Presby-Musings

Sometimes when I am counseling someone who is having a hard time seeing beyond their struggle at the moment, I will ask them to describe what it would look like if they were able to get everything they wanted.   I'll say, "Tell me what it would look like if you got what you wanted out of your relationship."  Or I'll ask them, "Can you describe what your ideal future would look like?"   My only goal is to get them to focus--even for a moment--on a hope-filled tomorrow, and then to reframe where they are now with this new vision.   I want them to begin to see their current circumstances with fresh eyes and to realize that God will meet them right where they are in order to lead them where God wants them to go.   Nine times out of ten the person will get a faraway look in their eyes.  They will first ponder my suggestion and then relate to me what their future could  be if they were able to overcome their challenges...

There was this song we used to sing in the churches of my youth entitled "This World Is Not My Home." The lyrics went something like this:  This world is not my home I'm just a passing through My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue The angels beckon me from heaven's open door And I can't feel at home in this world anymore. When I was a kid, I sang this song with gusto along with all of the saints who gathered for Sunday worship.  We believed those words, too.  They weren't trite phrases that tripped of our tongues.  We believed that "this world" wasn't our home.  Our home was some imagined glory where people just like us went when they died.  And because "this world" was so awful, we were supposed to say that we couldn't wait until we got to that "home" somewhere "beyond the blue."   In light of the recent and very public suicides of celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain and fashion icon Kate Spad...

"When you cease to exist, then who will you blame?" - Bob Dylan  There is this great story in the Gospel of John chapter 5 of Jesus healing a man who had been an invalid for a very long time.  Here's the first part of it:  2 Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda and which is surrounded by five covered colonnades. 3 Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. 5 One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time, he asked him, “Do you want to get well?” Here's a bit of background on this story.  This particular pool, which was fed by a spring, was a place where people in the city of Jerusalem would come and gather water to drink.   It was also considered sacred because it was said to have healing properties.  The water of the pool would bubble natur...