Presby-Musings

I've made a lot of mistakes in my life.  I've chosen the wrong path more than a few times.  I've made decisions that I came to regret.   And sometimes, those mistakes still haunt me.  They usually show up when I'm feeling low or in a thought spiral when I'm facing hardship, needing to move forward into uncertainty, and a host of other life challenges.   Every one of us has journeyed through the valleys of mistake and regret.  Sometimes, we may feel shackled by our missteps, believing we deserve to carry their weight forever. Yet, as the author, theologian, and philosopher don Miguel Ruiz poignantly states, “True justice is paying only once for each mistake. True injustice is paying more than once for each mistake.”  These words serve as a clarion call to recognize that perpetual shame is not a sign of justice but rather chains that confine us. When we hold onto our mistakes, we inadvertently magnify their power over us. However, embracing a l...

I  discovered something profound when reading an article about love songs that appeared in the  Harvard Crimson  newspaper a few years ago .   I don't regularly read the Harvard Crimson , but that first sentence was a doozy, and it felt good to write it.  A good first sentence, especially one like that, doesn't happen that easily.   So, I was reading that particular article because I had searched for information on why there are so many love songs or songs about relationships.  Then, I found the following statistic that absolutely blew my mind.  From 1960-2010, 67.3 percent of songs in the Top 40 of pop songs referenced love and relationships, and 29.9 percent referenced intimacy and desire.  If you are even slightly good at math (which I'm not), you can quickly determine that 97.2 percent of the most popular music for fifty years had to do with love in some form or another.  That's a lot of songs about love.  Which begs t...

I  made the mistake of starting my day off today by perusing the news feed on my phone.   Things had been going so well until then.  I had a cup of coffee and slowly awakened while the sun rose and the birds sang sweetly outside my window.   It takes me a while to become coherent in the morning, and I prefer to let that process be carried out peacefully.  It was going very well, and it all fell apart in minutes.   That was when I made the grave error of picking up my phone and scrolling through the news reports from the day.  Nothing can be more bracing than reading the day's news in our current circumstances.   I'm doing my best to remain hopeful in these troubling times, but there are moments when the hope drains out of me, and I feel hopeless and helpless.  When you add to that that there are so many challenges in my life that are out of control, the world can feel downright scary at times.   Hope can be a rar...

In middle school, I used to go out with church members from the church we attended on what was called "Visitation."    Visitation was nothing more than going out into our neighborhood to knock on doors and ask people if they died right that moment, would they go to heaven or hell.  I looked like the kind of person who would knock on doors and ask that question.  I wore a clip-on tie and a short-sleeved dress shirt with slicked-back hair courtesy of Bryl-Creem.   Additionally, I  carried a giant Bible, not because I was trying to be super pious, but because it was a large-print version that my parents got me for Christmas one year because I couldn't see the small print in a regular Bible.  That last bit was lovely and choked me up a bit.  I'm not entirely jaded about my former fundamentalist Christian past, and my parents went to great pains to get me a Bible that was easy to read.   Still, that must have been a real sight to those w...

I have a unique ability to hold useless knowledge in my head, mostly in movies and 80s music. But I also spent much of my youth reading, studying, and memorizing the Bible.   Once, in junior high, we had a Bible trivia contest at my small Christian school. No one stood a chance.  They finally had to ask me to stop standing up to answer the questions.   I knew the Bible inside and out.  But I didn't really understand it.   I could quote a Bible verse for just about every situation I encountered, but I didn't know anything about the context, the deeper meaning, or how to apply what I was quoting to my own spiritual journey.   In our journey through life, we often gather knowledge—facts, data, and information that seem important.  For instance, "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit." This statement encapsulates a simple fact, yet it stands starkly apart from the practice of wisdom, which is highlighted in the continuation, "Wi...

It’s the Seventh Sunday of Epiphany and the fifth installment of our sermon series, "The Gospel According to Luke."   Epiphany - a realization, a sudden revelation that changes everything.   We've been learning some surprising and transformative things from the teachings of Jesus over the course of this series, and today is probably one of the most surprising things we're going to learn yet.   Today, we will dig into one of Jesus's most challenging teachings: What it means to love your enemies.  Returning Evil with Good  A couple of stories that exemplify loving the enemy.       A Lebanese pastor whose brother was killed by Syrians.  His church reached out to Syrian refugees and grew from 60 to 900, mostly Syrians.       A woman who held her child while Syrians pointed their guns at her.  Her church started working with Syrian refugees and now has 500 families it helps to care for.   ...

