Presby-Musings

  When I get ready for bed at night, I have a routine that includes setting my alarm with my Amazon Alexa device and having her play "thunderstorm sounds," which helps me sleep faster.  I love a good thunderstorm if I'm sheltered in my bedroom under the covers or on my back porch watching it rain. But if I'm caught outside when a storm arrives or driving down a two-lane country road, not so much.   I attended a conference in a more rural part of Pennsylvania a few years ago. While driving back to my hotel, I received a notice on my phone asking me to take shelter because of tornados in the area.  Instantly, I had images of the movie Twister in my head with me strapped by my belt to a pipe while my rental car was carried away by the swirling wind.  Also, Dorothy's house from The Wizard of Oz appeared in my head for some reason.   Thankfully, I returned to the hotel without incident, but I needed to stop at the hotel bar after I got there to calm my nerves.   There

Today, we will continue the sermon series "True Religion: Lessons for the Church from James."  The book of James contains a lot of wisdom for the Church on how to be the Church and also digs down into how those of us who are part of the Church can live our lives in ways that embody the Kingdom of God.   Simply put, James offers guidelines on how to answer this question:  How Do We Define What It Means To Be A Christian? This series on the Book of James will serve as a guide to the essentials of being a Jesus follower in our current culture.   Today: Learning To Control Our Speech  As we will discover, and it's probably not a surprise, nothing can tear apart our witness as Christians like the things we say.   But first, some quotes make you want to say, “Huh?” ‘If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else.’ – Yogi Berra ‘When you come to a fork in the road, take it.’ – Yogi Berra ‘Baseball is ninety percent mental. The other half is physical.’ –

  "No matter what people tell you, words and ideas can change the world." - Robin Williams This coming Sunday, I will preach about the power of our words and how they can bring life and destroy life if they are wielded without conscience.  I'm pretty excited about preaching this sermon, but I'm also mindful of the impact that my own words might have. This is a constant consideration I make as a preacher every time I deliver a sermon.   Words matter.  The way we speak to one another and about one another matters.   This is never more true than in the middle of a national election cycle (which we always seem to be in, but that's another issue).   We are in the midst of an existential crisis as a country, brought on by the devaluation of public discourse. People no longer value the weight of words.  In fact, they often ignore what is being said by their politicians of choice, even if it is blatantly awful, a bald-faced lie, extremely bigoted, tinged with hate, or jus

I have often employed a question in conversation and teaching, which is probably one of the best questions I've ever heard.  The question is: "How long will you keep pulling people from the river before you go upstream to find out why they are falling in?" It's an excellent question but an even better parable.    A wise man once journeyed to the river to meditate.  But when he arrived, he saw a group gathered at the riverside.  Upon closer examination, he saw the group frantically wading into the river to rescue a steady stream of floundering, nearly drowning people.   Just as they would pull one person from the river, another would arrive from upstream, shouting for help.   The wise man approached the group and asked what was happening.   "Are you blind?" one of the group snapped at him.  "Can't you see we are rescuing people from drowning in the river?  We've been at this for hours!" The wise man sat silent for a moment watching the group

My youngest son Jacob and I took a quick road trip up to Fayetteville, Arkansas, to visit my middle son Jackson at college and see the band Creed perform at an amphitheater nearby.   During our eight-hour journey, we traveled through some pretty rural parts of Oklahoma, and as we were driving along, we came upon a billboard with this message:  "Real Christians follow Jesus teachings."  Jacob read the sign and gave me a look that included partially rolled eyes and a grimace.  He has heard me rail on about so-called Christian billboards with unhelpful messages on many occasions, but I surprised him with my response.  "You know," I said to him, "I don't entirely disagree with that statement."   He looked surprised, so I went on to explain to him that even though I had some issues with the qualification of "Real Christians," I believed that anyone who calls themselves a Christian ought to adhere to Jesus' teachings.  "The problem with Ch

I'd like to think I'm generally hopeful, but cheering for my sports teams lately has somewhat disabused me of that notion.   It's the beginning of a new football season, and already, both my favorite college and professional football teams have underwhelmed and underperformed, leaving me wondering why I allowed myself to feel any hope to begin with.  It's a test of my resolve, and despite my overall belief that God doesn't really do things like intentionally mess with us, I'm wondering if the Almighty is making an exception with me.  Maybe it's a wager with the angels, and God's taking bets from them on how I'll react.  This isn't fair  because God  knows  how I'll respond, so there's no way for the angels to confidently bet that I'll cover the spread between  despair and abject despondency.   Anyway, it's been tough to hold on to hope; that is all I'm saying.  All (mostly) kidding aside, there are many reasons that many of us

The use of artificial intelligence in the mainstream has skyrocketed in the past two years.  It's alarming if you stop and think about it, which most of us never really do.   Regular people can use AI to write term papers, create idealized images of themselves and others, and create new music from long-dead rock stars that sound original. Not to mention all of the "deep fake" videos that make their way around the internet, with celebrities and world leaders saying things that they never said.   Speaking of politicians...  We have the prevalence of AI to contend with when trying to discern the truth, and we also have a 24-hour news cycle of politicians spouting falsehoods on whatever media platform they can find to spout them.  It's easy to uncover the lies that politicians perpetuate, but most of their faithful adherents are unwilling to engage in that kind of effort.  They would rather assume the worst because that's what they think anyway.   The problem is lying

