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...

I was reading today about an interesting aspect of human development that resonated with me on a spiritual level, so I thought I'd share.  When we are very small, we want to have a measure of independence from our parents or guardians. We want to stretch the limits of how far away we will wander from them in a crowd, at a park, or a store, but we don't actually want to be too far  away.   As children, we want what is called object constancy , which is to say that we want to maintain our connection with our parent or guardian even as we wander a bit.  When we can still see them, or know that they are there--we feel safe.  This is why children will often rush back and forth from playing on a playground to the patient parent, who is sitting nearby on a bench.  They just want to be reassured the parent is still there before returning to play.  There is a lesson here for those of us who struggle sometimes to know that God is with us in our s...

Our words are feathers that fly on our breath. Let them go in a holy direction. - Jeanne Lohmann My littlest boy Jacob has basically been an only child for the past week.  Both of his older brothers are gone for the moment--one on a mission trip, and the other attending a wedding out of state.   I've noticed that when his brothers aren't around, Jacob wants to talk more and share more about what he's thinking.  This translates into some fairly diverse conversations about things that happened at his day camp, a new video game he loves to play, Minecraft and much more.  I've also noticed a bit of a pattern with him.  Jacob will chatter away for a while, and then will pause to make sure that I'm listening.  I completely understand why he does it.  He wants to know that I care about what he cares about to some extent, but deeper still he wants to know that I care about him.    We all have the same longings when it comes to our conv...

When I was in my late teens and early twenties I was part of a subculture of mostly young men my own age who were referred to back then as a "metalheads."   We all listened to hard rock or "heavy metal" music almost exclusively.  We all attended the same heavy metal concerts and generally, all wore the same kinds of jeans, shoes and black concert t-shirts when we did.  We all thought we were such unique individuals.   You see, we lived under the illusion that we were special even though we did everything we could to fit into a group with which we longed to be associated.   Most of us live with these kinds of illusions every single day in a culture that is constantly creating them at a feverish pace.   And so, far too many of us become part of a desperate and mad scramble to fit in with our chosen tribes by any means necessary.   We do this, even if it means silencing our questions, blindly accepting the ...

Good is the enemy of great... Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.   - Jim Collins  There is a moment in the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus is tempted by the Accuser (the literal translation of the word Satan) to do good things, rather than great things. He's tempted to:  turn stone into bread rule the world perform impressive miracles  The Accuser's temptations are strong.  In one fell swoop, Jesus could solve the problem of hunger in the world, blow everyone away with how powerful he is (which would remove all doubts about him), and then basically take over the world and fix all the political, economic and social ills of the day.   Instead, Jesus refuses to do what seems good in favor of what is great.  He pushes back against the temptation to affect one particular moment in history, in order to fulfill his calling to change  all of history  and to bri...

Did you know that the Bible is One Big Story of God’s love for people who don’t always feel like they deserve God’s love?  It's true--it's the best kind of story, to be honest. And God has a way of always picking the wrong kinds of people to do what God needs doing.  People who think they aren't good enough, people who the rest of the world thinks aren't good enough--heck, people who really aren't good enough... that's who God seems to love to pick to write God's One Big Story. The Bible is One Big Story filled with heroes and villains, great adventures, epic battles, love stories and astonishing tales.  It’s also the story of a “once and future” King who picked the most unlikely people to help him share the story of God’s amazing love, and how far God was willing to go to save the world.  Today we are continuing our summer sermon series, One Big Story.  And what we're going to be learning over the course of this summer is one very simple fact: ...

You can see a lot by looking. - Yogi Berra  Almost all of the conflict in our lives comes to us when we live into the lie that we deserve  to have our own way.  That the difficult people in our lives wouldn't be difficult if they were just able to see the world as we see it.     Along those same lines, our struggle for peace in the middle of trials and tribulations is often grounded in our perceived need for things to work out in our favor... every time.   The late singer/songwriter Rich Mullins captured this struggle in his song, "Hold Me Jesus":  Surrender don't come natural to me.  I'd rather fight you for something  I don't really want Than to take what you give that I need.  This morning I read this convicting and powerful quote from Richard Rohr, who writes:    "It is our resistance to things as they are that causes most of our unhappiness."  Make no mistake, Rohr is...

Cut doors and windows  to make a room. Where the room isn't,  there's room for you.  - Lao Tzu When I read the above passage from Lao Tzu's short poem "The uses of not," it stood out for me in a way that I couldn't quite describe at the moment, and it left me with the feeling that I was supposed to know  something because of it.  To be honest, the last line was what grabbed me at first:  "Where the room isn't/there's room for you."  There was something true and beautiful about that line that spoke to me deeply.  The author seems to be saying, "In the empty spaces... in the margins... there is room for you there."  But it was the first line of that passage that eventually gave me some clarity as to it all resonated with me so strongly:  "Cut doors and windows to make a room."  That powerful line prompted me to ask myself:  "How often do I wall myself off from the world around me... from people who I enc...

Winning does not tempt that man.  This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,  by greater and greater beings.  - Rainer Maria Rilke A friend recently shared with me that she couldn't wait until a certain day in September to arrive because she had marked that day as the beginning of many of the trials and tribulations she and her family had faced over the last year.   To reach that date, she believed, would mean that a year of hard things had come to an end, and she could begin looking forward to a new year with new possibilities.  That made perfect sense to me.  I have my own milestone date in mind as well.   I was listening to a song by singer/songwriter Ryan O'Neal the other day, and these lyrics touched me deeply:   God, it has been quite a year- I've lived a little bit and I've died a little more. I know that I've asked it before, But please let the scale tip here in my favor. I always feel a bit guil...

"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye?"   - Matthew 7:3 Nearly twenty years ago, as part of a spiritual retreat, I met a man named Dale, who was one of the most loving people I've ever known.   Dale was one of the leaders of the retreat, and he was instrumental in my coming to terms with my own spiritual and religious baggage.  And I had a lot of baggage.   I learned a phrase from Dale that has stuck with me all through the years:  "What I see in you, I see in me." Dale would quietly insert this phrase every time we would start to rail about the difficult people in our lives.   Me: "She is so frustrating...  she never listens to me, and then always wants to give me advice."  Dale: "What I see in you, I see in me."   Me: "That guy drives me crazy, he's so full of himself."  Dale: "What I see in you, I see in me."...

Did you know that the Bible is One Big Story of God’s love for people who don’t always feel like they deserve God’s love?  It's true--it's the best kind of story, to be honest. And God has a way of always picking the wrong kinds of people to do what God needs doing.  People who think they aren't good enough, people who the rest of the world thinks aren't good enough--heck, people who really aren't good enough... that's who God seems to love to pick to write God's One Big Story. The Bible is One Big Story filled with heroes and villains, great adventures, epic battles, love stories and astonishing tales.  It’s also the story of a “once and future” King who picked the most unlikely people to help him share the story of God’s amazing love, and how far God was willing to go to save the world.  Today we are continuing our summer sermon series, One Big Story.  And what we're going to be learning over the course of this summer is one very simple fact...