Presby-Musings

How many times have you heard this or something like it?   "You are your own worst critic."   Some of us may have heard this (or thought it) for so long that we not only believe it to be accurate, we own  it.   I once read a quote from a controversial author who was asked if she was her own worst critic.  She replied, "Actually, no. I've read my book reviews, and know for a fact that I'm not my own worst critic."   So, you probably aren't your worst critic because there is undoubtedly someone out there who is a way worse critic of you than you.  Feel better? That last bit was tongue-in-cheek, to be fair.  Still, for many of us, even though we may not be our own worst critics, we're the most frequent and challenging to dismiss.  Our criticism takes the form of anything from an inner monologue that relates nothing but negativity about how we view ourselves ("I'm so stupid!" "I hate myself!") to punishing things we say relating t

As a youth director in various churches early in my career, I did my best to listen to as much Christian music as possible to share some of the better stuff with my students.  There was a lot of schlocky Christian music then (there still is, to be fair), but I have to say that for the most part, the Christian music scene back in the mid-90s to mid-2000s was far edgier, theologically open, and better sounding than the stuff on Christian radio today.  Artists like the Newsboys, Audio Adrenaline, Supertones, Jars of Clay, Relient K, and Switchfoot were always on my playlist, as well as serious hard rock bands like Skillet, Chevelle, Demon Hunter, Haste The Day, P.O.D., and As I Lay Dying.   Sadly, Christian music today has been ground down by the dominant Christian culture to the point that pretty much everything sounds the same. The lyrics are maudlin, sappy, and absolutely forgettable.  I sound like an old fuddy-duddy at this point, I know.   But I thought about all of this today after

I've been reflecting on the many things I love about the holiday seasons we've recently entered.  I'm reminded of family gatherings, the joy of friends, the warm traditions of each fall holiday, and so much more.   Maybe some of you feel the same way.  You have your memories, nostalgia, and fond feelings that emerge with each passing week that leads toward the new year.  I'm also mindful of the many stressors this time of year can bring.  Most of us know what they feel like, too.  And for some of us, the holiday season brings up complicated emotions, sadness, and perhaps even depression or anxiety.  I'm sitting here at the moment with all of the complications of travel plans before me, the busy schedules of our whole family, and the added stress of work-related obligations, school programs, and so much more.  I need to figure out how to manage all of it gracefully.  I'm sure some of you understand this all too well.   When you add in the stresses of stretching b

Grace and peace to you all on this Thanksgiving Day 2022!  I've shared this in past years, but d id you know that Thanksgiving wasn't declared a national holiday until 1863, during the height of the Civil War, when President Abraham Lincoln proclaimed that it be celebrated on the final Thursday of November?  This would be changed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939 when he moved the holiday up a week during the Great Depression to boost retail sales.  Eventually, after much pressure, he moved it to the fourth Thursday in November 1941.  Funny--back then, people were outraged that the holiday would be a precursor to shopping.  Alas.  As I was reading through Lincoln's original proclamation for the celebration of Thanksgiving, I found the following plea that he made to all Americans (Northerners and Southerners alike), imploring them to ask God to:   “...commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil

We are a fearful society. We're told a hundred times daily why we should be afraid and what we should be frightened of. And if that wasn't enough, we have personal fears that drive us to do and say things we probably wouldn't otherwise.  I was researching fear not long ago and discovered that the fear of death is considered "the mother of all fears" by many theorists and could even be the one fear that underpins almost every other fear we have.  Our efforts to avoid or evade death can become the unspoken, underlying fear that can lead us to destructive behavior toward ourselves and others.   But according to author don Miguel Ruiz in his fantastic book The Four Agreements,  the fear of death isn't the most destructive of fears; it's the fear of truly living that can ruin us if we let it:   Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive--the risk to be alive and express what we really are.  Just being ourselves is the

