Presby-Musings

  It's Christmas Day, and I wish every one of my subscribers, readers, and anyone who happens upon the Daily Devo from social media, my blog, or a share from a friend a Merry Christmas! It is a true pleasure to share my thoughts and reflections each weekday with all of you, and it is a great comfort and encouragement to me to know that you are reading them.   I'll take a few days off until the end of the year, so don't worry when you don't see the Daily Devo emails appearing in your inbox for a bit.   I also want to share with you some exciting news!  My latest book Love God, Love Everybody: How To Become A Great Commandment Community is nearly finished after over a year of writing and editing and should be ready for publication at the end of January!   This book is dear to me because it is not only a study of the Great Commandment, which is the inspiration for my church's vision to Love God, Love Everybody, but   it's also the story of how those words have chan

It's Christmas Eve, and all over the world, today, people will be gathering in their churches to worship and remember the story of how Hope came into the world and changed everything for everyone.  I have such beautiful memories of this night from so many years ago.  I'm sure that you do, too.   When I was just a little kid, I remember attending Christmas Eve candlelight services at my grandmother's Methodist church in Colorado Springs.   I don't recall all that much about the services themselves, except that we sang Christmas carols, and I was allowed to hold a lit candle, which I stared at as if it was magical.  And there was a massive nativity on the church's chancel, surrounded by a Christmas tree, the Advent wreath, and other assorted beautiful things.  That nativity, like the ones that so many of us have in our homes, was perfect; the shepherds were neat and clean, the straw was immaculate, and the animals were all well-behaved and serene.  And, except for one

My house is over-decorated for Christmas... again.  I know I went overboard, so at least there's an element of self-awareness in it.  As I look around my house, I see too many decorations.  They are everywhere.  Too many nativities in far too many places, too many Christmas photos crowd for space and an inordinate amount of light strands and tchotchkes.  My mom would have been proud to see it.  You see, Dale Bloder mastered the art of over-decorating.  She always filled her house with Christmas decor, continually adding to her yearly collection.  Some of the things she treasured defied imagination.  I used to roll my eyes a bit at it, good-naturedly, but now I understand why she did it.  Every one of her decorations reminded her of something sweet, evoked a feeling of nostalgia, and was intended to bring joy.   When my boys were small, they would walk around her house marveling at all the decorations, picking them up, and asking her about them.  I can still see how her eyes sparkle

  One of my favorite Christmas hymns is "Joy To The World," sung in just about every church I've served after lighting candles during Christmas Eve candlelight services.  The inspiration from which this hymn is drawn comes from the Gospel of Luke chapter 2 when the angel speaks to the shepherds:  "Do not be afraid; I bring you good tidings of exceedingly great joy, which will be for all the people..."  I note a few things from that verse that have always intrigued me.  The first thing is that the angel's news purports to bring joy that can only be described as  "exceedingly great." In angel-speak, that's a lot of joy, like a lot.  Exceedingly great joy is the kind of joy that can't be contained.  It's the joy that fills your whole being and leaves you tingly. It's the kind of joy that supersedes whatever you might be experiencing, even if what you're feeling is joy.  Second, this "exceedingly great joy" is for "al

I have come to accept that not everyone in my family finds happiness in many of the things that make me happy.  I say "some" sort of acceptance because I genuinely don't understand how they don't.   For example, it makes me happy to do laundry.  It also makes me happy to re-watch the television show Fringe , listen to ear-melting heavy metal, and put too much peanut butter on my peanut butter toast.   Also, I find joy in eating mayonnaise from the jar, but it has to be Duke's mayonnaise.  I have standards, you know.  There's a long list of these things that I could continue listing, but in the interest of time, let me just say: There's a lot.  Also, I (not so) secretly feel like my family members are constantly judging me because of this long list.  Having said all, it's a lot more fun when the things that make me happy also make my family happy.   When we find common ground, discover ways to support one another in our joys, and gather together to do t

When I was in high school, I remember studying a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier entitled "Maud Muller" that contained a line that resonated with me so much I've remembered it time and again for most of my life:  "For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'" This line speaks of the power of regret and how it can wield that power over us if we let it.  Regret is a powerful emotion. It is one of the most powerful things we experience, primarily because it affects many aspects of our lives.  When we regret our mistakes or missteps, it keeps us looking in the rearview mirror of our lives rather than being present in our present or looking forward in hope to the future.  We can also fall into the trap of wallowing in misery over the time we believe we wasted because we went down a wrong path or made a poor decision.  I can't tell you how many conversations I've had with church members and friends who have shar

