Presby-Musings

When I was a kid, summer was like magic.  During those summers long ago, I would wake up in the morning with a rush of possibility.  There would be this fierce sense of joy that would fill my chest as I contemplated the day to come.   And those days would last so long, wouldn't they?  When I was young I wanted to wring every bit if adventure out of those summer days and nights.  I would stay outside as long as I could---until it was almost too dark to see.   One memory seems to stand out for me today--it's one that I've brought to mind over and again throughout my life.   In my mind's eye I can see myself at age 10, catching fireflies with my cousins in the gathering South Carolina dusk.  My parents are young--younger than I am now.  My grandmother, four uncles and my aunt are alive and laughing.   It was a holy moment, and it is a gift to be able to recall it with such vivid detail.   In the New Testament, there is a G...

When I was a kid I used to think about eternity, and it would blow my mind.  I would try to imagine something that never ended, and it eluded my imagination .   I was taught that Heaven would be like one long worship service that would last forever. This sounded to me like the worst thing in the history of ever.   Truth be told, I found church to be mind-numbingly boring when I was a kid.  It already  felt like church lasted forever.  Trying to imagine a worship service that never ended was beyond me.   The trouble with conversations about eternity for most Christians is that it almost always focuses on time.   That was the extent of my youthful understanding of eternity, in fact.  I could only understand eternity by relating it to other things that felt like they lasted forever.    But eternity, at least in the Biblical understanding of eternity (the kind that Jesus talked about, more specifically), isn't about the passage...