Presby-Musings

This past summer, while driving on the scenic Highway 1 in California, I stopped in the little town of Cambria on the coast of the Pacific Ocean to look around and have lunch.   During my stroll, I happened upon an A-frame sign that was set up outside of a shop with these words written on it:  Don’t let yesterday use up too much of today.  I took a photo of that sign with my phone because it spoke to me.  It spoke directly into the issues I’d been dealing with as I traveled and reflected on my life, the Universe, and everything.  You see, I have been spending an inordinate amount of time over the past year letting yesterday use up too much of my today.   I also expend way too much energy looking back on my mistakes, bad decisions, wrong turns, and all of the things I couldn’t control that negatively impacted my life.   And further, I also find myself projecting all of those worries into the future.   What gets lost in all this ...

I am sitting inside my little cottage high above the Pacific Ocean at the Hermitage of New Camaldoli in Big Sur, CA, the breeze from the chilly waters below is blowing through the open windows, and I can hear the sound of countless birds calling outside.  It’s pretty awesome, I must say.  There is no internet, no cell phone coverage, and the few others who are on retreat here are, like me, abiding by the rule of silence.   I’ll be honest, I’ve spoken to a few of the monks here, but only when they’ve talked to me and the various bookstore clerks, but that’s been sporadic at best.  What I’ve been doing, however, is trying to learn what it means to be quiet, disconnected from the world, and introspective.  When you have hours at a time with nothing but your own thoughts to keep you company, it can be challenging if you are someone like me.  I’m used to noise—and a lot of it.  Even now, I am listening to music, but it’s soft, introspective music, to b...

Just off the Royal Mile in Edinburgh is a beautiful little exhibit called the Writer’s Museum.  It’s dedicated almost entirely to three of Scotland’s finest authors: Sir Walter Scott, Robert Burns, and Robert Louis Stevenson.  Stevenson was a childhood friend of mine, if that makes sense.  I read many of his books: Treasure Island , Kidnapped , David Balfour , and A Child’s Garden of Verses when I was a kid .    Scott’s Ivanhoe was a well-worn book on my grade school shelf, and later I found an old copy of The Lady of the Lake among my mother’s possessions.  She’d received that worn copy from her father, who found it, and several small bound Shakespeare plays in an old house he renovated when she was a teenager.   By now, you are probably wondering if I was a nerd when I was a kid, and the answer is an emphatic yes.  I was a total nerd.  But then again, there were only four channels on TV and no video games to play or smartphones to sta...

We dropped my middle son Jackson off at the University of Arkansas this past month—by “we,” I mean my wife and youngest son, Jacob.   It’s an odd thing to drop your kid off at college.  Most likely, you spend nearly an entire day setting up their dorm room with everything you brought, then invariably heading off to Target to purchase all the things you didn’t bring.  And then you get all the posters and whatnot hung, the sheets on the bed, the desk arranged just so, and you take photos of everyone standing in front of the newly decorated space, and eventually, you say goodbye and drive off.  That’s the point when either right then or the next day, they rearrange the damn thing all over again because that’s kind of what they need to do. This is precisely what happened.  Even though my wife had sworn she wouldn’t cry when we left him, she did. I kind of laughed at her and told her a hundred times that he would be all right, she would be all right, and everyth...

St. Paul’s Cathedral in London has always been more than just a special place in my heart.  It’s been a “thin” place for me for over twenty years now—a place where I’ve had more than one mystical experience.  St. Paul’s isn’t the only thin place where I’ve had mystical experiences. Still, I must tell you that most of my mystical experiences happen in churches, cathedrals or basilicas, and monasteries.  It’s almost like God knows that I need to travel halfway around the world to spaces of worship before I can finally open my eyes and see what was in front of me all along.   I  feel God could think of a less expensive way of communicating with me.  But then again, I like the rhythm we’ve negotiated with these things.  Also, it’s amazing what happens when your expectations are wide open.   So, during this summer’s sabbatical, I again found myself in St. Paul’s Cathedral with my wife and middle son.  We took him on a trip to the U.K. af...

Today we're going to launch a new sermon series entitled "All In!" This series is going to help us see more clearly how we can live an "all in" kind of life as we seek to follow Jesus together.   Over the course of the next few weeks we're going to be learning what it means to be Invited, Included, Involved and Invested not only in our church family, but also in the family of God. Today we will focus on what it means to be Invited.  Invitations come in all sorts of forms, don't they?  We receive a lot of invitations via email don't we?  Invitations to buy things, follow people on social media, donate money to causes, attend events that, interest us, and a host of other things.  But when it comes down to it, what kinds of invitations are the most effective?   I did a little research this week and this is what I  found out.   The most effective kinds of invitations are ones that are:  Personalized and Intentional.   Whe...