I've been thinking a lot lately about how hard it is to predict the future.  And by "hard," I mean "impossible."  Invariably, when facing life's challenges, we want clarity on which path to take, but clarity is almost always hard to find.  I've decided that some chaotic seasons of life can feel like one of the many paint-by-numbers paintings I remember my mom working on when I was a small child.   I distinctly remember watching her as she sat at our kitchen table, slowly and painstakingly filling in the painting with the paint colors that matched the numbers on the black and white drawing stenciled on the canvas.  Over time, the colors that were added together would reveal the makings of a painting, and then eventually, the finished product would be revealed.  I recall one of those paintings was of a cowboy on a horse and another of a landscape with a mountain and a stream.   It felt like magic to me when I was small.  I would sit there waiting for the n

When I was a kid, my favorite musical group was Styx, and my favorite Styx album was  Paradise Theater,  which contained the song "Nothing Ever Goes As Planned."  The lyric from that song that has stuck with me for well over three decades goes like this:  'Cause, nothing ever goes as planned It's a hell of a notion Even Pharaohs turn to sand Like a drop in the ocean You're so together and you act so civilized But every time that things go wrong you're still surprised That song was written for me.  I'm likely not the first to think that.  You see, I  love having a plan.   I love seeing the plan go according to the plan, and I do everything I can to be a hundred moves ahead so that if the plan goes awry, there's a plan for that, too.  As I write this, I can hear the voice of a guy I used to know a long time ago, playing a particular question on repeat in my head.  That voice that plays in my head from time to time is annoying.  But I've also learned

Today is the Fourth Sunday of Advent. We're almost there! Advent is not just a season of expectation; it's a season of preparation.  And what exactly are we preparing for?   Change?  Transformation?  New Life?   Do we want to be better people?  Do we want the world to be a better place?  All of the above, right?  The Advent season reminds those who find our home in the Christian tradition that it all comes down to Jesus.   Jesus makes all the difference---not only for us but for the whole world.   Today we’ll be talking about how our efforts to explain the mystery of Jesus are not nearly as helpful as simply experiencing Jesus. And were going to be reading a dramatic story of a dream that Joseph (the Mary and Joseph, Joseph) had.  But first, let me lay some groundwork to get us thinking since we're talking about dreams today... I'd like to take just a few minutes to talk about the Science of Dreaming vs. The Mystery of Dreaming.   Have you ever heard of people dreaming

I've been trying to work on controlling my anger, and I'm failing miserably.   I'm doing a better job of dealing with it than I have over the past couple of years, but it's been tough to keep it from erupting lately.   Mostly, I've been ticked off at all the videos I see on social media of people purporting to be Christian who preach, proclaim, spew and spout all manner of bigoted, hate-filled, awful stuff.   I also have some special tirades that have been leveled at football referees, most of whom seem to be particularly lousy this year--both at the college and NFL levels.  Seriously, I'd fire all those referees if I were in charge of the world.  Mind you, the few who have ruled in favor of my teams, or teams I happen to be rooting for at any given moment---they could stay.  The rest would peace out.  I realize the hypocrisy here, but I have well-founded reasons that are too numerous and (possibly unhinged) to recount here.  But let me get back to the first rea

In his excellent little book  The Way To Love , Fr. Anthony de Mello writes extensively about how many of us struggle with attachments and how our inability to let go of them keeps us from becoming our best selves.  Fr. Anthony defines attachments like this:  “An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy." According to Fr. Anthony, there are four truths that we need to embrace if we want to let go of our unhealthy attachments and live full and abundant lives as our best and most authentic selves.  Today we're going to conclude our short study with the fourth truth:  No thing or person outside of you has the power to make you happy or unhappy.  Only you have that power.  I've been hinting at this idea in the previous Devos of this series, but we need to drill down into it today as we wrap things up.  Far too many of us spend so much of our lives trying to give away the power over our happiness to t

  Today's Daily Devo continues my reflections on letting go of attachments.  The inspiration for this set of Devos comes from Fr. Anthony de Mello's book The Way To Love.  As I mentioned yesterday, Fr. Anthony defines attachments like this: “An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.” According to Fr. Anthony, there are four truths that we need to embrace if we want to let go of our unhealthy attachments and live full and abundant lives as our best and most authentic selves.  Today we're going to explore the second truth: Where did your attachment come from? It came from a lie that without this or the other, without this person or the other, you can’t be happy.  At an early age, most of us are taught that following our dreams is admirable as long as our dreams lead us to success.  And by success, I mean comfort, security, status, means, etc.   We lose our sense of play and wonder because we are

