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If you’ve ever spent all week longing for the weekend, then spent the weekend bracing for Monday, you already know the strange ache we’re talking about: life can feel like one long attempt to get somewhere else. We’re re-releasing a listener favorite while Pastor Ryan is on sabbatical, and it’s fitting that this one originally marked our 50th episode, because it gets right to the heart of what so many of us are wrestling with: chronic hurry, low-grade discontent, and a mind that can’t stay put.
Ryan and Mike start with a Jerry Seinfeld bit that’s funny until it’s painfully true: “nobody wants to be anywhere.” We unpack how that shows up at work, at home, on a night out, and even on a plane when all you can think about is landing. Ryan shares how travel to Tanzania made the pattern obvious, and we ask the question underneath the joke: why do we keep rushing through the moment we’re in, as if the next moment will finally fix what feels unsettled inside us?
From there we turn to Christian spirituality and the story of Moses and the burning bush. Ancient rabbis wondered how long Moses had to stand there to notice the bush wasn’t being consumed, and that question opens a powerful insight: the miracle isn’t only that God speaks, it’s that Moses is present enough to notice. We talk about attention as a spiritual practice, how technology shrinks our focus, and what it could look like to slow down, be content where we are, and stop missing the “burning bushes” all around us.
If you want a practical reset for mindfulness, faith, and everyday life, press play. Then subscribe, share with a friend, and leave a review to help more people find Reflections.
Hey everyone, Olivia here. Pastor Ryan is on sabbatical, so I'll be re-releasing some of our most listened to episodes from the Reflections podcast. Today's episode originally aired in August of 2024. It marked our 50th episode. If you ever spent an entire week looking forward to the weekend, only to spend the weekend thinking about Monday, this episode might be for you. Enjoy.
What is up, everybody? My name is Ryan, and welcome to our Reflections Podcast. I'm in the studio with Mike Lauer. Dude, Mike, it is Mike just told me it's episode number 50. What is up? Look at us, man. Hey, congratulations. We are 50 years old. No, that's actually not how it works. We are 50 episodes old. And man, this one I'm actually kind of excited about. I was thinking about it all the while while I was in uh Tanzania.
I heard this Jerry Seinfeld bit. I think Jerry Seinfeld is so funny. I mean, he's hilarious. I didn't love the show Seinfeld. I don't know. It was just sort of too weird for me. I know. I know. But but I like, I think Seinfeld himself is hilarious. But he's got this bit where he says, nobody wants to be anywhere. He says, like, look, this is his bit. He says, the good thing about going out is that uh when you're out, you don't have to be out that long. And so you eventually get this feeling when you're out, like with friends or whatever, like, hey, I gotta be getting back. I gotta get out of here, I gotta get back. And like you did all this work to get out, and then after you're out for a little while, you're like, I just want to go home. I want to get back. Probably especially the older you get, you know. But like no matter where you are in life, he says, at some point, you want to get out of there. Like if you're at work, you want to get home. But when you're at home, you're like, I've been I've been working all week, I gotta get out and go out and celebrate. And then you're out, you're like, well, it's getting late, I gotta get back home now. And and then Seinfeld says, I gotta get up, I gotta get to the airport, I gotta fly somewhere, gotta get on the plane. So you stand in line to get on that, you know, on that darn jetway just so you can get on the plane, and then the plane takes off, and then you're like thinking to yourself the whole time the plane's in the air, like, when do we land? I wanna land, I gotta get, I gotta get on the ground, I'm gonna get off the plane. Plane lands, I gotta get off the plane now. You we sort of the doors open, and uh you're like waiting for the doors to open, and you rush to get off the plane, and you know, people inappropriately line up in the aisle there, sort of jumping ahead in the line, like, where's what is everyone's problem? But but anyway, then he says, like, look, nobody wants to be anywhere. Nobody likes anything is his line, which is hilarious to me. And he says, We're cranky and irritable, and all we're and we're dealing with it all by constantly changing locations. Like, I gotta get here, I gotta get there. And then when we're there, I don't want to be there anymore. I want to go over there, I gotta get home, I gotta get here. And certainly flying from here over to Tanzania. I was in Tanzania for two weeks, a couple weeks ago, and it's like you just want to get there. And then when you're there, you want to get to the next destination. We had a ton of travel time. We flew from here to New York, New York to Nairobi, Nairobi to Darasalaam, then we drove from Darasalaam to Aringa, drove from Aringa to finally in Jombei, and it took us like three or four days of travel. And like, I just want to get there. But it's it's crazy, like this is so true. I thought he was like spot on. We always want to be somewhere else and get through whatever it is that we're doing to get to the next thing. Only when we get there, like we want to be somewhere else. And he's right, nobody wants to be anywhere, and nobody likes anything, as we said.
So it raises the question what why do we constantly want to be wishing, or or why do we constantly wish we were somewhere else? Like, why are we so discontent with the present moment or wherever we are at the time? Like, why can we never just be content or present or here? We're always wanting to get through this thing to get to somewhere else and be somewhere else, and again, only to get there to then want to be somewhere else after
that. And it reminds me of one of my favorite stories in the Bible when Moses is uh it's he's up on this mountain and he comes across this bush, and the text says he sees the bush and he he notices that the bush is burning like it's on fire, but it's not being consumed. And the question that a lot of the ancient rabbis asked was like, well, how long was he standing there to see that this bush is on fire but not being consumed? Like if you were to watch a fire, like out in your backyard, you had like a bunch of wood and it's on fire, how long would it take you to realize, oh, that wood's not actually being consumed? It would take a while. I don't know, seven, eight, nine, ten minutes, maybe fifteen minutes. And so, like, apparently Moses didn't have a ton going on. He's just staring at this fire, this bush is on fire not being consumed. And the rabbis say this they say that the the miracle is not that God talks to him in the bush or that the bush is on fire but not being consumed. Rather, the the miracle that was that Moses was present enough and didn't rush through the moment to get somewhere else, but that he's present enough to notice God in the bush. In other words, the miracle was that he had the attention span that was long enough to notice this thing. Uh uh it's incredible, and I think it's an incredible story, not just today because we're so inundated with technology and our attention spans are incredibly short with TikTok and Instagram videos and Facebook reels and these kinds of things. That's certainly true. But just our incessant desire to be somewhere else, and now we have the capacity with jet travel and car and you know, everything's quick. We have the capacity to be anywhere, and we want to be anywhere but where we
are. So here's my question today like, what would it look like for you to just be present, no matter the circumstances, wherever you are, just to be there, if you're on a plane flying to wherever, just be there and try to, however you can enjoy the moment or at least be content in the moment and look, as it were, for like burning bushes all around you. What are the things we're missing by rushing through each moment and rushing past the people in our midst as we're rushing on to the next moment? Like and also I think the question in my mind too is like, what are we really running from? Why can't we be present? What are we really looking for in the next moment? And why can't we find it in this moment? And what's what's going on inside of us like that's just so discontented and unsettled? And what would it look like today to just slow down and be present no matter where we are and to stop rushing? Because perhaps we're missing these burning bushes all around us. All right, that's it. That's all I've got. So notice the bushes today, the burning bushes. Slow down and be present. All right, love you guys. Peace.
Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.