Lately, I have had difficulty seeing past the surface regarding the words, social media posts, and actions of some of our elected leaders and fellow citizens.  Before I went to seminary and embarked on a career serving in ministry, I was training to be a historian on track to obtain a PhD.  As a budding historian, I realized that the old adage "Those who refuse to learn from history are doomed to repeat it" was grounded in truth.   So, when I see the way that things are in our country right now and the rhetoric that gets bandied about, I can't help but wonder if anyone is reading history anymore, or if they are, whether it's a revisionist version, carefully curated to shore up their world view.  When I operate from that space, I can easily demonize some folks and be unwilling to look any deeper than the surface to uncover why they do and say what they do.   I also don't take a good, hard look in the mirror.  Because if I did, I'm afraid that I mig...

I was scrolling through my Instagram feed this morning, taking a mental break, and I stumbled on a video of an interview with the actor Keanu Reeves.   I'm not going to be shy about the fact that I have had a man crush on Keanu for quite a few years, largely due to his John Wick movies and how he conducts himself with the public and the press.  Reeves is a genuinely soft-spoken, thoughtful, caring person known for dropping remarkable wisdom in his interviews when he's asked about his philosophies on life, the universe, and everything.  In the video I watched, Reeves offered the following quote, which caught my attention:  "There's this quote by Oscar Wilde I stumbled upon that says, 'Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. ' Beautiful, isn't it? A reminder that we're all unfinished stories, scarred by our mistakes yet redeemed by the hope of what's to come." Reeves' interpretation of the quote is, as he describes it, a beaut...

I had a rough night of sleep last night.   The wind was howling outside, and even with my noise machine playing some soothing "brown noise" (look it up), I kept waking up because the wind hit my windows and made my house creak something fierce.  Every time I woke up, my mind started racing about all of the things that were going on in my life, the worries that I do my best to set aside during the day, and the fact that this season of waiting that I'm slogging through seems to be going on forever.  I started feeling like I wasn't strong enough to face everything I needed to face, which is the kind of thing that can happen in the dark wee hours of a winter morning when the storm inside seems to match the rage of the storm outside.  I have come to understand that feeling overwhelmed, uncertain, and even afraid of our potential in challenging times is natural.  This isn't an incredibly comforting thought, but it does offer some perspective.    This mo...

There is a story in the book of 1 Samuel in the Hebrew Scriptures about the calling of Samuel the prophet when he was a young boy.   In the middle of the night, he hears a voice calling his name and believes it is Eli, the high priest in the next room.  He goes to the sleeping priest and asks him if he called his name.  Eli tells him no and orders him back to bed.   After a couple of more times of hearing the voice, and awakening the priest, Eli tells Samuel to respond to the voice by saying, "Speak Lord, your servant is listening."   Samuel returns to bed, and when the voice calls his name again, he speaks the words.  According to the text, God speaks to Samuel, telling him he is to be a prophet and to return to Eli with a message.   I can't tell you how many times in my life, from boyhood to this moment, I have longed to hear God's voice speaking to me aloud, telling me what I should do next.  I have also had more than a few ...

One of the many things I struggle to do well in my life is practicing self-care.  I'm working on it, but my self-care ideas mostly involve a lot of tacos from Taco Bell and binge-watching something on Netflix.  I also have been known to do a fair amount of online shopping, scrolling endlessly through Instagram or reading too many news articles on a news app that I downloaded last year.  While it is important to have downtime, and there's nothing wrong with taking a moment or two to do something mindless while consuming a few Doritos Locos Tacos and a Five-Layer Beefy Burrito, none of those things are sustainably sufficient for one's overall well-being.   I've read many books on self-care, mindfulness, and the power of life-giving practices over the past several years, so I know better what it takes to practice taking care of my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual life.   The key word in that last sentence is "practice," which is much easier said...

