Black Belt Spirituality

       Saw a good post by Tullian Tchividjian the other day on cancel culture. And I have to agree. We live in a super charged social media world today. Whether Twitter, Facebook, Instagram or whatever, everyone has an online presence. And debate happens quickly and often loud voices call for destroying hot takes and those who share them. I've never called for someone to be cancelled, but have gotten swept twitter debates. I'll just say Resurrectiongate. So here's some thoughts from a sermon I recently preached:         Too often we forget the redeeming and reconciling power of Christ’s blood shed for us on the cross. We get caught up in our humanity, our own brokenness and shortcomings that we allow those things to get in the way of allowing the spirit of God to come upon us to worship fully together and further the work of Christ.          When people are brought into the body of believers there is always a perio...

 I haven't blogged in over a year. Father forgive for I have sinned.  It's been a busy year. My wife and I now have a son, Calvin who is now 3 months old. Oh, and the pandemic. I have done something I don't normally do. I took time off from work. *Gasp* I have taken a month to be on paternity leave with Calvin while my wife returns to work, albeit from home. (see pandemic.)  So I will attempt to use the next 3 weeks to blog my experience of being a stay at home dad and some theological musings around that.  Oh, and if you haven't guessed, our son is named after that reformer, and a certain cartoon. 

So yesterday was Ash Wednesday.  For some of my Protestant friends, yes I agree, there is no biblical directive for us to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Just like there isn't a directive to celebrate Christmas or Easter. But there is at its core a great biblical theology of creation, sin, our mortality, grace and death.  It calls us to community in our shared brokenness and the humility of our mortality. As a Presbyterian and reformed theologian, I am glad I have added this practice to my spiritual life the last few years.  I have been lucky to serve in a healthcare setting for the last 5-6 years during Ash Wednesday. It is often said to be  the busiest day of the year for Chaplains. I argue it is, a hospital I served at imposed over 5 thousand ashes one year. This year, between 2 services and rounding my CCRC, I imposed well over 100 ashes. And I also served communion to two people in our nursing unit, a Lutheran and a Catholic. By the end of the day my ha...

A well known pastor and author recently asked  her twitter followers “what scene from a movie makes you cry every time you watch it?” Now, for me there are several; but one movie popped to the front of my brain. In the movie Gods and Generals, which chronicles the Civil War from 1861 to just before the battle of Gettysburg, there is a scene when Gen. Stonewall Jackson learns a young girl he befriended has died of scarlet fever. Receiving the news from his staff physician, Jackson walks to the edge of his camp and slumping on a stump in grief he cries a truly guttural cry and sobs uncontrollably. When questioned as to why he is crying now, after not crying for every single man whose death he has ordered, for every friend and cadet he has lost on the field of the battle, the physician answers “no, I think he is crying for them all!  Five years deep as a chaplain; there are deaths where I do the same, I retreat to my chapel and ugly cry for every person I have walked to dea...

Some musings on Rogue one: A Star Wars story. Jyn Erso’s call that “rebellions are built on hope!” is lingering in my heart. Having preached on Romans 5; suffering produces endurance, endurance character character hope. Yet while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. For me, each day is a rebellion against despair and suffering. But they are grounded in our source of hope, Jesus the Christ . Which led to these: And we boast in the hope  of the glory of God.   Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings,  because we know that suffering produces perseverance;   perseverance, character; and character, hope.   And hope  does not put us to shame, because God’s love  has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit,  who has been given to us. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5: 2b-5,8

Today was a rough day. It was the one year anniversary of the suicide of a resident in my CCRC. One of my flock. I spent a good chunk of the day with this persons widow, as well as the couple that witnessed the events unfold.  In light of Lent, My heart yearns for the resurrection, and my heart is continually broken for God's people. But we are Easter people; and Easter is coming!  Below is what I shared with my team that week last year: I walked my people through a trauma this week. And they walked me through it. So in light of Good Friday, this is what I shared with them: "It has been a rough week. Chaos has descended.(Oh, yeah, yeah it’s Holy Week.) Death’s sting has stung. Death is a Liar. It’s Friday! BUT that IS the good news; cause Sunday is coming! Nothing, NOTHING is outside the redemptive reach of God. We ARE Easter people. See you at the empty tomb! Rev. Sal"

The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty  and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her,  “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her,  “You are right when you say you have no husband.   The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”-John 4:15-18 NIV              How many of us have every done a Google search on our computers or smart phones? If you have, you may know that each time you open your browser, that browser keeps a record of you searches and the websites you may have looked at. In tech talk this is your browser history, or just your history.  And security experts say you should routinely erase or clean out your “history.” But, guess what, we all have a history. And not just a google history. And every now and then we are reminded of or look at...

