Mental Musings

Religion and politics seem to be the two most volatile topics. Especially politics around election times. Just ask a group of people who they plan to vote for and watch the fireworks start. There are only a few people that really seem to be educated about each candidate. Many people only seem to know the talking points from their own political party and they will use those to bash you over the head if you just happen to present them with contradictory evidence. Mark Twain said, “If you don't read the newspaper, you're uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you're misinformed.” He also said, “It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.” If politics is such a polarizing subject, should followers of Jesus be politically active? Many Christians believe that good citizenship implies that we should be involved in politics. They have made use of Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, and more to push their own message about which pol...

Betty was a woman struggling just to make it another day. She had tried everything to find some peace in her life, but every day she continued to be frustrated and felt like a failure. A friend suggested that she make an appointment with her therapist, so she did. At the first session the therapist told her that the way to achieve peace is to look around you and finish the things you have started. Betty’s friend called and asked how things were going. “Not, well,” Betty admitted. I saw the therapist and I was told that the secret to peace was to finish everything that I had started. “Did you try that?” her friend asked. “Yes, I did. I went home saw a half-eaten supersize bag of M&Ms, a half empty bottle of wine, half a cake, and half a gallon of ice-cream. I finished all of those, but I still don’t feel any peace.” Searching for peace. It seems that everywhere we look people are worried, troubled, concerned, angry, confused, afraid, and upset. People will try almost an...

There is a technique in writing, known as a simile or comparison or analogy, that allows the writer to describe an unseen or unknown thing using something the reader would certainly have seen or known. I came across these analogies that were sent to the Washington Post for a contest to find the funniest analogy. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a ThighMaster. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long it had rusted shut. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike...

There is a legend about an unusual work of modern art back in the 1980s-a chair affixed to a shotgun. It was to be viewed by sitting in the chair and looking directly into the gun barrel. The gun was loaded and set on a timer to fire at an undetermined moment. People were told that it could happen at any time in the next 100 years. The legend claims people waited in lines to sit and stare into the shell's path! They all knew that the gun could go off at point-blank range at any moment, but they were gambling that the fatal blast wouldn't happen during their minute in the chair. There is no way to know if this legend was true. It seems unreal that anyone would knowingly risk their life like this. Yet we know that millions of people are living their lives just like that day after day. They know the truth, that the hammer could fall at any moment and then it will be too late, but they continue to sit and stare down the face of that truth without any attempt to move. ...

Introduction Pastor Tony, was shocked to hear that his friend Charlie, who had been a college Bible professor for many years, suddenly quit his job and started working as a postal carrier. After talking about the change, Tony said, “Charlie, if you’re going to be a mailman, then be the best mailman you can be.” Charlie thought for a minute and then said, “Tony, I’m a lousy mailman. I’m the last to get back to the office every day and I can’t sleep at night.” Tony asked him to explain why that is. Charlie said, “There are so many lonely people on my route who never had anyone visit them until I became their mailman. And besides, have you ever tried to sleep after drinking 15 cups of coffee in one day?” Charlie might be sleep deprived, but he was alive with excitement because he had finally found his purpose. We just finished our Driven series where we learned all about our purpose as a church and our purpose as individuals. We learned that our purpose and our passion driv...

This is the final message in our Driven series at Elevate Church of Annapolis One night after putting his three-year-old son, Brian, to bed, Bob heard muffled sobs coming from his room. Rushing back in, he found that the child was crying hysterically. He told his dad that he had accidentally swallowed a penny and was sure that he would die now. The father, in an attempt to calm him, took a penny from his pocket and pretended to pull it out from his son’s ear. Brian’s eyes got real big and he stopped crying at once. He then grabbed the penny from his dad’s hand, swallowed it, and cheerfully demanded, "Do it again, Daddy!" I understand that Father’s Day is not an easy day for many of you. Some of you have just recently lost your dad and some of you never really knew your dad. But I want you to know that you have a Heavenly Father that loves you and loves spending time with you. The Bible gives us many names for God all based on His relationship with us. Some peopl...

Author Jon Katz writes about his experience on a farm in Massachusetts in his book, The Story of Rose: A Man and His Dog . I remember sleeping in bed upstairs in the farmhouse and being awoken suddenly by a cold dog nose against my arm. Rose had hopped up into bed and was whining. She only did that when something was wrong. I had learned the hard way not to question this but to get up and follow her.  I looked out the window at the snow, piled up in drifts and still coming down hard, and muttered to myself. I got dressed quickly—I believe I was very much afraid of what I would find out there—and followed Rose downstairs. I put on my boots and heavy parka. Rose led me in the deepening snow and blustery cold winds to the pasture gate. We walked through the gate … up the hill, and away from the barn, vanishing into the snowy mist … After a second, over the howling noise of the wind, I heard a ewe baaing a high-pitched call of alarm and stumbled toward the sound … A ewe was lying...