Podcast appearances and mentions of dave brisbin

Dave Brisbin 6.14.26 God is love. That's not just a statement, it's a principle. Attributes we experience as the infinite Source of everything go far beyond qualities we use to describe. They point at essence, a table of indivisible elements, commodities that comprise the whole. If God is love, then God is also everything else that supports the oneness that love is: restoration, reconciliation, salvation, forgiveness. God doesn't perform them as verbs. God is them as nouns. Even grammar can't keep up. If God is forgiveness, then God doesn't forgive. Forgiveness is the essence of the field of God's presence. Enter the field, enter forgiveness. There is no prerequisite for forgiveness. No contrition, confession, penance required. No precondition beyond what it takes any of us to enter the field. Entering the field, being fully present, means being fully aware, vulnerable, humble, willing to submit to something greater than self. Which happen to be the same qualities that forgive—free us from guilt or victimhood. Jesus never says, I forgive you. He says, your sins are forgiven or your faith has made you whole. Not an action, a recognition of having entered the field. This is not a distinction without a difference. It makes all the difference in how we understand our relationship with God. Jesus tells the story of laborers who go to the field to work early in the morning and all through the day, some only working an hour before quitting time. They are all paid the same. The early workers are outraged. So are we. But the point is, the pay is entering the field, not a reward for time served. They were paid the moment they entered the experience. To believe God does or doesn't forgive based on performance is to fear God may withhold the love and acceptance of forgiveness. But God can't withhold what God is. God is one, oneness is love, love is forgiveness. Forgiveness isn't absolution bestowed. It's the field we inhabit. Forgiveness is the journey we take to become present to the field. Like the stages of grief, the healing is the journey. No one can take it for us or heal apart from it. We're as forgiven as we want to be.

Dave Brisbin 6.14.26 God is love. That's not just a statement, it's a principle. Attributes we experience as the infinite Source of everything go far beyond qualities we use to describe. They point at essence, a table of indivisible elements, commodities that comprise the whole. If God is love, then God is also everything else that supports the oneness that love is: restoration, reconciliation, salvation, forgiveness. God doesn't perform them as verbs. God is them as nouns. Even grammar can't keep up. If God is forgiveness, then God doesn't forgive. Forgiveness is the essence of the field of God's presence. Enter the field, enter forgiveness. There is no prerequisite for forgiveness. No contrition, confession, penance required. No precondition beyond what it takes any of us to enter the field. Entering the field, being fully present, means being fully aware, vulnerable, humble, willing to submit to something greater than self. Which happen to be the same qualities that forgive—free us from guilt or victimhood. Jesus never says, I forgive you. He says, your sins are forgiven or your faith has made you whole. Not an action, a recognition of having entered the field. This is not a distinction without a difference. It makes all the difference in how we understand our relationship with God. Jesus tells the story of laborers who go to the field to work early in the morning and all through the day, some only working an hour before quitting time. They are all paid the same. The early workers are outraged. So are we. But the point is, the pay is entering the field, not a reward for time served. They were paid the moment they entered the experience. To believe God does or doesn't forgive based on performance is to fear God may withhold the love and acceptance of forgiveness. But God can't withhold what God is. God is one, oneness is love, love is forgiveness. Forgiveness isn't absolution bestowed. It's the field we inhabit. Forgiveness is the journey we take to become present to the field. Like the stages of grief, the healing is the journey. No one can take it for us or heal apart from it. We're as forgiven as we want to be.

Dave Brisbin 6.7.26 Man on his roof as flood waters rise. A boat paddles by—jump in, and we'll save you. No, God will save me. Another boat—jump in, we'll save you. No, God will save me. A helicopter hovers extending a rope ladder—climb up, and we'll save you. No, God will save me. Flood comes up, and the man drowns. Face to face with God, he asks, why didn't you save me? I sent two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want? How much time and angst do we spend asking for things we already possess? That are already here? We've been taught a zero-sum model of spirituality that enshrines scarcity over abundance. We've been taught a legal model of spiritual relationship that embeds a reward and punishment mindset. We've been taught an anthropomorphic God, operating out of human emotion with anger, resentment, retribution much more immediate than love and compassion. We've been taught to fear. Fear that God withholds until conditions are met. That contrition, confession, and penance are the legal means to forgiveness—a commodity for acceptance. But in the original language of the gospels, forgiveness and freedom are the same word, and those same scriptures tell us God is love. If God is love, and forgiveness is freedom, then the fear, scarcity, reward and punishment we were taught are wildly off point. If God is love, God doesn't choose to love or withhold; God exists as the indivisible oneness we call love. When we are hurt or hurt others, all that stands between our alienation and a reclaimed awareness of that love is forgiveness. Which means, God doesn't forgive; God exists as indivisible restoration to the oneness we call forgiveness. We aren't forgiven as an act God performs or not, we simply walk into the freedom from victimization that is God's presence. Or not. We seek forgiveness as a legal transaction, but forgiveness is a person. A person completely free from anything that would stop the flow of forgiveness. To step into the presence of that person is to experience all that person is. God has always and forever sent two boats and a helicopter. All we have to do is climb in. We're as forgiven as we want to be.