So we are in Lent. Where has this year gone? I feel like I just finished digesting Thanksgiving dinner. But we are in Lent. We are journeying together to Easter. The joy and celebration of Easter.  But first we have to go through Lent. A season for Christians, whether it is a new found practice or one of liturgical tradition, it is the most beautiful season of the Christian year. Our reading for today I think is a great for the beginning of lent. I, like countless preachers around the country, even the world, are preaching on it if they follow the Lectionary. Which is a cycle of Scripture that allows us to preach and listen through the bible for the year. (If you follow it through the 3 year cycle you will have read 80% of the bible.) The past few weeks or months the lectionary has been leading us through Matthew but will switch to John for the remainder of Lent. I think the choice to use Matthew 4 for the beginning of lent is  a wise and beautiful one.  What does ...

Joel 2:13 Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Rend your hearts and not your garments. Well what the heck does that even mean!? Well good thing I went to seminary and barely survived, I mean studied Hebrew! Well the Hebrew word qara (kaw-rah) actually means to  tear, so Joel here is telling us to tear our hearts, and not clothes. Um, no, that would hurt!          But the prophet Joel is talking here in the 2nd chapter about coming to the Lord with fasting, mourning and weeping and to tear your heart and not your clothing. In ancient Israel, tearing your clothing was an act of symbolism, it expressed grief and morning. So Joel is telling the people to come to God when in grief not ripping your clothes in an outward expression of sorrow, but in a inward l...

             I based this post on a familiar scripture from Mathew.(5:13-20) Familiar even if you haven’t read it because of the song based on it, “This little light of mine.” This little light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine, Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Hide it under a bushel, no! I’m gonna let it shine. We have all sung the lyrics to the familiar hymn. How many of us have relegated this to the children's sermon. Along with Jesus loves me. It’s ok, you can raise your hand. It falls in the larger section that is the Sermon on the Mount. There, Christ speaks of those who are blessed, but in our passage today he continues on what the responsibilities of those who are blessed is.             Our passage falls after the well-known beatitudes, where Jesus expounds on who is blessed. It is Christ’s rule for how those who are blessed should live. Their lives are meant to be transformed b...

        What Are we afraid of? What are you afraid of? I am afraid of heights, and growing up, I was always afraid of fireworks. Until I was about 8, I couldn't enjoy 4th of July festivities. Silly I know, but loud noises scared me. They still do, if I am not expecting them. That’s part of why I don’t like horror movies, not so much the blood or gore, but the unexpected noises and surprises.  But we are all afraid of something.  We read psalm 46. A psalm I have prayed at countless bedsides before surgery, at the time of death and times of grief. A simple passage that directs to not fear, to trust and hope in God; to trust in his providence, his power and his grace in even the worst of times. This psalm imperils us to trust, to trust with confidence who God is. HE is our source of refuge, our strength and very present help in times of need.  I have sat at the bedsides of so many people in the times of need, at times when they have joi...

I encouraged people I have visited as a chaplain  to remember that people are always nearby. I was reflecting on Mark 6 recently for a chapel service. The portion in the "in between," between the feeding of the 5 thousand and Jesus walking on water to meet the disciples. And the miracles were not so much that Jesus multiplied the food or walked on water, but that he took compassion and made the disciples the hands of that compassion. When was the last time you thought of yourself as that?  But in Mark 6, we see that Jesus again wants to retreat to pray….He’s always doing that! In my chaplain positions, often after long visits with people, I find that I need to retreat. Retreat back into my office. This does a few things practically. It allows me to go make notes or chart what happened during the visit. But it also allows me to breath, process my feelings and the experiences I just shared and to recharge spiritually. This is common for people whose personalities are on the ...

I walked my people through a trauma this week. And they walked me through it. So in light of Good Friday, this is what I shared with them: "It has been a rough week. Chaos has descended.(Oh, yeah, yeah it’s Holy Week.) Death’s sting has stung. Death is a Liar. It’s Friday! BUT that IS the good news; cause Sunday is coming! Nothing, NOTHING is outside the redemptive reach of God. We ARE Easter people. See you at the empty tomb! Rev. Sal"

If you have ever read my blog, I hope you have, you may know that I attempt blog my way through Lent. So beginning with Ash Wednesday I may post a reflection, or a thought, or maybe a video that has a spiritual or religious meaning I feel fits with Lent. Sometime, because of the busyness of simply being clergy I may only post a scripture verse.  In looking over my blogs (Black Belt Spirituality and Yes We Can) I noticed that they were written in my own wilderness experience. A wilderness experience of divorce, self doubt and feelings of worthlessness. And not that they were clouded by that experience, they were definitely shaped by that. Ok, they were clouded a little bit.  I am amazed at how walking through the season of Lent for the past few years has shaped me and given me a deeper understanding of what it means to walk through the darkness of the valley of ones spiritual life and death. Lent will continue to be a valued time of year for me, and I feel blessed...

