Presby-Musings

There's nothing quite like stepping out into the unknown, especially when we have been comfortable where we are for so long.  I remember that feeling after a crisis of faith in 2011, as I emerged from all my doubts and questions in a different space than I had been.   At that point, I had a choice. I could return to my old way of thinking and its familiarity and certainty, or I could forge ahead into an unknown future without knowing what would happen.  I worried that my newfound ideas about faith and belief might have a consequence.  I worried it would cost me church members, friendships, and maybe even my career.   I was right about everything but the career.  I would like to think I am a consistently courageous person, but I know that's not entirely true.  Like most of us, I want to stay put in what I know rather than step out into the unknown.   But I did learn that if I was willing to show up and be courageous even a little at the right moment, it could make all the differ

This past Sunday was Mother's Day, which is often a difficult day for me to celebrate, having lost my mom several years ago.   It's funny how grief works.  You think it has passed, and you won't ever really feel the pang of loss, but all it takes is a small moment, a memory, a song, or a memorable holiday to bring it all back.   Today, I'd love to reflect on a stanza from Mary Oliver's poetry, or at least a few lines from one that speaks to grief and resurrection.   I read this line the other day, and it hit me in the gut like a punch:  Nothing lasts.  There is a graveyard where everything I am talking about is, now. I stood there once, on the green grass, scattering flowers.  Oliver had been reflecting on her deceased parents.  Then abruptly, she writes the above line.  It's jarring and compelling all at once.   But something is amazing about those three lines. Oliver looks back on the sorrow and pain of her loss and declares, "Nothing lasts."  This i

One of my favorite singer/songwriters is the British artist Luke Sital-Singh.  If you have never heard of him, you must look him up, download his music, and listen!  This morning, I was listening to one of his songs, "Nothing Stays The Same," and these lines absolutely struck me:  We all believe in something that'll rip us into shreds We all know why it stings to open up your chest We all show signs of greatness that we hope that someone sees Our broken teeth are scattered but we're smiling underneath A thousand bruising muscles still we're running on and on We all know names that ring like thunder rattling our walls Everyone is yearning for a reason for a cause Somewhere deep inside, we're holding on for dear life Oh dear life.  These words really spoke to me today.  And they reminded me of another kind of lyricist from the New Testament, the Apostle Paul.  (smooth segue, right?) In Paul's 2nd Letter to the Corinthians, he writes this:  8 We are hard pres

There's this term that gets employed quite a bit in the study of theology: a term that focuses on the big questions that must be answered about God.   The term is theodicy, and it's a big umbrella under which is perhaps one of the most challenging God questions that any of us have:  Why does God let evil happen in the world? I have often tried to answer this particular question with an argument about free will, which goes something like this:  Because God loves completely and without conditions, there can be no coercion of our love for God on God's part.  God won't force us to love God.  So, this freedom to choose means that we are also free to choose, and this freedom has both benefits and consequences depending on our choices.  Sometimes, the choices of ourselves and others cause pain and destruction.  Sometimes, the freedom of all of Creation to evolve, move, and act without coercion can mean tragedies, and disasters.  But God never forces the choice to love because

  It’s Eastertide (Season of Easter) We will conclude the Book of Acts to learn more about the first witnesses of the Resurrection and what we can apply to our own time and place.   Today, we will read a story from Acts chapter 1. The apostles had to replace Judas and took an unorthodox approach to picking between two people. One got picked, the other didn't.   Before we jump into that, let me ask you something.  Do you remember when you were a kid, and at P.E. or on the playground… and there was always someone picked last.   Was that kid, by chance, you? What is it like to be the one always picked last?    It's the dashing of hope, the realization that you were an afterthought, that the politics of groups isn't fair, that you have a lot to contribute but won't get the chance.   The rejection of it is hard, isn't it?   If you're like me, you might start daydreaming of a day when you will show them all up. You'll get your chance.   You may work hard, start st

There is no other developmental process quite like understanding who you are, your identity, and what it means to finally be comfortable in your skin.  How we learn who we are isn't something that comes easy; more's the pity.  But when it does come, the revelation of what it means to find ourselves, gain insights into what makes us tick, and stop pretending to ourselves about ourselves often arrives in a flash.  We might recall the moment like this, "And just like that, I knew..." or "All of a sudden, I realized...." We don't often pause to reflect on what it really took for us to find the way back to us. Spoiler alert: it took a while, and we weren't the only ones on the journey.   The great American writer Eudora Welty once wrote:  Insight doesn't happen often on the click of the moment, like a lucky snapshot, but comes in its own time and more often from within.  The sharpest recognition is surely that which is charged with sympathy as well as

