Wondering Presbyterian

My husband and I just celebrated our second wedding anniversary and he bought us a Virtual Reality system. We’ve done VR a couple of times at the mall, and I’m a huge fan. Not sure what it is about this that I love. There’s an underwater game that I play where I basically sit under water and watch fish. It’s incredibly meditative, but I have to be careful because if I sit there too long, I get a bad headache. At the end of the day, it might feel like I’m underwater, but I’m also still just looking at a screen. Not great for your eyes. My church has a vision team that is looking at the different realities of our congregation and our culture. Our recent conversations have been about generations. Most recently, we watched a webcast from the Barna group’s partnership with World Vision. They did a huge study on millennials – “the connected generation.” As a millennial myself, (there are many definition of millennials, but the most accepted definition is anyone born between 1981 and 1996)...

            Recently, I attended a 3-day conference on stewardship. The conference (Stewardship Kaleidoscope) was held in San Diego, Ca and it was wonderful. I ran into several people that I knew, which was a surprise, including someone I graduated with from seminary. The theme was “vital signs of a healthy steward.”             (Aside: Stewardship is a “churchy” word. A steward takes care of something. Stewardship is how we take care of things whether it’s time and place, money, our bodies, each other, our environment, etc. I’ve heard it said that stewardship is not a program; it’s a lifestyle.)             Our keynote speaker was Erik Law, a writer, episcopal priest, and the founder of the Kaleidoscope Institute ( https://www.kscopeinstitute.org/ ). In one of the group exercises, everyone got bookmarks that repres...

Every once in a while, God likes to remind me that He’s got this.             My weight has always been a sore spot for me, ever since elementary school. I do not like to talk about it, and I’m incredibly sensitive about it. This past year, though, I have been trying to get some things in order. I paid off my student loans and credit cards. Now I have some physical things to work on. To that end, I began seeing a nutritionist in May. I joined a gym and try to walk outside when I can (while I can, because let’s be honest: when it gets cold outside, I will be under blankets on my couch with books and hot tea).             So now it’s September. The end of September, and I was getting frustrated. I have had some ups and downs in the journey. I keep reminding myself: small changes. Baby steps. I can do this. Then I have a setback and there’s this little voice in my brain that ...