There’s no easy way to describe Roswell, New Mexico.  I could say that it was interesting, but that doesn’t cut it.   More accurately, I should say that it is in the middle of the high desert of central New Mexico and hot as hell in the summertime.  It’s also utterly devoid of pretense.  Which is to say that it knows what it is.  It’s a town famous for a conspiracy theory surrounding a U.F.O. crash site that may have been covered up by the U.S. Military, the F.B.I., and even Harry Truman himself.  I have to admit that after I spent a couple of hours at the National U.F.O. Museum, and read all of the materials, examined the evidence, watched videos of eyewitness accounts, and a whole host of other stuff… I was starting to wonder if something might have happened there after all.  Common sense can get tossed out the window when you hear only one side of the story.  I know that sounds preposterous considering all the common sense in our current c...

In 1603 James the VI, king of Scotland, also became James I, king of England.  He did so because Queen Elizabeth I died without ever marrying nor producing an heir to the English throne, and James was the closest relative who qualified.   James happened to be the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, whom Elizabeth had imprisoned and eventually executed.  To be fair, no love was lost between James and his mother.  She was a staunch Catholic, and he was Protestant.   At the beginning of his reign, Scotland had a great deal of hope because James seemed to resist the urge to unite the two independent kingdoms under the camouflage of a common religion.   Scotland was Presbyterian, and England was Anglican—the former was much more egalitarian and less hierarchical than the latter, and the Scots kind of liked it that way. And it had been working for them for nearly 100 years because they had (by an act of Parliament) established their lay-led church governm...

One of the great museums in Edinburgh is the Museum of Modern Art, located in Dean's picturesque village just outside the city proper.  While there were terrific art and art installations within the museum, one of the pieces that captured my attention was a huge light display on the lawn with these words illuminated in it:  There Will Be No Miracles Here  I took my obligatory photo of the piece and then made my way into the MOMA to spend the next couple of hours marveling at some fantastic art. But I couldn’t get that light display out of my head, and as I exited the museum, I stood in front of those words again, wondering what the artist was trying to say with the piece.   Was it a declaration that the space was a “miracle-free” zone and any would-be miracle workers needed to go elsewhere to ply their trade?  Or was it simply a statement that miracles never happened in that place?   I don’t know what the artist meant to convey, but the fact that ...

One day this past summer, as I was walking in Edinburgh, Scotland, I noticed a small plaque on the door frame of a shop.  During my days of wandering in Edinburgh, I’d been trying to pay attention to as many of the similarly marked historic sites in the city as I could, so I stopped to check it out.  This is what it read:  On This Site  Sept 5, 1782 Nothing Happened. I admit that reading that plaque made me laugh out loud.  The jokester who affixed it to the door frame even went to great pains to make it look old and worn, just like the many others like it across the city.   Of course, I took a photo of the plaque and then meandered on my way.  But I got to thinking about it later that day, and I realized something that I felt was pretty important:    The plaque was meant as a joke, but it was a sign and a symbol of the glory of the ordinary.   You see, on that site on Sept 5, 1782, lots of things were happening.  People w...

  “When I  have a terrible need of—shall I  say the word… religion.  Then I  go out and paint the stars.” - Vincent Van Gogh When I was on a week of silent retreat, I woke up in the wee hours of the morning in my tiny cottage where I stayed at the Hermitage of New Camadoli, high above the Pacific Ocean.   I don’t know what time it was exactly, but I felt an urge to go outside and look at the stars.  There are no city lights for miles, and the sky is full of them at night.  So I wanted to see what they looked like in the pre-dawn darkness.   I was met with the bright light of a nearly-full moon that illuminated the world around me as though dawn was breaking.  And there were also stars—constellations I couldn’t name, flickering dots in the sky sending their light from millions of years ago to where I stood. I felt small then.  I was reminded of the photos from the most recent  NASA telescope that has been sending back ...