In her excellent new book on the ebbs and flows of the nature of love entitled  Somehow , author Anne Lamott wrote this fantastic passage about love lost and found and how love is the energy that moves us forward:  Love's loss is the source of most suffering, and then love transforms the suffering into depth, compassion and the great painful gift of humility. I  never love this.  One day at a time, and sometimes one hour at a time, love will be enough to see us through, get us back on our feet and dust us off. Love gives us a shot at becoming the person we were born to be, not us on our tightropes holding our breaths as we strive for greatness (or at any rate not falling on our butts). When all is said and done, and against all odds, love is sufficient unto the day.  This spoke to me so profoundly today.  I can't tell you how much I love how Anne Lamott writes; if you haven't read her work, you should.  There's a thing that happens to many of us when we experience loss

  The other day, during some of my devotional reading, I came across a quote from  F. Scott Fitzgerald that was both sobering and thought-provoking.   Life is so damned hard... It just hurts people, and hurts people, until finally, it hurts them so that they can't be hurt ever anymore.  That's the last and worst thing it does.  Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby  and Tender is the Night, died at age 44 of a heart attack brought on by years of excessive drinking.  Even though he attained sobriety in the last year of his life, the abuse had taken its toll.  He would never know how important his work would become just a few years after his death and that Gatsby , a commercial failure during his lifetime, would one day be hailed as "the great American novel."  Fitzgerald's brilliance was often overshadowed by his life's trials and tribulations, and knowing all of that, it's not surprising to read the above quote, realizing that as he came to an end, he

I learn a lot from my kids these days.  They keep me current on the latest music, culture, and social media trends. They also keep me up to speed on the latest slang, phrases, and other cool things to say so I won't embarrass them by calling something "rad," "wicked," or "gnarly."  It takes effort to be current, which is why so many of us more seasoned folk decide to chill instead and stay within our own comfortable lanes.  Every generation has its own lingo, imprinting its particular  je ne sais quoi upon the cultural lexicon. I find it all fascinating.  The other day, a new friend who works with younger people taught me a new phrase I will use often.  She said one of them taught her the phrase "Do it for the plot."  I had no idea what it meant, so she explained it to me. I dug online to learn more, so I will share it with you, dear readers.  Sharing is caring.  When you “do it for the plot,” you’re viewing yourself as the main character in

Today, I'd like to reflect on something that may resonate with many of you. I want to reflect on why I can regularly rise so early in the morning yet despise it.  Let me explain what it's like to face the day on my end.  When the alarm goes off, I often still reach for my nightstand to hit the snooze button, but there's no free-standing alarm on my nightstand with a snooze button to hit. Old habits die hard, man.   No, my alarm is across the room in the form of Alexa, the Amazon fairy.  I can give her commands like, "Alexa! Snooze!" But that requires having enough consciousness to form words, which usually awakens me.   To get the alarm to shut off,  I will bark, "Alexa! Off!" Then, the voice inside the cylinder will pleasantly tell me, "Good morning, Leon," and then inform me of the temperature outside.  At this point, I will lie awakened and may reach for my phone to see how many important messages and texts came in between 10 PM and 5:30 AM.

It’s Eastertide (Season of Easter) We’re going to study the Book of Acts to learn more about the first witnesses of the Resurrection and what we can apply to our own time and place.   Let me talk about how we pre-judge people too soon. Can I do that?   You meet someone, and you think you have that someone figured out... and then they do something that blows your mind.  Ever have that happen to you?  You size someone up, and you think you know them.  You create a back story for them.  You decide whether they were raised by wolves or by really awful parents who taught them how to be horrible.   You decide they must kick kittens. Or puppies.  Or guinea pigs.  Their t-shirt says something offensive to you, like "Florida Gators," "Aggies," "Longhorns," or "Kansas City Chiefs." You decide this is a character flaw, and they were probably not hugged enough as children.  And then you see them do something or hear them say something that blows your created

Most of the inspiration for my Daily Devos comes from my reading. When I read, I constantly underline or highlight passages that speak to me, and then I put those highlighted quotes in a file on my computer.  Sometimes, I journal these quotes or think about them deeply outside the writing context. But when the time feels right, I typically reflect on them here, with all of you.  I read a quote from author Louise Erdrich some time ago, which I filed away and have been pondering ever since. For some reason, today feels like the day to write about it.  Here's the first part of the quote:  Life will break you.  Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love.  You have to feel.  It is the reason you are here on earth.  You are here to risk your heart.  You are here to be swallowed up.   How many of us resonate with this quote? I know that I do. Life breaks you sometimes. The good news is that be

  Sometimes, one line from a poem speaks to me, and I don't always know why. But I  always write those lines down and put them somewhere I can see daily until I figure it out.  Today, this line finally made it here for a reflection:  Will someone or somebody please start to sing? - Mary Oliver This is the last line from Oliver's poem "The Roses."   The poem finds the poet walking on the dunes by a beach, wondering at the salt roses in full bloom.  Something stirs within her that she likens to a horse galloping across the sand until it exhausts itself.  And so the poet asks the roses if she can lie down among them.  And then there is the last line.  In poetry, roses often symbolize eternal or lasting love or some deeply held emotion. Whatever the poet is feeling as she walks the dunes, gazing at them, is something she's been carrying for some time, and she finds herself weary.   It's unclear why she wants to hear singing at that moment. She could be feeling her