts between people or nations cannot be resolved through force. All religions are in complete agreement on this. Conquering others with force merely imprisons them. It does not remove the reasons underlying the conflict. Rather, it increases the tension and inevitably gives rise to even greater animosity.

Love, in contrast, is a unifying force. It radiates outward to resolve differences. It is not that the differences dissolve and are lost, but that they are integrated into a greater whole in which they are made more useful and beautiful. Love conquers before there is fighting. Even if channels of communication have broken down and fighting breaks out, the underlying attitude should still be one of love and unification by love.”

From the Wisdom of Kahlil Gibran

“Wisdom ceases to be wisdom when it becomes too proud to weep, too grave to laugh, and too selfish to seek other than itself.”

Matthew 21.1-3, 6-11 (NIV)

 As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethpage on the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples, ²saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and at once you will find a donkey tied there, with her colt by her. Untie them and bring them to me. ³If anyone says anything to you, tell him that the [Teacher] needs them, and he will send them right away.” ⁶The disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them. ⁷They brought the donkey and the colt, placed their cloaks on them, and Jesus sat on them. ⁸A very large crowd spread their cloaks on the road, while others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. ⁹The crowds that went ahead of him and those that followed shouted, ”Hosanna to the Son of David!” ”Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” “Hosanna in the highest!”  ¹⁰When Jesus entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred and asked, “Who is this?” ¹¹The crowds answered, “This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth in Galilee.”

Second Life Reflection April 9, 2011| Dry Bones or Raised to New Life?

The lessons for this week are listed below the audio.  Join us each week at Sunshine Cathedral in Second Life.  Download the software and make your avatar at http://www.secondlife.com.  Search Sunshine Cathedral in Classifieds to find your way to us.  We meet each Saturday at 5pm EDT/ 2pm SLT  My name in Second Life is CristoferAslan Muircastle.

We look forward to having you at service!

 

Dry Bones or Raised to New Life_

Music

Dry Bones by The Persuasions on Sunday Morning Soul    

Lazarus by Scott Krippayne on Life Is Precious - A Wes King Tribute

Live While I'm Alive by Jenny Jordan Frogley on Beautiful Life                 

 

 

The Lessons

Ez. 37.1, 3-12, 14

 ¹ The Divine hand…was upon me, and…set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. ³ A Voice asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” I said, “O Sovereign, you alone know.” ⁴ Then the Voice said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of divine Life! ⁵ This is what the ETERNAL says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. ⁶ I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the HOLY ONE.’ “ ⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them ⁹ Then the Voice said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, mortal, and say to it, ‘This is what the ETERNAL says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’ ” ¹⁰ So I prophesied…and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.¹¹ Then the Voice said to me: “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ ¹² Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what your God says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back…¹⁴ I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I have spoken, and I have done it.’ ”

 

 John 11.32-39a, 41-44

 ³²When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” ³³When Jesus saw her weeping, and the others who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. ³⁴“Where have you laid him?” he asked. ”Come and see,” they replied.  ³⁵Jesus wept. ³⁶Then the religious leaders said, “See how he loved him!” ³⁷But some of them said, “Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?” ³⁸Jesus, once more deeply moved, came to the tomb. It was a cave with a stone laid across the entrance. ³⁹“Take away the stone,” he said.  

 

 ⁴¹So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Abba, I thank you that you have heard me. ⁴²I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.” ⁴³When he had said this, Jesus called in a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out!” ⁴⁴The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, “Take off the grave clothes and let him go.”

 

My New Hero - Joel Burns

Just watch this. And then send the link to this blog or to the YouTube clip to everyone you know. This is the most compelling video I have ever watched.

Here it is folks... PROOF positive that a single person, using their voice, telling their story can change the world.  Tell me what you think...

 

Visit the Trevor Project for more information.

Queer Youth and Religious Debates Over Sexuality

Last Thursday night I left class a few minutes early so I could make my way to the Sperry Room in Andover Hall at Harvard Divinity School.  I wanted to be sure I got a good seat for the panel of scholars and activists that were gathered there for a panel discussion on the topic "Queer Youth and Religious Debates Over Sexuality."  I thought it was a hastily assembled panel set against the news in the past month of 4 suicides of young people whose sexuality or gender identity was questioned and who had been bullied and violated emotionally by their peers and classmates. 

When I arrrived with my companion we found out way to some of the few seats left in the large hall. The first thing of note as we entered the room was uniformed Harvard University police officers posted just inside each of the two entrances to the hall. Cheryl A. Giles of Harvard convened the gathering and to my surprise she indicated that this panel had been planned a year before. Her opening comments were stark in their tone and warning.  She acknowledged that the views expressed by the panel would surely not conform to everyone's ideas about the topic and warned that any disruption to the proceedings would result in being escorted from the hall by one of the uniformed officers.  My stomach sank.  Had we really come to this?  Police officers in a lecture hall at Harvard Divinity School on a Thursday night in October.

I made some notes on each panelists presentations.  It's important to remember that these are my recollections filtered through my own experience and may or may not resemble the presenter's intentions.

Mark D. Jordan, Richard Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Divinity, Havard University

Queer adults have been forbidden to care for and be mentors to queer youth. We have a responsiblity to support organizations that do care for queer youth.

Anita Bryant had to confuse homosexuality with violent sexual abuse in order to make a case against homosexuals.

