Presby-Musings

It's the Sixth Sunday of Pentecost, a season that allows us to reflect on what it means that the Spirit of Christ is at work in the Church.   What kind of power does the Spirit of Christ bring to us? Our sermon series for June is entitled Jesus, According to Mark. Mark's Gospel is usually sparse in details, except when it isn't. So when the details emerge, we need to pay attention because there's a reason for them.   Faith Healers, Christian Shaming, & Wrong Interpretations Why do people flock to faith healers?  What’s the draw? Even when they’ve been proven to be frauds, people come.  They do it out of a sense of desperation. Or because of what they've been taught about having enough faith to be healed.   And when all is said and done, if the person isn’t healed, they have a fallback.  They simply say, "You didn't have enough faith."  How can we come to view Jesus' healing stories differently without dismissing the possibility of the miraculou

Grace and peace to you, dear readers!  Today, I'm leaving with my family on a long-planned and awaited family cruise to Alaska, and I will be returning on June 23, which means I will also take a break from the Daily Devos.  I'm mostly packed at this point, but there are always a hundred things that need doing before we go out the door, like the family from the movie  Home Alone rushing to get to the airport.  Hopefully, we won't leave anyone behind!  As much as I love writing the Daily Devos and sharing them with you all, it seems right to be fully present and let my mind rest with the rest of me.   However, I wanted to take a moment before I leave to share how much it means to me to do this.  Because sharing these reflections with you almost every day has changed my life.  Writing and sending the Daily Devos began over eight years ago when I decided to try it out during the season of Lent. The response was overwhelmingly positive, and the folks receiving them each day enc

I have been thinking a lot lately about the changing seasons, particularly as Summer is in full-blown effect here in Texas.   Something about the Texas heat makes you forget that there was frost on the ground a few months ago, and you were bundling up to keep a freezing wind from numbing your extremities.   I was reading a passage from Annie Dillard's amazing book Teaching A Stone To Talk, in which she reflects on the changing of seasons and the surprise that often comes when you are reminded of the passing of time.  There was a line that struck me, and I've been kind of haunted by it ever since:  I thought I was younger and would have more time.  That line surprisingly resonated with me.  It also made me reflect on a conversation with a friend about milestone birthdays and how you feel when you realize there are probably more years behind you than in front of you.   When you are young, the changing of the seasons doesn't mean much to you, except to mark the way you dress o

Last night, I fulfilled a bucket list item that I didn't expect to fulfill.  I saw Ringo Starr and his All-Starr Band perform at ACL Live in Austin, the final stop of their tour.  So I can finally say that I saw one of the Beatles perform, which is very cool! Ringo was joined onstage by Steve Lukather, the lead singer and guitarist from Toto, Hamish Stuart, the lead singer, bassist, and composer from the 1970s group Average White Band, and Colin Hay, the lead singer and guitarist from Men at Work.  It was an incredible treat to see a stage with so many of the voices and musicians from bands I grew up loving, but one of the All-Starr Band members stood out for me more than any of the others: Warren Ham.  Warren Ham has been part of the bands Kansas and Toto off and on for decades. He has recorded and been on tour with Cher, Olivia Newton-John, and Donna Summer, among others.  The dude plays every instrument you can think of and then some. I saw him play different saxophones, the cla

I watched a TED talk once on creativity and courage that actor, director, writer, and musician Ethan Hawke delivered, and he said something that resonated with me.   He spoke about the fear that so many of us have to use our gifts because we've been told somewhere along the way that what we have to offer isn't good enough.  Here's what he said:   If history has taught us anything, it's that the world is an unreliable critic.  That line resonated with me so much because I know what it's like to create, write, speak, and put things out into the world that could very well invite criticism.   In fact, I have received my fair share of it over the years.  Some of it was warranted, mind you.  I'm not perfect, so I make mistakes from time to time.  And sometimes the things I write or say in public are sure to offend some folks, or at the very least generate a negative reaction for one reason or another.   But I've learned a thing or two about critics over the years.