Today's Daily Devo continues my reflections on letting go of attachments.  The inspiration for this set of Devos comes from Fr. Anthony de Mello's book The Way To Love .  As I mentioned yesterday, Fr. Anthony defines attachments like this: “An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.” According to Fr. Anthony, there are four truths that we need to embrace if we want to let go of our unhealthy attachments and live full and abundant lives as our best and most authentic selves.  Today we're going to explore the second truth: Where did your attachment come from? It came from a lie that without this or the other, without this person or the other, you can’t be happy.  At an early age, most of us are taught that following our dreams is admirable as long as our dreams lead us to success.  And by success, I mean comfort, security, status, means, etc.   We lose our sense of play and wonder because we are t

In his excellent little book The Way To Love, Fr. Anthony de Mello writes extensively about how many of us struggle with attachments and how our inability to let go of them keeps us from becoming our best selves.  Fr. Anthony defines attachments like this:  “An emotional state of clinging caused by the belief that without some particular thing or some person you cannot be happy.” The problem that most of us have is that even though we would like to think that we don't suffer from unhealthy attachments, we do.  That's not a generalization; it's just a plain old fact. If you're human, you struggle with this stuff.  We struggle with attachments to our job, money, religion, politics, relationships, and status.  Our attachments extend to the food we eat, the clothes we wear, the cars we drive, and our appearance.   Some of us have unhealthy attachments to social media, entertainment, and smartphones.  The thought of cutting ourselves from these things fills us with anxiety. 

  Today is the Second Sunday of Advent.  Advent is not just a season of expectation; it's a season of preparation.  And what exactly are we preparing for?   Change?  Transformation?  New Life?   Do we want to be better people?  Do we want the world to be a better place?  All of the above, right?  The Advent season reminds those who find our home in the Christian tradition that it all comes down to Jesus.   Jesus makes all the difference---not only for us but for the whole world. Before we explore our lectionary text for this Sunday, I just need to say something.  There are a lot of Advent calendars out there now.  I mean a lot.  Let me show you some of the ones I've discovered:  Images of Advent Calendars What do we make of all this?  Is it just commercialism?  A way for companies to cash in on the season, by using something that builds on the anticipation of Christmas?  Or is it something else? What if the anticipation these calendars represent is connected to a more profound

  For to be a Christian and not just seem like one is the greatest thing. - St. Jerome Because of what I do for a living, it's hard to steer clear of conversations about church, faith, God, Christianity, and all that comes with those seriously loaded topics.  During my recent sabbatical, I tried hard not to reveal my occupation when I encountered people on my travels.  Whether at a restaurant, brewery, on tour, or just waiting in line for something, and someone struck up a conversation with me, I'd do my best to avoid having to talk about anything remotely religious.   Whenever they asked me what I did for a living, I'd tell them I was a writer working on a book, which wasn't a fib because I am a writer (my side hustle), and I was working on a book.   But somehow, those conversations seemed to find their way back to faith.   Sometimes it was because they would ask me what the book was about, and I'd have to tell them, which would lead to the whole pastor thing.  But

  I've been pondering this quote from author, pastor, and poet Frederick Buechner for a while now, and today it just seems to be speaking to me differently:    Go where your best prayers take you.   I don't know about you, but the first question that comes to mind as I  think about what this means is: "What constitutes my best prayers?"    Or, to put it another way, "How do I differentiate between the various prayers I offer to God and then determine which ones need to be followed?" That's a difficult question for most of us because we tend to think that our best prayers are the ones we offer on behalf of others or behalf of our world.  These seem noble and selfless.  We seldom think that our best prayers might be the ones we pray for ourselves because we secretly believe God might think us selfish.  But what if our best prayers are simply the ones we pray when we are at a loss for words or the ones we pray when we can't see a way forward and need di

I woke up the other morning to a barrage of text messages and emails from my bank because my debit card had been hacked overnight. The perpetrator had attempted nearly fifty charges of one variety or another.  Thankfully, my bank was on the job and recognized that something was amiss, so they shut the card down.  However, the attempts continued with the miscreant who had gotten my card information.  They kept trying even when I was on the phone with the bank's fraud department.  By the time everything was sorted out and all the claims had been filed, I was in a foul mood.  I thought about all the aggravation I was about to face as I had to wait for my new debit card to arrive, reset all my subscriptions, etc.  I told my oldest son about the fiasco and angrily said I would love to spend five minutes alone with the person who hacked my card.   "The world would be better off without people like that," I said.  "It's good that I'm not God because I'd straight