HILLSVILLE  PRESBYTERIAN

We know the expressions all too well. To “kick the bucket” is to die. To make a “bucket list” is to consider all the things one hopes to accomplish before one kicks the bucket. The expression became popularized in a movie by that name released in 2007. Many of us walk around with an informal list in our heads and hearts and sometimes we get around to making our hopes more concrete. But many more of us will never have the luxury of creating such a wish list because death comes

Boundaries. Many of them are visible. Fences. Walls. Ropes (or those retractable straps used in places like airports). Painted lines. Coloring books. Barricades of all kinds. The idea is that when we bump up against such a boundary, we won’t cross over it for fear of the consequences which might ensue. Of course, other boundaries aren’t visible. Personal space (which can vary from one person to another). Laws that no one has committed fully to memory. Social norms. Office eti

Dentists love to talk about it. They do what they can to help us prevent it. Tooth decay. Gum erosion. From regular cleanings and professional treatment, complete with admonitions to exercise healthy hygiene, to certain brands of toothpaste with specific additives, we are encouraged to delay decay as long as we can. Of course, dietary and environmental factors also contribute to whether we can stave off cavities and extractions or not. And as with all aspects of organic life,

War is not always waged with military missiles, guns, and ammunition. War is often initiated with words. This one says this, believing they are absolute guardians of the truth. That one disagrees. Attacks ensue. Slanderous comments are slung in all directions. Personal assaults erupt. Reputations and lives are damaged, sometimes crippled beyond healing. And well do we humans know that venom comes in many flavors. The divisions are often fueled by differences of opinion on how

Oh, those amazing parts of words that have such an impact on meaning! There’s the potent con which when added to a root word turns it into something happening together such as confluence… as in the meeting of two rivers which then flow in unity as one. Or there’s the edgy anti which signals some sort of opposition at work… as in an anti-inflammatory drug laboring to counteract swelling. And we’re all familiar with the two letters which jump in front of a word and turn it into

When told to jump, we’re supposed to ask, “How high?” Right? That expression apparently originated among the ranks of military personnel. Can’t you see it? New recruits in their spit-shined shoes standing at perfect attention as a sergeant barks out commands prefaced by the instructions, “When I say ‘jump,’ you say, ‘how high?’” It’s the supreme litmus test for obedience. No pushback. No questioning. Just doing as told and in a superlative manner. Honorable, perhaps, but it d

Most of us know the meaning of the expression elbow grease. Hard work and effort to achieve a goal we’ve set for ourselves. Blood, sweat, and tears in service to a project or cause we love. Hours of overtime dedicated to completing an assignment or job before a deadline. Once upon a time, the image the expression would conjure up is of someone with a soapy brush in hand laboring to scrub a kitchen floor. Yup, that takes some elbow grease. And we’ve probably experienced the ne

It came into common usage sometime during the 1970s or 1980s. It seems to have come from the music genre known as hip-hop. As with many slang expressions, it caught on like wildfire. Dissing. To dis someone is to belittle or disrespect them. It’s one of the more painful experiences we know as sentient beings. The origins of the expression, however, reach way back in the history of human language, traceable to a Latin prefix. When it’s attached to another word, considered to b

It’s not always easy for us to trust. If we’ve circled the sun more than a decade or two, it’s highly likely that we’ve been lied to, betrayed, tricked, led astray, and rejected by someone for something. Ouch. The realities of being human among others of our kind! We want to be connected. We need to be in relationship. We are not wired to exist entirely independently of others. And when we are at our best, we believe it is a blessed thing to trust. Yet the more often our trus

Medical appointments. We have them. Some of us have them with much more frequency than others. Many of us have them with multiple medical professionals. Most of us aren’t thrilled when they roll around. That may or may not be because of the quality of care we receive. It’s more likely to be because of the condition we’re in. But it’s important so we do it. We keep the appointments with the numerous medical providers. We know we need these checkups. So we go. We check in. And

