Presby-Musings

When I was a kid, I used to have this recurring dream where I was walking through the woods, and the air around me seemed thick, and I felt like I was moving in slow motion as I walked.  The colors around me were so vivid and bright, and it took a lot of effort to focus on the path I was on as a result.  And sometimes, there were people in the dream speaking to me, and I could hear their voices but couldn't make out what they were saying or where they were exactly.  All that mattered in the dream was the thickness, the color, and the feeling of moving through the woods, breathing in the scent of pine and flowers, and feeling the leaves and pine needles crunch beneath my feet.  It was such a vivid dream that I can still recall it today as if I just dreamed it.  That dream instilled in me a love for spaces where I could feel hints of it in my waking reality.  I've always referred to those spaces as "thin places," where the distance between this world and some...

Compassion is one of the most underrated emotions/actions that we experience as human beings.  It has the power to change the world, and yet it's become controversial lately.   I can safely say that Compassion has seen better days in our current culture; that much is evident.   I've been dismayed to hear some of our elected officials deride the idea of compassion as a sign of weakness or wokeness.  In fact, ridicule seems to be the preferred method of responding to the challenges faced by others rather than compassion.  I recently read that one of the main obstacles to compassion in our current culture is the belief by many people that somehow being compassionate means giving more than the other person, which then translates into resentment.   But acting compassionately is one of the most powerful weapons against division, hatred, and bigotry.  It's the one sure way to create connections between us and others---even those with whom we di...

Rich Mullins was among the most influential Christian musical artists in the 80s and 90s.  His songs Awesome God  and Step by Step  were staples in the early 90s for worship bands in churches with "contemporary" worship services.  His songs have been recorded by artists like Amy Grant, Caedmon's Call, Jars of Clay, and others.    After spending years at the pinnacle of success as a popular Christian artist, Mullins became fed up with the Christian music industry and evangelical Christianity.   He moved to a Navajo reservation to teach music to kids and to work on projects near and dear to his heart like his collaboration with like-minded artists in the Ragamuffin Band.  Someone asked him if he moved to the reservation to proselytize the Navajo, and Mullins emphatically told them he wasn't.  In fact, he said that he was hoping to find Jesus there among them.  Mullins was tragically killed in 1997 in a car accident on the way to a ben...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the way we, as human beings, perceive time.   We think of time as linear---moving from point A to point B.  We believe that we look back on the past and look forward to the future.  They appear to us as clearly defined points.  But time is bendy.  Space travel has proved that time moves differently when free from gravity.  When we fall asleep, we perceive time as moving quickly, only to awaken and realize merely a few moments have passed.  Our memories of the past are filtered and edited, often leaving out important details and generally not as reliable as we imagine them.  In other words, our past isn't as real as we think.  Not to mention that the future is completely unknown to us and filled with infinite possibilities that cannot be predicted with any certainty.   All we can know is the present---what Fr. Richard Rohr calls the "naked now."  And yet, most of us live either looking ...

At some point in our development (typically around the age of 7), we begin to conceive of an image of ourselves based on what we are not.  If you ask a group of kindergarten students how many are artists, almost all will raise their hands. By the time they get to second grade, that number will have shrunk to just a handful.  Usually, we begin developing these ideas about who we are through comparison.  We begin to realize that some students in our class draw better, are faster at running, are skinnier, seem smarter, or are more popular than we are.  Sadly, those kinds of comparisons continue through adolescence and intensify during what is truly the most formative time for all of us.  And try as we might to put them behind us, even as adults, those same kinds of comparisons persist.  We compare our abilities, success, parenting skills, financial security, and even appearance with others regularly.  Far too many of us define ourselves by what we're not....

Today, we are concluding the sermon series that will take us through September as we explore the Gospel lectionary texts from Matthew.   This sermon series will take us through some of the key teachings and lessons from the life of Jesus as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel—to hear the Good News directly from Jesus himself.  Many people in our current culture claim to speak for Jesus, yet when you hold up what they are saying next to the actual words of Jesus, it doesn't add up.   This is why it's important to go directly to the source and read Jesus's stories and teachings.  If we are going to call ourselves Jesus-followers, it makes sense to know what he wanted us to do to follow him more fully.   Today, we will read a story that Jesus told about how upside-down things are in God’s economy of grace.  We’ll also learn that when you think you’ve figured God’s grace out, God messes with your head.  Life Isn’t Fair.  (How many times have y...

One of the most challenging issues many of us face centers around happiness--where it comes from and how to find it.  In fact, for some of us this very well might be the greatest challenge we face.  Finding happiness and holding on to it has been one of the most difficult things I've had to deal with in my life, and I suspect I'm not alone in the way it has challenged me.   For most of my life, I have sought happiness outside of myself.  I believed I could find it in people or in things.  The problem with this is that when the focus of our presumed happiness is outside of us rather than inside, it seldom lasts.  And here's something else I've begun to figure out.  When you place the burden of your happiness on others, they feel that burden.  It can become so weighty that they find they can't bear it.  The same goes for the things we seek happiness through, like work, success, money, possessions, and even religion.   The shift f...

I like having a plan.  Nothing is more satisfying than making plans, having all the details sorted out, knowing what will happen, seeing it happen, and then celebrating that the plan was executed.  It's not that I can't pivot and respond to unforeseen circumstances, mind you.  But usually, I've already thought of most of the unforeseen circumstances ahead of time and have at least formulated something of a contingency plan if the unforeseen becomes seen.  Over the past few years, however, I've been learning what it means to live in the tension of uncertainty, even though I crave the exact opposite.   The reason for this?  Well, I've finally figured out that no amount of planning can account for the unexpected, and even when I think I've accounted for it, the unexpected always shows up.  I have had more than a few times in my life when I had no idea what to do as I watched my well-thought-out plans go up in smoke.  Sometimes, it's something mi...