  I've been doing a lot of work lately on setting goals, building better habits, and having a coherent vision for the future.   I'm a work in progress with this kind of planning, but I have to say that it feels good to be making an effort. I'll have to give myself grace along the way, though.   But as I've been reading and doing research on how to do this well, I've discovered that there are a lot of us out there who are trying to do the same after having spent two years learning to work and live in a different world than the one that existed before the pandemic.   The one issue that seems to be at the forefront of so many minds is the notion of work/life balance.  In other words, how do we find a way to keep from letting our tasks run our life and not the other way around?  This has been one of the most challenging things that most of us have faced, significantly when the lines between home and work have been blurred, and we struggle to push back against a culture

Today we're concluding the sermon series entitled "The Words Of The Prophets."   In the weeks leading up to Advent, we've been listening to the voices of the Old Testament prophets from the Lectionary readings as they prepare for the coming of the Messiah. The inspiration for this series is a line from the classic song "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel.  The line goes like this:  The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls..." Biblical prophets aren’t predictors of the future; they hope to shape it. They used their words to either project a hopeful future or one full of hardship---all based on what was happening at the moment.   And the words of the prophets can come to us from some unlikely places at times.   We just have to have our eyes open, our ears ready to hear, and our hearts ready to be transformed.   Prophetic imagination helps us see beyond our reality and God's reality.  We get glimpses of the coming Kingdom o

I  have a lot of bad habits that I'm trying to break lately.  I'm doing everything I can to get rid of them, but my success rate has been kind of a mixed bag, which makes it easy to get discouraged at times.   The good news is I'm learning that there are multiple underlying issues that I need to deal with to break some of the unhealthy habits I've accrued over the past several years.   That last line was mildly sarcastic, in case you were wondering.   Still, it's never a bad thing to take a hard look at yourself and figure out how to be a better "you," even if it means dealing with stuff you don't want to deal with.   And I also think it's okay to call these underlying issues "weaknesses," a term we don't use that often anymore.  "Weakness" is a word that has fallen out of favor over the past several years.  Instead, we use words like "opportunities" or "growing edges" that mean the same thing but sound m

This week I've been focusing on grief and its effects on us in the Daily Devo.  Each day we're going to address one of the "Five Stages of Grief" established years ago by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her work on grief and how we process it. Today we're going to talk about the fifth stage: Acceptance.  When I was doing research for this series of Devos, I came across this explanation of the fifth stage of grief, which Elisabeth Kubler-Ross characterized as "acceptance:"  The fifth and final stage is related to acceptance. You're finally able to accept the reality of what's happened and begin to look for avenues to move on. It's important that during this stage you accept how this loss has changed your life and stop wishing for everything to go back to how it used to be. There's so much that I want to unpack from that statement.   First, the idea of a "final" stage of grief is a bit misleading.  As I've said, there is no linear ch

This week I've been focusing on grief and its effects on us in the Daily Devo.  Each day we're going to address one of the "Five Stages of Grief" established years ago by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her work on grief and how we process it. Today we're going to talk about the fourth stage: Depression.  I've written about depression on the Daily Devo frequently. Still, I haven't really explored how sometimes people can suffer depression, and no one else even knows it because they can hide it so well.  Elisabeth Kubler-Ross identified depression as the fourth stage of the grief process.  It's the stage she determined would come on the heels of denial, bargaining, and anger as the reality of our losses land upon us, and we are forced to come to grips with them.  I need to say that none of these "stages" are linear, meaning that we don't typically experience them as a checklist that we move through on our way to getting over a loss or journeying

This week I want to focus on grief and its effects on us in the Daily Devo.  Each day we're going to address one of the "Five Stages of Grief" established years ago by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her work on grief and how we process it. Today we're going to talk about the third stage: Bargaining.      Have you ever prayed a prayer that went something like this?   "God, if you would just _____________, then I promise I will ____________."  I feel like that's a prayer that most of us have prayed more than a few times in our life.  It's the kind that we pray when we're alone; at least, that's been my experience.  I started praying that prayer at a young age when I would do something that I knew would get me in trouble if I was ever found out.   "God, if you let me get away with this, I'll never say another cuss word or think an ugly thought the rest of my life."   I then moved on to praying that prayer whenever I was about to take a t