It's the Third Sunday of Pentecost, a season that allows us to reflect on what it means that the Spirit of Christ is at work in the Church.   What kind of power does the Spirit of Christ bring to us? Our sermon series for June is entitled Jesus, According to Mark. Mark’s Gospel is similar to rabbinical history/legends with wisdom literature.   What Do We Do When Jesus Doesn’t Seem To Make Sense? Jesus said some hard things to decipher sometimes.  Here’s a sample of some of them…   "Let the dead bury the dead." (When a guy said, "I'll follow you after I bury my father.") "Whoever divorces and marries another commits adultery." "Let him who has no sword buy one."  "Sell what you have, and follow me."  The hard saying from today is one of the most difficult because it involves family and religion—we know how that usually goes.  And here's what we'll focus on after reading this hard saying.   When we create an image of Jesus

In The Song of the Bird , his excellent little book of parables, Fr. Anthony de Mello tells the story of a man who found an eagle's egg and then put it into the nest of one of his backyard hens.   The egg hatched, and the eagle grew up thinking it was a chicken.  It clucked and cackled, scratching at the ground like the other chickens.  The eagle would flap his wings and fly only a few feet off the ground.  The eagle grew old, and one day, as he was scratching at the ground with one of the chickens, he saw a magnificent bird flying high above him.  "What is that?" he asked.  "That's an eagle, the king of the birds," his companion replied.   "He belongs to the sky.  We belong to the earth--we're chickens."  The old eagle went back to scratching.  He lived and died a chicken because that's what he thought he was. This parable speaks to me. Let me tell you why.   Far too many of us deny our true nature, destiny, and a life soaring above the ea

I'm not sure how things are going in your neck of the woods, but it's mid-summer hot in mine, and the cicadas are out in force.  Last night, it sounded like a whole passel of cicadas was outside my window, making all kinds of cicada racket.  I stepped outside to hear them better, closing my eyes at one point to listen.  To be honest, there's a strange kind of beauty in their song.  I've fished a few of these critters out of my pool, and they're pretty monstrous-looking. Just to be honest... I'd probably freak out if one fell out of a tree and landed on me.  I read yesterday about what's happening with the cicadas and why they are everywhere.  The 2024 Brood XIX of these slow-moving and noisy bugs has been long in the making. This year, billions of cicadas burst forth from the earth after a 17-year gestation period; they will also be joined by a 13-year brood for a rare emergence of two broods at once.   Lucky us.  They emerge from years of darkness to crawl

Dear Readers, I had the opportunity to take a short study leave this week, so I took it!  Today, I wanted to share a Devo from the archives that still speaks to me.  Hope you enjoy:  I've been reading In The Shelter, the excellent spiritual memoir by the Irish poet and author Padraig O'Tuama.   O'Tuama outlines his faith journey as welcoming or saying "hello" to the various obstacles, challenges, and triumphs often encountered when we stumble after the Divine.  He also eloquently describes how his faith journey has been and continues to be an exercise in learning to surrender, embracing wonder, and finding comfort in impermanence.   One of the poems O'Tuama included in the book spoke to me, so I  wrote down the stanza with which I felt a real sense of resonance and connection.  Here it is:  And he is inching towards glory With only his own story on his back  He has patched up holes that opened Where his coverings have cracked  And some shoes were never meant f

Today is the Second Sunday of Pentecost, which is the season in the historical rhythms of the Church when we ask ourselves:  What kind of power does the Spirit of Christ bring to us? We're journeying through the formation of the Church, from Jesus' Resurrection to the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit set some folks on fire to bear witness to what they'd seen and beyond what happened after that.  Our sermon series for June is entitled:   Jesus, According to Mark  Mark’s Gospel, a bit of a primer:  In the first century, Mark's Gospel was believed to have been written by one of Peter's disciples. Still, more modern scholarship has suggested that the Gospel was written anonymously and then attached to Peter's follower Mark to lend it authority. This was a common practice in the 1st and 2nd Centuries.   In the 19th century, Mark was determined to be the oldest Gospel, believed to have been written before the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD. Both Matthew and