In his book The Zen Monkey And The Lotus Flower, Tempa Yeshe tells the story of a lonely elephant who searches for others of his kind to find company.   After a long journey, the elephant stops by a lake to rest.  A wise turtle in the water asks him why he is so sad, and the elephant relates the tale of his loneliness and his company search.   Then the turtle responds:  "You have searched far and long, but you have not searched in your heart. Loneliness is not the absence of company, but the absence of connection. Connect with the world around you, with the trees, the water, the wind and the stars.  Connect with yourself, your breath, your thoughts, your feelings.  You will find that you are not truly alone. "  The line from that quote that struck me was the one that reads: "Loneliness is not the absence of company, but the absence of connection."  The clearest lesson I've had in recent memory regarding this concept of Loneliness was whe...

I have been reading The Creative Act  by legendary music producer Rick Rubin, and I am finding so much wisdom in the book that I thought I would share some of what I'm learning.  Rick Rubin has produced albums from many artists over the years.  His discography includes albums from Johnny Cash, Run-DMC, Beastie Boys, Slayer, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and Neil Diamond.  I saw an interview with him recently where the interviewer asked him about his skills in the recording studio, to which Rubin replied that he didn't have any.   He admitted he couldn't run a soundboard, didn't know how to mix songs, and didn't know his way around too many instruments.  And yet, he has produced some of the most iconic albums ever.  Rubin modestly states, "I just know what I like." But there is much more to his artistry, as he reveals in his book:  How do we pick up on a signal that can neither be heard nor be defined?  The answer is not to look for it.  No...

  There's this story in the Gospel of Mark chapter 2 about a time when Jesus was teaching inside a house, and there were so many people in and around the house it was impossible to get near him.  There was also a group of friends of a paralyzed man who decided to get their infirm friend to Jesus no matter how big the crowd was.  They believed if they could, Jesus would heal him.  So they tore open the roof of the house, digging through the dried mud and thatch to create an opening above Jesus, and then lowered their friend down through the hole.  The Scripture says, "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralyzed man, 'Son, your sins are forgiven.'"  After a brief dialogue with the religious leaders who took umbrage with Jesus' declaration that he could forgive sins, Jesus healed the man.  The part of that story that I never really paid all that much attention to is the fact that Jesus chose to heal the man based on the faith of his friends....

Today, we are continuing a sermon series that will take us through September as we explore the Gospel lectionary texts from Matthew.   This sermon series will take us through some of the key teachings and lessons from the life of Jesus as recorded in Matthew’s Gospel—to hear the Good News directly from Jesus himself.  Many people in our current culture claim to speak for Jesus, yet when you hold up what they are saying next to the actual words of Jesus, it doesn't add up.   This is why it's important to go directly to the source and read Jesus's stories and teachings.  If we are going to call ourselves Jesus-followers, it makes sense to know what he wanted us to do to follow him more fully.   Today, we will explore a story that Jesus told about forgiveness and the nearly impossible standard he set.  What are some things that you find hard to forgive?   Here's a short list of things I have a hard time forgiving...   1. Peop...

The most difficult questions I've had posed to me over the years I've been serving in ministry have to do with the sovereignty of God, especially in the face of tragedy.   To put it another way, what do we do when we can't reconcile our faith in a good and loving God with the awful things that happen in the world and sometimes in our lives?  Why does a good and loving God allow bad things to happen to good people?  And if God is in control, why doesn't God intervene to stop tragedies, atrocities, violence, hatred, and war?  In theological terms, the arguments about these kinds of issues are generally addressed as a "theodicy" through which people attempt to resolve the problem of evil in the face of what most Christians assume to be God's all-knowing, ever-present, and all-powerful nature.   Anyway. Most of us try not to think about it.   Unfortunately, once you start thinking about the idea of God being in control of everything, you start to...

Many years ago, Fred Rogers (TV's longtime "Mister Rogers") offered up this story when asked about how to talk to children about tragedies, accidents, and terrible events that scare them:  “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’” Rogers meant this bit of wisdom to be used when talking to preschoolers, but according to Ian Bogost in The Atlantic , it has become a "consolation meme for tragedy."  I can attest to this because after every school mass shooting over the past many years, I have seen people post Mister Rogers' quote on their social media pages ad nauseam.   And I get that we all want to do something when we see something horrific happen in the world, and we often don't know what to do.  So we repeat things like "Look for the helpers."   By a stretch of the imagination, this isn't the wrong thing to do.  Here's whe...

While traveling in the UK last summer and taking subways and trains in London and Scotland to various locations, I noticed a sign inside the train cars that caught my attention.  The signs read, "If you see something, say something."  The "fine print" of the sign stated that if you saw something illegal going on, suspicious behavior, or bullying of any kind, you should alert the authorities.  Since then, I've seen those kinds of signs in all kinds of places.  I saw a version on the "El" train in Chicago, in various airports I've visited, and even in my son's middle school here in Texas.  "If you see something, say something."  Today, I have been thinking about that line a lot.  I thought about how many times in my life I've seen things happen around me that troubled me or that I knew were wrong, and I said nothing.  I also thought about how many of us do the same thing regarding bullies and antagonistic people in public or online....