Growing up as a kid, like many kids, I paid no mind the the church  calendar. Unless it was Christmas. I was a kid after all. When I was in high school, I began to explore my faith. I was enrolled in a Catholic school, while being confirmed into a Presbyterian Church.  That's when I began to notice the weird (to me) practice every Lent of my classmates walking around with smudges of ash on their forehead.  So what exactly is Ash Wednesday.  For some of my Protestant friends, yes I agree, there is no biblical directive for us to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Just like there isn't a directive to celebrate Christmas or Easter. But there is at its core a great biblical theology of creation, sin, our mortality, grace and death.  It calls us to community in our shared brokenness and the humility of our mortality.  The last few Ash Wednesdays I have spent imposing ashes in a major Hospital in the City. The same hospital that I did my chapl...

It is Sunday morning. Mary Magdalene has just come to the tomb, still grieving, wanting to perhaps fully prepare the body of Jesus for burial, and she found it empty. We don’t know why she came so early.  It was dark, maybe early dawn, but also dark emotionally.  In the darkness, she runs to tell Peter and John (the disciple Jesus loved) that they, someone, has taken Jesus and he’s gone. Jesus is gone.  John’s gospel account of the resurrection is for me, the most intimate, the most personal.  While John may differ from the other gospels on how many women came to the tomb or when, only John shows the raw emotion that Mary was experiencing at the tomb. I can see this account being a performance as in a great play or movie. But half way through, being left at the tomb by Peter and John, Mary simply weeps.  Mary; This woman who had loved much. Arriving at the sealed tomb of the teacher whom she loved. And it is empty.  She is in shock. The tomb, which...

Growing up as a kid, like many kids, I paid no mind the church calendar; unless it was Christmas. I was a kid after all. When I was in high school, I began to explore my faith. I was enrolled in a Catholic school, while being confirmed into a Presbyterian Church.  That's when I began to notice the weird (to me) practice every Lent of my classmates walking around with smudges of ash on their forehead.  So what exactly is Ash Wednesday?  For some of my Protestant friends they find the day odd, and very Catholic. I do agree there is no biblical directive for us to celebrate Ash Wednesday. Just like there isn't a directive to celebrate Christmas or Easter. But there is at its core a great biblical theology of creation, sin, our mortality, grace and death.  It calls us to community in our shared brokenness and the humility of our mortality.  So we are entering the Lenten season. Christian’s worldwide mark the beginning of this season with Ash Wednesday. A day we...

    Going through an old blog, I found an old sermon I posted. I generally don't like my old sermons. But I dig this part of it. So I am re posting. Apparently this was my most popular post.                   For me, this story, this Christian life is not about us “finding Jesus.” I’m sure you've heard some Christians ask you “Have you found Jesus?” My first thought is always to answer “I didn't know he was missing, did you look behind the couch?” I make myself laugh sometimes.             But there is truth in my joke. Jesus is not the one to be found. Sure, a relationship with him should be sought after, but Jesus not the one that is lost. For me, every day is one that I must ask myself, what has separated me from God? What has lead me astray from my relationship with Jesus? Will I LET JESUS FIND ME?             You see, because Jesus has already found us. He has alr...

Life sucks sometimes. It's hard. But we were never promised an easy life, we are almost always guaranteed a tough life. Scripture is chock full of examples of life being hard, of it sucking, of it beating the crap out of people. But it talks about a God who continues to walk with us and love us and ask us to live for others. Life is worth it. Because how we live our lives shapes us and it can shape others. Watch this short video about Caio Terra, a Ju-Jitsu black belt. He speaks much wisdom. He is speaking about martial arts but the ideas apply to all of life.

I found a post that I posted last year for Lent. And the message applies today. Especially now that my blog is on black belt spirituality: I've gone and updated it as needed but I hope it does what I hope to continue doing with this blog: Incorporating martial arts, spirituality and Christianity.  Enjoy: My therapy this week was great. Physically painful, but great. But what  therapist would inflict physical pain on their clients you might ask. Not many. And for me, therapy is actually my training at my Tae Kwon Do dojang. It was painful tonight because on 8 months ago while doing take down drills I fell improperly and rolled my shoulder, and this week I aggravated it. Oh well, I love it, and pain just reminds me I'm alive. (Twisted, right!?) Tae Kwon Do has been a part of my life for the better part of 25 years. It has been a valuable source of discipline and structure. Also it instills the values of honor, self respect and respect for others and perse...