We must not allow the idea to persist that it is not possible to be both religious and queer.  The language of tolerance cannot combat religious language against queer people. "We can't help queer youth if we deny them." We must move beyond tolerance in churches to celebrating and helping youth grow into both their sexuality and their spirituality.

We must help them know they are not condemned and that they do not have to give up religion to be queer. "Exile from religion cannot be the cost for beign gay."

 

Pam Garramone, Executive Director of Greater Boston PFLAG 

Churches are teaching us to hate. According to research done by Dr. Caitlin Ryan, when children "come out" as LGBT to them:

30% disown the child, 50% say "I love you" but be quiet about this, 17% accept the situation, only 3% celebrate the news.  Children are 8 times more likely to commit suicide if parents reject their child upon coming out as LGBT.

 

Irene Monroe, public theologian, writer, activist, www.irenemonroe.com

"I have to find creative ways to reach my people."  She wrote for the "gay rags." What role does the church play in promoting unsafe sexual practices?

Discussions of the historical precidents that have formed the "Black Church" in the US today.  Images of over sexualized male African Americans and exotic African American women that have been historically rapped and used by their white male oppressors have driven sterotypes of people of African descent and forced black people into an "us vs. them" mentality that leaves the "Black Church" as sole arbiter of Christian response.  Her discussions of the destructive nature of white racism drew parallels to the destructive nature of rhetoric against LGBT people and the role many churches and faith traditions play in that power dynamic.

Grace Sterling Stowell, Executive Director, BAGLY

A transgender woman who has worked for gender justice for 30 years, she called attention to the drastic need for conversations that include transgender youth.  Citing huge cutbacks in recent years she highlighted the need to support the organizations that are for, by, and with transgender youth.

Harry Knox, Director - Human Rights Campaign Religion and Faith Program

We older ones have done our best and it was hard. We need the vision of the young to move forward now. Young people must put their bodies on the line in the struggle. He cautioned youth LGBT activists not to "eat each other."  He said, "You will make mistakes so decide right now to forgive yourself and go on." 

Each person on this august panel spoke from their heart and each one had a profound impact on me.  But I must admit that Mark Jordan's remarks rang in my head along with a reference to a "comfortable silence" that I read in a column by Patrick Cheng or Debra Haffner last week.  Both has splendid articles Cheng in Huffington Post and Haffner in the Washington Post. Mark's comments seemed to speak directly to me. I was "convicted" as they say in the Baptist tradition to stand up and speak out, to come out and get loud, about the fact that no one can say that one can't be gay and Christian.... because I AM. 

That's why I let it all hang out last week in my sermon "I'm Different and I'm Beloved." I hope that you who read this post will do the same.  Stand up, speak out, defend every child and adult's right to name themselves with regard to gender, sexuality AND faith.  It's time we stopped letting the voices of conservative hate rule the day. It's time we speak out.

 

I'm Different and I'm Beloved - Second Life Reflection 10/9/10

Click the audio link below to hear the reflection on being different.

I'm Different and I'm Beloved

The Lessons

 The Wisdom of the Dalai Lama

 “May I become at all times,
Both now and forever,
A protector for those without protection
A guide for those who have lost their way
A ship for those with oceans to cross
A bridge for those with rivers to cross
A sanctuary for those in danger
A lamp for those without light
A place of refuge for those who lack shelter
And a servant to all in need.”

Luke 17:11-19 (NRSV)

On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When he saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He prostrated himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

 

A Little Bit Goes a Long Way - Second Life Reflection 10/2/10

 Click on the title below to hear the audio reflection on faith.

A Little Bit Goes a Long Way

The Lessons

The Wisdom of Ernest Holmes:

“God can only give us what we take, and since taking is a mental act, we can take only what we believe we already have! This is in accord with the teachings of Jesus: that when we pray, we must believe we already have the answer to our prayer.”

2 Timothy 1.6-7

I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands; for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice, but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.

Luke 17:5-6 (NRSV)

The apostles said to [Jesus], “Increase our faith!” The Lord replied, “If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you.

 

Virtual Church

A lot of my time these days is spent thinking about and "doing" Virtual Church.  Yes that's a confusing and diverse topic.  I recently spent a Sunday morning sermon at MCC Toronto and a workshop at the MCC Region 3 and 5 Conference trying to explain what I mean by that term.  It's complicated because everyone I meet seems to have their own idea of what it means.

Some people think it means podcasting sermons.  And it certainly can mean that.

Some people think it means webcasting church services. And it certainly can mean that.

Some people think it means multi-site congregations all seeing the same sermon broadcast from a single location.  And it certainly can mean that.

Some people think it means having a church service in Second Life, a virtual world based on gaming technology.  And it certainly can mean that.

Some people think it means archiving workshops or classes or lectures on various points of theology. And it certainly can mean that.

Or a Facebook page, or a Skype call, or a Twitter account or, or, or, or......

And in the end, the real question is .... How does Virtual Church move from technology to communion with God and our fellow human beings?  And what does it mean to be church anyway?

This post is just a beginning for beginning to post on the subject.  I'm very interested to hear what others think about the topic, "What is church?"  We know it's not a building, a denomination, a theological position, a charismatic leader.  But what is it?  Stay tuned and add your comments.  I'm looking forward to exploring the subject.