Presby-Musings

Today is New Year's Eve, and as I woke up this morning I couldn't help but reflect on how excited I was on this day last year.   After the dumpster fire of a year that we'd all experienced, I was ready to celebrate and move forward. All I wanted was to put 2020 in the rearview mirror.  I know I was not alone in this---pretty much the entire population of Everywhere was on the same page.  And, like many of you, I rang in 2021 with friends and family with no small measure of joy and expectation.   It's safe to say that 2021 didn't fail to disappoint.  It didn't come in like a lion and go out like a lamb.  It came in like the Tasmanian Devil on the Looney Tunes cartoons and appears to be going out much the same way, leaving a path of busted-up stuff in its wake.  Listen, it's understandable if you are considering some moderation when it comes to your hopes and dreams for the coming new year.  I completely get it.  So this year, if you ...

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent---I think a cheer is in order.  It's hard to believe but we are on the home stretch toward Christmas Eve and Christmas Day people! But we're not there quite yet.  The journey through Advent has a few more twists and turns, and moments like today when we pause for a moment to think deeply about what we are really anticipating during this season of anticipation.   On this Fourth Sunday of Advent we turn our thoughts toward peace---not the kind of peace that is merely the absence of war or conflict, but the kind that the One who we call the Prince of Peace brings.   The kind of peace we're talking about here is the peace that according to the Scriptures "passes all understanding," or more plainly put: It defies the imagination.  I have to tell you it would be great to feel some peace right about now, wouldn't it?  Have you experienced a moment or two during the past many months when all you wanted was just a momen...

Today is the Third Sunday of the Season of Advent.  For those of you who might not be all that up on your church-y stuff, Advent is a historic season within the Church where those of us who call ourselves Christians actually anticipate the arrival of the Messiah, Jesus the Christ.   I get it.  We're anticipating something that happened a long time ago, which seems like a paradox or at the very least kind of weird.   But this is what Christians do, we long for the arrival of Jesus in a spiritual sense of course, but I could also argue that we do so in an emotional sense as well.   I mean who doesn't want the world to be a better place, am I right? So we unashamedly long for a better world, and we long for the presence of the Christ, who comes to us just when it seems as though there isn't any hope... when it seems as though it's darker than it's ever been.  And on this particular day of Advent, we declare that we anticipate the joy we will fee...

When I was growing up, we went to church all the time, so we were constantly getting instructions on how to live like a "real Christian."   Seriously, we were at church for Sunday school and then "church" (we didn't call it worship) after that, all of which was a four-hour commitment, including at least a half-hour for our weekly "altar call."  Then we went to Wednesday night "prayer meeting," which was also when my youth group would meet, and my youth director would preach straight up sermons to us every week.     Also, I went to Christian schools from the time I entered kindergarten until I graduated high school, and had to attend mandatory "Bible class" every single grade level.  Like a lot of Christian communities, the one within which I was raised emphasized biblical literacy, understanding the basics of Christian doctrine, and of course, being able to argue and defend your faith to "non-believers" through something c...

Thirty-seven years ago this week, I went through orientation at Walt Disney World where I would go on to work for the next ten years in three different parks, and a variety of roles.   I learned a lot of things that day that have managed to stick with me over the past nearly four decades.  One of those things was a speech that was given by one of our trainers about not letting an irate guest get the best of you.   They told us that we would likely encounter thousands of people every day, and there might be at most one or two of those thousands that would be angry, nasty, combative, and the like.  "Don't let one person out of thousands ruin your day," was the basic message, and it was a good and wise one.  Here's an aphorism that should accompany that message, though:  "Easier said than done."  There's something about being human that makes us internalize negativity a whole lot faster than positivity.  Not only do we process negativity fa...

Fr. Anthony de Mello once told the story of a British man who discovered a relic from World War II buried in his garden---an exploded bomb that had fallen from a German plane some decades before.  Being a sensible person, the man decided the only thing to do about it was to deliver the bomb to the authorities, so he boarded a bus, holding the bomb in a bag on his lap.   The curious bus driver asked what was in the bag, and when the man told him it was an unexploded bomb, the driver got agitated.  "Look here, mate," he told the man, "you can't go sittin' a bleedin' bomb on your lap out in the open like that.  You got to put that under your seat, mate. Go on then."   That story made me smile when I read it, but it also reveals a shadowy truth about human beings that is no laughing matter.   We often hide potentially explosive things about ourselves from other people, but we most often hide them from ourselves as well.  As long as they are ...

Let me share a little secret with you... when I write these Devos, most of the time I am writing them to myself before I even think about the fact that hundreds of you will read them.   I often share my own struggles, wrestle with my own questions, get vulnerable, show anger, talk about grief and depression, and anxiety...  not so anyone will think that I am brave, but because I don't know any other way to do this.   Along the way, I've discovered that there are more than a few others who tend to share some of the same struggles I'm describing as I write.  We're all connected, after all.  It's good to know we're not alone.  Out of all of the topics I write about, the one that seems to land the hardest on most of us is the topic of forgiveness.   Quite honestly, the feelings I feel when it comes to the idea of forgiving myself and others, are marked with angst, dread, anger, frustration and sorrow.  Oh, and mix some shame up in there...

Grace and peace dear readers!  I will be taking the next couple of days off from working and writing this week--but never fear, I'll be back on Monday!  Have a great rest of your week, and I hope you enjoy today's Devo.  There's this phrase that gets bandied about in church-y world, and I used to think that it was just one of those things that church-y people said, like "I'll be praying for you," or "God doesn't give you more than you can handle."  By the way, that last thing is not in the Bible, no matter how many times people try to say it is.  So back to the phrase that I mentioned, and which is almost assuredly familiar to you in one way or another:   Let go and let God.  I've heard that phrase my whole life---uttered by preachers, Sunday school teachers, youth leaders, random church-y people, you name it.  Heck, I've even said it a time or two.   Like I said, it's one of those phrases that I thought was only really shared withi...