We’ve seen them at work on playgrounds: the fulcrum. It’s what makes it possible for a seesaw (or teeter-totter) to pivot from one side to the other. If a person were to attempt to stand in the center, on top of the fulcrum, it would require tremendous balance and strength not to tip to one side or the other. This is not a recommended activity, by the way… just imagine it. Not to sound too much like Forrest Gump, but life is like standing on the fulcrum. If we think of a teet

We’ve all misplaced something. We know what it’s like to go hunting for our keys or our cell phone or our favorite pair of shoes hiding somewhere in the back of the closet. We remember having our hands on whatever has gone missing, but we just can’t recall where we turned loose of it. There’s another reality we might have experienced: losing something that we don’t remember personally putting anywhere. Someone I know claims there is a secret opening in her dresser drawer to a

Do we ever look at another person’s body and wish it were our own? Probably. The tendency to compare is strong in us. Maybe we wish we were thinner, taller, shapelier, stronger, stunningly attractive, more limber, or younger. We might feel as though we lug our bodies out of bed and tug at them all day long with little awareness of all they do for us and absolutely zero gratitude for the marvel they are. After all, in our minds, they malfunction. They betray us. They gross us

We say it more often than we realize. It all depends on the weather. It all depends on my schedule. It all depends on what the kids have going on. It all depends on how I’m feeling. It all depends on whether the flight is on time. It all depends… Life is filled with contingencies. We humans living life prefer certainties. Sometimes that feeling of not being able to control everything all the time eats at us, frustrates us, drives us crazy, discourages us, humbles us. But ther

There are probably a gabillion answers to that question, are there not? A bag of bones. Somebody’s child. A rabid sports fan. A bestie. The boss of someone. A role model. A speck on the planet. A thorn in somebody’s side. The life of the party. Flesh and blood. That’s just a starting point because there are thousands of descriptive words with which we can be tagged. But if we were to drill down to the absolute essence of ourselves, what exactly are we? We humans love our dich

Who in the world first looked at a kiwi and decided to eat it? Some people even leave that fuzzy brown skin on and eat it too! It’s remarkable the things we put in our mouths. Locusts. Bubblegum. Jalapeno peppers. Squid. Cotton candy. Pork rinds. Kelp. Frog legs. The list could go on and on of bizarre looking foods! And then we could create a list of scary things children have put in their mouths! Paperclips. Bottle caps. Dirt. Pet food. Toys. Socks. Not to mention their toes

We’ve all heard those chicken-crossing-the-road jokes, haven’t we? But here’s something to ponder: why does a human cross a road? Of course, it’s to get to the other side… but what draws a human being from one place to another? What compels that step out of safety and off the curb? We might think of some very practical, mundane reasons: that’s where the mailbox is, a neighbor called for help, conveniently there’s a convenience store there, the wind carried the trashcan across

Does the “evil eye” come our way when the “evil I” comes out to play? We’ve all been its recipient. As children, we stayed too long at a friend’s house and disobeyed a parent’s expectation that we be home before dark. As teens, we defied the speed limit as we raced friends down an off-the-beaten-path country road believing there were no officers on patrol. As young adults, we intended to be faithful in a committed relationship but the tug of attraction to another was too stro

What would life be like without imagination? As we slide ever further down the road of artificial intelligence, some of us are wondering whether we will eventually lose the capacity to imagine. To dream. To create. To be stopped in our tracks by something that causes us to pause in awe. Perhaps using ChatGPT stimulates our sense of wonder. And maybe not. For some of us it is a world behind a door we choose not to open. Generative pre-trained transformers. Fifteen years ago, c

The long haul. We’re in it for some people or for certain causes. Statistics indicate that the divorce rate in the United States has been creeping downward, but still slightly more than two marriages in every one thousand end in divorce. The phrase in the traditional vows, “’til death do us part,” seems outdated in these contractual relationships that have changed significantly in recent years. But, of course, marriage is just one example of our human commitments that may or