Presby-Musings

  It’s Eastertide (Season of Easter) We will conclude the Book of Acts to learn more about the first witnesses of the Resurrection and what we can apply to our own time and place.   Today, we will read a story from Acts chapter 1. The apostles had to replace Judas and took an unorthodox approach to picking between two people. One got picked, the other didn't.   Before we jump into that, let me ask you something.  Do you remember when you were a kid, and at P.E. or on the playground… and there was always someone picked last.   Was that kid, by chance, you? What is it like to be the one always picked last?    It's the dashing of hope, the realization that you were an afterthought, that the politics of groups isn't fair, that you have a lot to contribute but won't get the chance.   The rejection of it is hard, isn't it?   If you're like me, you might start daydreaming of a day when you will show them all up. You'll get y...

There is no other developmental process quite like understanding who you are, your identity, and what it means to finally be comfortable in your skin.  How we learn who we are isn't something that comes easy; more's the pity.  But when it does come, the revelation of what it means to find ourselves, gain insights into what makes us tick, and stop pretending to ourselves about ourselves often arrives in a flash.  We might recall the moment like this, "And just like that, I knew..." or "All of a sudden, I realized...." We don't often pause to reflect on what it really took for us to find the way back to us. Spoiler alert: it took a while, and we weren't the only ones on the journey.   The great American writer Eudora Welty once wrote:  Insight doesn't happen often on the click of the moment, like a lucky snapshot, but comes in its own time and more often from within.  The sharpest recognition is surely that which is charged with sympathy as well as...

In her excellent new book on the ebbs and flows of the nature of love entitled  Somehow , author Anne Lamott wrote this fantastic passage about love lost and found and how love is the energy that moves us forward:  Love's loss is the source of most suffering, and then love transforms the suffering into depth, compassion and the great painful gift of humility. I  never love this.  One day at a time, and sometimes one hour at a time, love will be enough to see us through, get us back on our feet and dust us off. Love gives us a shot at becoming the person we were born to be, not us on our tightropes holding our breaths as we strive for greatness (or at any rate not falling on our butts). When all is said and done, and against all odds, love is sufficient unto the day.  This spoke to me so profoundly today.  I can't tell you how much I love how Anne Lamott writes; if you haven't read her work, you should.  There's a thing that happens to many of us when w...

  The other day, during some of my devotional reading, I came across a quote from  F. Scott Fitzgerald that was both sobering and thought-provoking.   Life is so damned hard... It just hurts people, and hurts people, until finally, it hurts them so that they can't be hurt ever anymore.  That's the last and worst thing it does.  Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby  and Tender is the Night, died at age 44 of a heart attack brought on by years of excessive drinking.  Even though he attained sobriety in the last year of his life, the abuse had taken its toll.  He would never know how important his work would become just a few years after his death and that Gatsby , a commercial failure during his lifetime, would one day be hailed as "the great American novel."  Fitzgerald's brilliance was often overshadowed by his life's trials and tribulations, and knowing all of that, it's not surprising to read the above quote, realizing that as he...

I learn a lot from my kids these days.  They keep me current on the latest music, culture, and social media trends. They also keep me up to speed on the latest slang, phrases, and other cool things to say so I won't embarrass them by calling something "rad," "wicked," or "gnarly."  It takes effort to be current, which is why so many of us more seasoned folk decide to chill instead and stay within our own comfortable lanes.  Every generation has its own lingo, imprinting its particular  je ne sais quoi upon the cultural lexicon. I find it all fascinating.  The other day, a new friend who works with younger people taught me a new phrase I will use often.  She said one of them taught her the phrase "Do it for the plot."  I had no idea what it meant, so she explained it to me. I dug online to learn more, so I will share it with you, dear readers.  Sharing is caring.  When you “do it for the plot,” you’re viewing yourself as the main character in...

Today, I'd like to reflect on something that may resonate with many of you. I want to reflect on why I can regularly rise so early in the morning yet despise it.  Let me explain what it's like to face the day on my end.  When the alarm goes off, I often still reach for my nightstand to hit the snooze button, but there's no free-standing alarm on my nightstand with a snooze button to hit. Old habits die hard, man.   No, my alarm is across the room in the form of Alexa, the Amazon fairy.  I can give her commands like, "Alexa! Snooze!" But that requires having enough consciousness to form words, which usually awakens me.   To get the alarm to shut off,  I will bark, "Alexa! Off!" Then, the voice inside the cylinder will pleasantly tell me, "Good morning, Leon," and then inform me of the temperature outside.  At this point, I will lie awakened and may reach for my phone to see how many important messages and texts came in between 10 PM and 5:30 A...

It’s Eastertide (Season of Easter) We’re going to study the Book of Acts to learn more about the first witnesses of the Resurrection and what we can apply to our own time and place.   Let me talk about how we pre-judge people too soon. Can I do that?   You meet someone, and you think you have that someone figured out... and then they do something that blows your mind.  Ever have that happen to you?  You size someone up, and you think you know them.  You create a back story for them.  You decide whether they were raised by wolves or by really awful parents who taught them how to be horrible.   You decide they must kick kittens. Or puppies.  Or guinea pigs.  Their t-shirt says something offensive to you, like "Florida Gators," "Aggies," "Longhorns," or "Kansas City Chiefs." You decide this is a character flaw, and they were probably not hugged enough as children.  And then you see them do something or hear them say something...