Presby-Musings

"What was said to the rose that made it open was said to me here in my chest...Whatever put eloquence in language, that's happening here." - Rumi, 13th century poet Almost every evening, my wife and I will take our little dog for a long walk on the golf course near our house.  As a treat, we usually let him off his leash so he can run free for a bit.  Typically, we'll just keep walking and he kind of runs around us--sometimes ahead, sometimes behind.   Our puppy never strays too far from us, but occasionally we'll have to call him to catch up.  When we do call him, he comes running as fast as his little legs will carry him, which is pretty fast.  He runs with joy--in love with how fast he can move, and the freedom he feels to be able to just cut loose and move.   When I see our little dog run like this it makes me smile.  No matter how hard my day has been, no matter how long the hours leading up to that moment... it amazes me to see how much ...

This week I am preaching the second installment of the Lenten sermon series, "Walls: What Separates Us From God & Each Other?"  The basic idea behind this series is that we carry around with us all of the building materials that we could ever need to create barriers between ourselves and God--and between ourselves and others.   And we need to let them go.   I had to make a decision about the "materials" that I would choose to highlight because we quite literally could spend each Sunday of the year addressing the bricks in our walls and never exhaust the list.   So I thought I would identify what I saw as the most prominent "wall building materials" within the Church:  Division, Gossip, Grudges & Guilt. This week we're dealing with Gossip.   First, let me ask this very important question which will be at the heart of our study:   Words kill, and words heal... Which words are we using? I have to confess that this question haunted me a...

  I have baggage.  I have fundamentalist Baptist baggage, as in I used to be one.  Basically what this means is that every time I sense legalism or elitism in Christianity, I get angry and defensive, and usually sarcastic.   Oh, and I have poor self-image baggage--hence the sarcasm.   What this means is that sometimes I use sarcasm to mask my feelings of inadequacy and to make me feel better about myself.  I have baggage when it comes to dealing with certain people because they remind of other certain people that I just can't stand to deal with... I have baggage when it comes to being wrong, as in I don't like to be wrong and when I am wrong, I tend to internalize it and beat myself up for being wrong.   I have some serious baggage.  We all do, but most of don't really talk about our baggage much.  And we definitely don't talk about it in church.   I created a website for my new sermon series for Lent.  The s...