Mugwort Musings takes its name from the mugwort plant found in North America, Asia, and Europe, and noted for its variety of uses. Therefore, Mugwort Musings reflects random thoughts I have on a variety of topics. (All quotes are attributable to Stan Self)

Church/Faith/Religion

• Perhaps the church’s biggest problem is that a people called to serve, instead, insist on being served.
• Lent: A 40-day period of time set aside by Christians to think and act the way they should think and act all year.
• In the local church, baptisms should be much more common than pot-luck meals. But, alas, most often such is not the case.
• Jesus reduces my mountains to hills and raises my valleys to plains.
• As agonizing as was the flogging, as painful the thorns, as excruciating the piercings, nothing matched the mental and emotional anguish of bearing all sin for time and eternity.
• Be careful not to get so caught up doing church work you fail to do God’s work. They are not necessarily the same.
• Real men don’t let their wives go to church without them.
• By their actions, some folks seem intent on seeing just how far God’s grace will extend.
• Hey Church! If Jesus is not part of the dialogue as you do missions, then you are not doing missions.
• For an individual, a church, or even a denomination, a good metric for fealty to the faith is whether you are moving with or away from Jesus.
• The issue is not our limitations compared to others but our potential when surrendered to the power of the living God.
• Religious moralizing driven by political bias is unbecoming the follower of Christ, whether from the right or left.
• I heard a local weatherperson say the sun was going to come up an hour later due to Daylight Savings Time. Uhh…no. The sun will come up as it always has, roughly 24 hours after it came up the previous morning. Isn’t it amazing that the government artificially sets or claims something and then we think that somehow creation must obey? Creation nor the Creator is deluded, we are.
• Now that Christmas is over, maybe the exploitation, for political purposes, of Jesus as poor or a refugee will end.
• No sentence in a sermon should begin with, “I probably shouldn’t say this but…”
• I see where giving to the church averages about 2.3%. I would hate to see what some churches would do with another 7.7% if they all tithed.
• Summer: That time of the year when most churches kick it into neutral and get laid back. Satan loves Summer!
• Easter is that season of the year when churches all across America will be brimming with . . . colored eggs????
• Much of the trouble facing the church today can be traced to an apparent unwillingness on the part of much of the clergy to preach “go and sin no more.”
• For the unbeliever, the difference between God’s grace and blind luck is razor-thin; for the believer, the difference is as wide and as deep as the Grand Canyon.
• When it comes to Kingdom building, the best friend you have is the one you are about to meet for the first time.

Miscellaneous

• I was just watching “Big Joe Polka Show Classics” on RFD-TV. Don’t let anyone tell you dancing helps you lose weight.
• Christmas season is a wonderful time to get your tear ducts washed out.
• A stitch in time may save nine but, more importantly,  it spares embarrassment.
• I can’t decide which is growing faster—urban sprawl or the deer population.

Politics 

• With one stroke of the pen, President Biden became El Jefe of Human Trafficking.
• Something is incredibly wrong when there are more people in my doctor’s office handling paperwork than people dealing with healthcare.
• It seems as though no politician can make a decision or voice a position without first sticking a finger in the air to see which way the wind is blowing.
• A politician’s convictions seem to last only as long as the campaign season.

Retirement

• Retirement is when you can grill a steak for lunch no matter what day it is.
• Maybe the greatest thing about retirement is that I get to shave only when I want to.
• I would begin piano lessons if I could play The Last Rose of Summer like Phil Coulter before I die.
• Retirement is pretty close to the best job I ever had.
• Retirement: That state where Saturdays are the same as the previous five days.
• Retirement is that period of time when you are going to catch up on everything but catch up on nothing.

Social Media

• The only thing worse than a failure to properly attribute a quote is to attribute a quote to someone who never said or wrote it. Unfortunately, social media is rife with both.

• Social Media: That place where you can find a single verbatim quote and see it attributed to 25 different authors.
• Social media is so replete with copied memes, urging readers to like and share, one wonders if anyone has an original thought any more.
• A “like” or a “love” on Facebook may make the poster feel good but a “share” may make you and him/her a change agent.
• A wise person doesn’t re-post news or memes that haven’t been verified as accurate.
• If your social media photos are mostly of yourself, you just might be a bit egocentric.
• Maybe we need a Facebook for Cats so the regular Facebook will be decluttered.

Sports

• In sports, nothing breeds contempt like success.
• There is no lovelier sports venue than a Major League Baseball park adorned for a World Series game.
• After umpiring rec ball for 25 years, I can safely say that umpires are the only ones inside or outside the fence that makes calls with their head. Everyone else makes calls with their heart.