Today, we will continue our sermon series, "True Religion: Lessons for the Church from James."  And this series is seeking to answer a critical question, not only about what true religion is all about, but also:  How Do We Define What It Means To Be A Christian? This series on the Book of James will serve as a guide to the essentials of being a Jesus follower in our current culture.  And it couldn't be a more timely series of lessons, as you might imagine.  Today: Faith Without Works Is Dead  What has Christianity Ever Done For Us?  A list of things that matter…  Human rights - Abolitionist Movement, Women's Suffrage, Civil Rights Education - Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc., were all founded as Christian universities.  Medicine - Founded Hospitals and hospital systems.  Art - Some of the world's greatest works of art are grounded in Christian thought.  So why does Christianity have such a bad rap in our current culture? What has Christianity been bringing to the

I read somewhere not long ago that there are more people in our current culture walking around with low-grade depression and anxiety than at any other time in U.S. History.   That's an astounding claim, but based on my own experience, I tend to believe it.   There's a lot of uncertainty in our world, and when you combine that with the amount of information we have access to about all of the things that are not going well, it makes sense that more of us worry than our forbears.   The other day, I ran across this quote from the comic strip "Peanuts" that both made me laugh but also made me think:  “Sometimes you lie in bed at night and you don’t have a single thing to worry about. That always worries me!” - Charlie Brown I have to be honest; that sums up how I felt for a long time.   Over a year ago, I was struggling with depression and anxiety, so much so that I was having trouble doing even the most straightforward task without overthinking it, fretting over it, and t

We are beginning a new sermon series, "True Religion: Lessons for the Church from James."  This series on the book of James will serve as a guide to the essentials of being a Jesus follower in our current culture.  Today, we'll start with a pretty challenging question: Is there such a thing as true religion?  Religion has had more than a few critics over the centuries.  Here are some quotes from a few of them:  “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” - Voltaire “All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.” - Poe “Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet. Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.” - Napoleon “Religion. It's given people hope in a world torn apart by religion.” - Jon Stewart I could go on, but we haven't got all day, more's the pity.   The search for true religion transcends the confines of religion in our current culture.  

This Sunday, I will preach from James chapter 2 and explore what the author of James meant when he wrote, "Faith without works is dead."  Martin Luther was adamantly opposed to the inclusion of the Book of James in the Protestant version of the Bible. He was triggered by what he perceived as an emphasis on "works righteousness," the idea that one can earn one's way into heaven.   To be fair, the Catholic church at the time was actually selling "indulgences," to people with the money to pay so that they could buy their forgiveness.  That was eventually done away with, but in Luther's day, it was still happening.   You can understand why he was leery of anything in the Bible that promoted works, even if it was in the same passage as faith.  Luther lost that argument, however.  James was included in the Biblical canon for Protestants, and the rest is history.   So what did the author of James mean when he said that merely talking about faith wasn'

There are so many inspirational quotes, videos, and essays online about facing challenges and overcoming them to reach your goals, achieve success, find your purpose, etc.  I rather like a lot of them.  They're good to read and reflect on when you require encouragement as you face down your giants.   But I thought the other day, what do we do when the challenge seems insurmountable? What do we do when whatever we are dealing with feels impossible to overcome? I was reading through some quotes on perseverance the other day, and I came across this much more realistic quote by Harper Lee from her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill A Mockingbird:  “Real courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.” There's so much packed into that simple line, and I want to unpack it a bit.   It's not often that we face impossible challenges, but when we do, most of us will find that our first inclination is to withdraw. 

I went to the Rocklahoma music festival over Labor Day weekend, an almost overwhelming adventure by any stretch of the imagination, but one that I am glad I got to experience.  Rocklahoma is a three-day hard rock music festival held in Pryor, OK, for the past thirteen years.  It garners some of the top bands in the heavy metal and hard rock scene in a circus-like environment. It was hot. Not Austin hot, but hot.   On Friday, a torrential downpour shut down the festival, making the grounds muddy and muggy.   I decided to camp at the festival camping grounds, which were within walking distance of the venues but also jammed with RVs, tents, and elaborate camp setups.   The campsites were within a few feet of one another.  And trust me when I say this, long after the shows were over at the end of the day, the parties kept going in the campground until the wee hours.  You might say, "That doesn't sound fun," and you would be right about a lot of it. I'm getting a little ol

Did you ever think about why there are so many movies about zombies?   The first zombie movie ever made was White Zombie  in 1932, inspired by Haitian lore about witch doctors creating zombies out of unsuspecting victims.  However,  George Romero's 1968 horror film  Night Of The Living Dead   brought zombie films into popular culture.  By the way, my favorite zombie movie is  Shaun of the Dead . It's definitely not for kids, but it's hilarious and awesome.   I think that as a society, we are fascinated with the idea that mass amounts of people could become mindless, bloodthirsty, horrific creatures, all moving as one with one purpose: to destroy life.   I won't get into this fascination's psychological and sociological foundations here. But I am certain it comes back to the nagging fearful questions about how ordinary people can become convinced to do horrific things en masse .  So, consider your image of zombies and their appearance in most films.  They are slow-mo