Today I will continue the short sermon series I wanted to preach when I returned from my summer-long sabbatical entitled, "Lessons from the Road."   As I mentioned last week, I did a tremendous amount of traveling over the past several months, crisscrossing the United States with trips out West into New Mexico, Colorado, and all through the South.   I saw some incredible things as I made my way across our country.  And I got to thinking about something as I traveled.   Our country is filled with beauty and wonder--touched by the miraculous, if I might be so bold.  It can make your heart sing to experience it.   Let me show you some of what I saw.   But every so often, as I was traveling, I would be reminded that there's another side to our world ---by billboards on the side of the highway, cable news in the atrium of hotels, and even the very few things that slid through to me on my phone or through friends.   Images...

During my recent stay at the Ghost Ranch retreat center in northern New Mexico, I decided to be intrepid and hike some of the many trails near the ranch.   I  found the trailhead with no problem and set off with confidence.  The only problem was that due to recent rainfall, there were a number of arroyos that had been deepened, and before long, I soon had no clue which was the trail, and which was an arroyo that basically led to nowhere.  After going the wrong way a few times, and wasting about half an hour or more trudging along with no discernible path, I climbed up to a vantage point where I could see more clearly.  I paused, drank some water, and actually said a prayer for peace and discernment.  It was then that I noticed something I hadn’t before.   The trail was marked with piles of stones that had been set up by travelers before me.  They weren’t easy to spot, especially when you’re charging off, trying to find your way, but they...

There is a small exhibit in the Scottish National Museum in Edinburgh that is dedicated to one of the more bizarre practices of the Church of Scotland in the 17th century: Public Repentance.   Among the artifacts in the exhibit are a centuries-old shirt made of uncomfortable “sackcloth” which those, who were found to be “sinners” were forced to wear in church, and were also forced to sit on a “Stool of Repentance” in full view of the congregation.   These poor souls would then be subjected to at least one or more sermons preached by the minister on the sin they were accused of committing.  This sentence would be carried out for as long as they were thought to be unrepentant, a determination which would be made by the minister and the Session of the “Kirk” or church.  In one case, a woman accused of adultery was forced to wear the sackcloth shirt and sit on the Stool of Repentance a whopping thirteen weeks in a row.   The Session minutes of the Wes...

While wandering the streets of Edinburgh this past summer, I discovered a poster advertising a concert by Edinburgh’s community choir that was to take place the following evening inside the historic Usher Hall musical venue.   The poster proclaimed that the choir would perform numbers by The Beatles, The Proclaimers, and Joy Division, among others.   They had me at Joy Division. I figured if a community choir was going to attempt a song by one of the more melancholy progressive bands of the early 1980s, I had to see it.  So naturally, I went online and bought a ticket for the best seat I could find.  I’m almost 100% positive that I was the only person in the venue who didn’t have a friend or family member in the choir, and I was definitely the only American.  The ladies who sat next to me couldn’t believe I’d wanted to attend.   They’d also visited Austin, TX, once, which was an odd coincidence.   There was also this pleasant surpri...

During my two-week stay in Scotland this past June, I observed the weather for what I hoped would be the perfect day to hike up to the top of Arthur’s Seat, one of the imposing mountains surrounding the city of Edinburgh.  As it turns out, I picked the absolutely warmest day possible, but the skies were clear, and there was a reasonably mild breeze, so I set forth.   Several things happened on that journey that I’ve had time to reflect on since then, including hearing a random song on a playlist I was listening to that spoke so directly into what I was feeling that day that I knew it wasn’t random at all.   I should have known when that happened that I was in for a spiritual journey, but I was too busy trying to catch my breath and keep my rubbery legs under me while I climbed.   But in the end, I reached the summit of Arthur’s Seat, asked a stranger to take a photo of me standing triumphantly on top of it all, and then sat down to journal, rest, and d...

Good morning Dear Readers!  Welcome back to the Daily Devo, I hope that you missed having these magically appear in your inboxes, and social media every weekday!   It’s been a while, hasn’t it?  As you know, I have been on sabbatical for the past several months, which meant that I ceased writing the Daily Devo during that time.  It’s good to be back writing these again, I must say.   I’ve missed all of you. That might sound a bit odd to hear, considering that I don’t often know who is reading these, but I did miss you all.  It’s an amazing feeling to know that you are out there, sharing these with me, and I keep you all in mind as I write them.   Over the past many weeks, I’ve traveled halfway around the world, put over 6,000 miles on my trusty Jeep Wrangler, and I’ve had some incredible experiences.  You’ll hear about some of my adventures, I’m sure—they were bound to end up in a Devo, after all.   But for today, let me s...