It’s the Sixth Sunday of Epiphany and also the fourth installment of our sermon series, "The Gospel According To Luke."  Epiphany - a realization, a sudden revelation that changes everything.   Today, we will explore the story from Luke’s Gospel about Jesus’ Sermon On The Plain (and a different take on the Beatitudes) How Do We Measure Success?   Let’s make a list.  The fact is, our idealized lists are more accurate than the reality.  Succession - A TV show that has a blueprint in the Bible   In the TV show Succession, a media mogul with a multi-billion dollar empire pits his children against one another to determine who will inherit the keys to the kingdom.  It is reminiscent of the story of King David from the Hebrew Scriptures and the rebellions of his own children against him.   David was a lowly shepherd who became king.  His children were born into it.  He spent most of his life destroying his enemies to hold on...

The other day, I was thinking about the nature of grief and loss and how easy it is to allow it to consume us and keep us from finding peace and happiness in the present.   The reason for my pondering was due to one of those hard pangs of grief over the loss of my mom some years ago--a pang that hits me sometimes and leaves me wishing that I could talk to my mom one more time.   Despite the pain of it, I am grateful for my grief.  This might seem an odd thing to say, but it's true.   I spent a very long time being consumed by grief, but both time and therapy helped me to frame it differently.  The grief I felt over my mom's death, as well as all the grief I've felt over all the losses since, serves as a reminder to me about what it means to be fully alive.  Let me explain.    Loss is an inevitable part of the human experience, and navigating the tumultuous waters of grief can feel overwhelming. Yet, within the profound depths of sor...

One of my favorite movies is an off-beat comedy from 2006 entitled "Little Miss Sunshine."  The movie centers around a dysfunctional family rallying around Olive, the youngest daughter, as they try to get her to a beauty pageant despite many obstacles, squabbling, and even heartbreaking tragedy.   Not to be a spoiler, but in the end, Olive's infectious joy eventually breaks down the seemingly impenetrable barriers between the family members, bringing them together for a memorable ending to the film.   Each family member had lost their joy at some point, which had driven them apart and into either despair, desperation, or worse.  When they finally realized that joy had never left them and that they had only been pushing it away, they were transformed.   Life is often filled with unexpected challenges and trials that can overshadow our sense of joy. From personal struggles to broader societal issues, it can sometimes feel as though joy is a fleeting...

I like to work.  I tend to do it at odd hours, but still, I put in a lot of hours a week, and happily so.  I love what I do for a living and can't imagine doing anything else.   But I have a bit of a problem.  It's hard for me to relax and rest without feeling guilty.  I do my best to "chill" now and again, but the entire time, I  can't shake the nagging feeling that I should be doing something productive.  Some might think, "Dude, you might need to do something about that."  I agree.  I also know that I am not alone.  Many of us struggle to make space in our lives for true Sabbath rest.   In our current culture, where busyness often masquerades as productivity, the concept of rest has become an intriguing paradox.  The relentless pursuit of achievement and the urgency to be ‘always on’ can leave us feeling depleted and disconnected. In response, the practice of Sabbath moments emerges not as a luxury but as a necessi...

I've discovered that any curiosity I might have about what is going on in the news lately quickly gets snuffed out by the dizzying feeling that things are going to hell in a handbasket in our country and the world.  Also, there aren't any regular eggs in my local grocery store, only the fancy kind that cost nearly $10, which feels apocalyptic.   I have this sudden urge to start reading the book of Revelation from the Bible yet again, even though I know better than to use it for predictive purposes.   The problem is, I've studied it extensively and can't help but sometimes see some of the images described in its oft-cryptic pages as eerily similar to what is happening around us.   This brings home my firm belief that the last book of the Bible was meant to warn Jesus' followers about the cyclical nature of history and how to remain faithful during times of chaos.   But it's hard to do just that. In times of uncertainty and despair, it can ofte...

One of the most troubling cultural shifts in the US I've observed over the past several years has been what can only described as an abandonment of a Christocentric faith within Christianity itself.  In other words, Jesus' teachings, example, and actions are no longer the center of Christianity in America.  Recently, I watched a snippet of a sermon from an Orthodox priest who decried the divisions between the various arms of Christianity, calling the Church back to Christ as our example.   He said that Jesus' wish for his followers was not that they create thousands of different versions of the Way of Christ, all viewing one another with a jaundiced and suspicious eye,  but to be "one as I  and my father are one." In a world where division and discord seem prevalent, Christians are called to embody a worldview that reflects the teachings of Jesus Christ. As followers of Christ, we must remember that our faith should inspire us to build bridges rather than w...