Presby-Musings

In 2011 I had a crisis of faith.   Up until that time I would have self-identified as a (moderately) conservative evangelical Christian pastor.   But I had a sudden and shocking blow to my beliefs that came out of the blue early on an Easter Sunday morning as I was driving to church, and practicing my sermon in the car.   I remember pausing my recitation of what I was going to preach later and feeling the frigid wash of doubt wash over me like a bracingly cold ocean wave.  When I regained my breath, I actually whispered out loud: "I don't know if any of this is true." Before that moment I had been certain about everything.  I was certain about what I  believed, certain about who I was, and what I was put on earth to do.  Afterward, I found myself unmoored, lost, and scared to death.   There's this poem by A.R. Ammons that sums up how I felt in the weeks and months after that tectonic shift:   I  have nowhere to g...

The snow came the day before yesterday, floating down magically from the heavy grey skies over Central Texas.  It was a moment of wonder for those of us unfamiliar with such things on the regular.   My youngest son played out in the snow with his friends from the neighborhood.  They got soaking wet from rolling in it, making snowmen, throwing snowballs... and then tracking dirty, wet footprints all over my house when they came in to warm up.  As I stood outside the day after watching all of the magic melt away into a muddy mess, I got to thinking about spirituality, impermanence, and how quickly things can turn when we hold on to our beliefs too tightly.   Yep, that's how my mind works.  I wish I could shut it off sometimes and just simply be, but there you go.   Bear with me a moment, though.  I think there's something important here for those of us who struggle at the intersections of faith and culture, faith and politics, faith, ...

It's been a difficult week for all of us.   This new year, which we imbued with so much hope and promise, began ignominiously with a riot that took place in our nation's capital--a riot that took the lives of five people, and forever stained this moment in our shared history.   By all accounts, it could have been a lot worse.  It appears now that many of the people who breached security and entered the Houses of Congress had evil intent, and were only narrowly thwarted from further deadly violence.  I say this as a matter of fact, not as a way to stoke further division.  No matter what our political bent might be, none of us should hesitate in condemning these actions.  But the question before anyone who calls themselves a follower of Christ should now be, "What is the proper 'Christian' response to all of this?"   It would seem there is an easy answer, right? After all, Jesus gave his followers a blueprint of sorts for these kinds of mo...

  Today we are going to continue our journey through the Season of Epiphany and the sermon series, "Expect the Unexpected."  Epiphany is a season of surprise realization.  It's when we have the opportunity to begin to see more clearly who Jesus is, and what Jesus came to do.   Fr. Thomas Keating once wrote about this season:   The great enlightenment of the Christmas-Epiphany Mystery is when we perceive that the divine light manifests not only that the Son of God has become a human being, but that we are incorporated into his body.  This is the special grace of Epiphany  Today we are going to take a bit of a detour in the Epiphany journey however because the official "Feast Day" in the historic church calendar today is The Baptism of our Lord. This is the moment when Jesus is baptized by John and something amazing happens...  The Voice of the Lord speaks and says something beautiful... we'll get to that in a moment.   I want yo...

When I was a teenager, I was at church pretty much any time the church doors were open.  There was Sunday school on Sunday morning, then a Sunday service, followed by choir practice for my mom (I sat outside in the car) in the late afternoon, and then Sunday evening services.   Additionally, we went to "prayer meetings" on Wednesdays (I would go to the youth version), and Thursdays were often set aside for "door-to-door-witnessing."  This is where we would literally go knock on and people's doors in the neighborhood and ask them the following question:  "If you died right now, would you go to heaven or hell?"   We were obsessed with the afterlife, and how to ensure we ended up in the right place in the said afterlife.  It consumed most of the sermons I heard, all of the Sunday school lessons, youth meetings, and pretty much everything else I was taught.   I was taught that this world was corrupt and awful---filled with sin and sinners....

I  had a whole other devotion that I was planning to publish this morning, but I decided to wait on it. I need to write and think a bit about the tragic and awful assault on our nation's capital yesterday by rioters who opposed the outcome of the recent election.   The great reformed theologian Karl Barth once wrote that the preacher should have one eye on the Scriptures and one eye on the newspaper.  So that's what I'm doing this morning.  Plus, I just kind of need to process what I'm thinking.  One of the many things that frustrated me yesterday is the way that so many people engaged in the blatant employ of "whataboutism" as they remarked on the violence and the many other shameful actions of the mob that overran the Capitol Building.  What is "whataboutism?"  Here's the working definition:  what·a·bout·ism /ˌ(h)wədəˈboudizəm/noun - The technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation...

I've been thinking a lot lately about the many things I want to do differently this year.  It takes me a bit to figure out which ones I'm actually going to tackle first, which is why I'm only just thinking about them right now.   I feel like the way will be revealed when I'm truly ready to start walking.  Either that or I'm afraid to move.  I really hope it's the first thing.   There is also a distinct possibility that it could be something altogether different though.  Let me explain...  You see, there's something delicious about imagining a better you, isn't there?  There's something exhilarating in the planning of things that you want to accomplish.  There's a rush that comes when you sit with your untested and untried dreams---bathed in the euphoria of pregnant anticipation.  It is in this space that we don't really have to put ourselves or our plans to the test. We don't have to invite failure or triumph, for that matte...