Presby-Musings

Today we are going to conclude this week's study on the Holy Spirit through our Daily Devos.   In the Jewish tradition there are literally prayers for all aspects of life--because, according to the ancient rabbis, being open to God requires a shift in your understanding about what is sacred and what is "profane"---another word for what is seemingly earthy and not holy.  In fact there is a very old "privy" prayer that is meant to be prayed after you have finished doing your business in the privy, which is the old English word for bathroom.    Listen to this from Rabbi Abayei: "Abayei said, when one comes out of a privy he should say: Blessed is He who has formed man in wisdom and created in him many orifices and many cavities. It is obvious and known before Your throne of glory that if one of them were to be ruptured or one of them blocked, it would be impossible for a man to survive and stand before You. Blessed are You that heals all flesh and d...

Today we are continuing our series in the Daily Devos about the Holy Spirit.  As you recall from earlier this week--we are constantly exchanging the atoms that make us us with one another and everything else.  Energy is flowing around us, in us and through us all of the time.  And to think that we aren't affected by this billions-of-atoms-a-second energy exchange is ludicrous.  So there's all of this energy flowing back and forth between us--energy that bears the very DNA of a God who is not far away in his holy temple tuning in occasionally to hear our puny prayers.  This God is here, present, flowing through us in what Christians call the Holy Spirit.  And I believe this God is speaking, laughing, guiding, whispering and creating in the midst of all of it.  When we read about the way Jesus always seemed to be speaking to God, sharing something special with God, maintaining an open channel, so to speak with God... it makes you wonder if this w...

Today we'll be continuing our exploration of the Holy Spirit of God through the Daily Devos.  I went on a cruise to Alaska a few years ago.  While on the cruise my wife and I joined some new friends for an evening of karaoke and drinks.  Actually drinks and then karaoke.  Trust me, the order is important. For the final number my friend Stuart was asked by the DJ to come up and sing Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive."  As the first strands of the song played over the speakers, every woman in the crowd it seemed was on her feet singing along, "At first I was afraid, I was petrified...."  And then they came to the dance floor.  Young women in the twenties.  Teenagers.  Single moms.  Middle-aged women in super high heels.  An elegant woman in her mid-seventies.  Two lesbian couples.  A couple of old ladies who couldn't walk very well... And Stuart.  They sang at the top of their lungs.  In unison.  ...

Today we're going to be continuing a short Daily Devo series on the Holy Spirit of God.   Some years ago, I remember having a conversation with a young woman who told me that she had come to point in her life where she knew she believed in God, and that this belief had ultimately led her to experience Jesus. She said that "there is just too much good in the world for this not to be true...." The first time I heard a sermon on grace was when I was twenty four years old in a Presbyterian church in Ocoee, Florida.  I can't remember exactly what the pastor preached, but I couldn't stop crying.  I'd been an agnostic for some time.  I was bitter.  I had spent years trying to fulfill the longings of my heart by appeasing one god or another.  And I thought that the God I had learned about in Sunday school was angry and required negotiations.  There wasn't anything imminent about that God, and by imminent, I mean up close, personal, and real.   ...