This week I want to focus on grief and its effects on us in the Daily Devo.  Each day we're going to address one of the "Five Stages of Grief" established years ago by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her work on grief and how we process it. Today we're going to talk about the second stage: Anger.  After my mom died, I found myself feeling a lot of anger.   I was angry with myself for not acknowledging the gravity of her sickness and wished I'd taken better care of her.  I was also pretty angry with God for letting her die.   And then I was mad at my mom, and I couldn't articulate why.   Anger is one of the stages of grief we all encounter after we experience a loss.  We experience anger at some point in our grief process, whether we lose a loved one or a job, or suffer financial hardship.  Some of us have also experienced anger when we've suffered the loss of our faith or at least the failure of the kind of faith we'd held on to for most of our lives, only to

This week I want to focus on grief and its effects on us in the Daily Devo.  Each day we're going to address one of the "Five Stages of Grief" established years ago by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross in her work on grief and how we process it. Today we're going to talk about the first stage: Denial.  "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."   Most of us have heard that line before, but most of us probably don't know that it's been part of our cultural lexicon for a long time.  It's believed that author, humorist, and essayist Mark Twain was the first to coin that phrase, which dates back to the late 19th century.   It's one of those things that we say or think when we are passing judgment on another. I've typically used that phrase when commenting on someone else's inability to see the obvious about themselves or the world around them.   But I almost always never think it applies to me.  None of us do.  After a significant loss in our lives, w

Today we're continuing the sermon series entitled "The Words Of The Prophets."   In the weeks leading up to Advent, we’ll be listening to the voices of the Old Testament prophets from the Lectionary readings as they prepare for the coming of the Messiah. The inspiration for this series is a line from the classic song "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkel.  The line goes like this:  The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls..." Biblical prophets aren’t predictors of the future; they hope to shape it. They used their words to either project a hopeful future or one full of hardship---all based on what was happening at the moment.   And the words of the prophets can come to us from some unlikely places at times.   We just have to have our eyes open, our ears ready to hear, and our hearts ready to be transformed.   Prophetic imagination helps us see beyond our reality and God's reality.  We get glimpses of the coming Kingdom of God

I do a fair amount of traveling and learned a thing or two about navigating airports and airport security.  I thought I would share some of these pro tips with you because I'm a generous guy.   Pro Tip #1 - Wear clothing that doesn't impede the security process.  Invest in slip-on shoes, and don't wear a belt.  Have your jacket and hat removed before  you put your stuff on the conveyor at security.  Act like you've been there before, man.   Pro Tip #2 - The security lines full of parents with 4.5 kids, two strollers, and fourteen carry-on items is probably not your best bet for a speedy security process.  Pro Tip #3 - When de-planing the airplane after landing, get your stuff and be ready to roll when your time comes.  If you're ready, you can probably bypass twenty people who are still trying to find their cell phones in the seat back.  I've also developed a long list of pet peeves relating to how other people  act in the airport. I've given them names t

I will be eternally grateful that I had a crisis of faith some years ago that completely wrecked me, sent my faith spinning, and left me standing in the rubble of everything I'd built with my beliefs, not knowing what to do next.   I know; that sounds like a pretty odd statement.  Nevertheless, it's true.   I spent so much of my life up to that crisis point thinking dualistically, believing everything in life could be broken down into either/or, black/white, etc.   Honestly, it made it easier that way.  Dualistic thinking doesn't require a lot of effort.  If everything is black and white, and there are no grey areas, you never have to ask that many questions or do the hard work of examining your beliefs.  You just settle on a side and stay there.  Sadly, far too many of us live our lives this way.  We exist in echo chambers where we hear only the things we want, interact only with people who agree with our chosen dualistic point of view, and assume that we're always rig