Dave Brisbin 6.7.26 Man on his roof as flood waters rise. A boat paddles by—jump in, and we'll save you. No, God will save me. Another boat—jump in, we'll save you. No, God will save me. A helicopter hovers extending a rope ladder—climb up, and we'll save you. No, God will save me. Flood comes up, and the man drowns. Face to face with God, he asks, why didn't you save me? I sent two boats and a helicopter, what more did you want? How much time and angst do we spend asking for things we already possess? That are already here? We've been taught a zero-sum model of spirituality that enshrines scarcity over abundance. We've been taught a legal model of spiritual relationship that embeds a reward and punishment mindset. We've been taught an anthropomorphic God, operating out of human emotion with anger, resentment, retribution much more immediate than love and compassion. We've been taught to fear. Fear that God withholds until conditions are met. That contrition, confession, and penance are the legal means to forgiveness—a commodity for acceptance. But in the original language of the gospels, forgiveness and freedom are the same word, and those same scriptures tell us God is love. If God is love, and forgiveness is freedom, then the fear, scarcity, reward and punishment we were taught are wildly off point. If God is love, God doesn't choose to love or withhold; God exists as the indivisible oneness we call love. When we are hurt or hurt others, all that stands between our alienation and a reclaimed awareness of that love is forgiveness. Which means, God doesn't forgive; God exists as indivisible restoration to the oneness we call forgiveness. We aren't forgiven as an act God performs or not, we simply walk into the freedom from victimization that is God's presence. Or not. We seek forgiveness as a legal transaction, but forgiveness is a person. A person completely free from anything that would stop the flow of forgiveness. To step into the presence of that person is to experience all that person is. God has always and forever sent two boats and a helicopter. All we have to do is climb in. We're as forgiven as we want to be.

Dave Brisbin 5.24.26 When Jesus says, do not judge, for in the way that you judge, you will be judged, and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you, he is saying something immense. But we don't get it. Squeezed through our default perspective, which is always legal, we see life through a performance-based, reward and punishment paradigm that peels off just one of the possible meanings of Jesus' saying: that if we consciously judge/condemn others, we will be judged back. And through our legal lens, God is the one doing the retaliatory judging in some karma-like way. But the Aramaic language itself and Jesus as a Jewish mystic point to much more. Our minds are judging machines. That's all they do. Compare, contrast, calculate odds for advantage and survival, dualistically judging each moment and everything in it as good or bad for our needs and agenda. Good and evil appear mutually exclusive and morally opposed against the standards we have absorbed since childhood. And those standards objectify all of life around us, create heroes and villains, preferences and aversions, and a sense of separation from everything we encounter. Like an exhausting game of chess, every move we make is calculated toward a never-ending series of outcomes always present in our minds but never the moment. In Aramaic, taba and bisha, good and evil, are not legal terms, they are relational. Literally meaning ripe and unripe, the highest good and evil for an ancient, agrarian society, they form a continuum from immaturity to maturity—the ability to nourish, preserve life and relationship. To begin to see good and evil as a continuum of functionality is a first step into the flow of life and away from constant judging, objectifying, separating. The full reach of Jesus' statement is to master the automatic, unconscious working of our minds that takes us out of the flow of every moment, out of connection with everything we encounter. Until we can use our minds as the tools they are, tempered with the ability to stop judging, seeing life as pairs of opposites, we remain stalled along our Way from bisha to taba…and our own sweet ripeness.

Dave Brisbin 5.31.26 Sin is central to Western Christianity. From original sin—understood as a genetic state of depravity, a separation from God unbridgeable by human effort—to our own personal sins—understood as unlawful behavior—all we can do is wait to be saved by an outside power—understood as an event, a granting of approval triggered by ritual practice or mental assent to doctrinal beliefs. I know…putting it that way is a bit hyperbolic. But only a bit. Especially in contrast to Eastern Christianity, which understands salvation as a process of theosis—a life of becoming more and more God-like in awareness, intent, daily presence and practice. By default, we're all legalists, believing we must earn everything we get. That's the physical reality of life around us, and human authority always uses reward/punishment to control behavior through fear. By the third century, the church had codified Jesus' message into more law, ironically missing the fact that Jesus constantly battled the religious legal system of his day that kept the people from their theosis, from direct experience of God. Sin is not behavior at all. Sin is the state of being separated. John sees Jesus as the one who takes away the sin of the world. Sin singular. Not endless acts of unlawful behavior, but the human condition, the egoic perception of separateness. Sin, hataha, is missing the mark of the fullness and oneness of God. The “sin” of becoming aware of self as a separate entity, represented in the Garden by eating of the tree, creates the fear that drives unlawful behavior. We say sin leads to separation, but sin is separation itself. Any act that leads to separation is sinful, but to focus on behavior, on symptom, is to lose sight of the cause—our separation anxiety. The Good News is that God's love is not legal, conditional, but the bedrock reality that any sense of separation is illusion. Pure egoic projection. To wake us from our illusion of separation, take away our sin, is Jesus' mission. For if we believe everything must be earned, nothing is freely received. We're either guilty or entitled. Never grateful. Never free to pursue our theosis.

Dave Brisbin 5.31.26 Sin is central to Western Christianity. From original sin—understood as a genetic state of depravity, a separation from God unbridgeable by human effort—to our own personal sins—understood as unlawful behavior—all we can do is wait to be saved by an outside power—understood as an event, a granting of approval triggered by ritual practice or mental assent to doctrinal beliefs. I know…putting it that way is a bit hyperbolic. But only a bit. Especially in contrast to Eastern Christianity, which understands salvation as a process of theosis—a life of becoming more and more God-like in awareness, intent, daily presence and practice. By default, we're all legalists, believing we must earn everything we get. That's the physical reality of life around us, and human authority always uses reward/punishment to control behavior through fear. By the third century, the church had codified Jesus' message into more law, ironically missing the fact that Jesus constantly battled the religious legal system of his day that kept the people from their theosis, from direct experience of God. Sin is not behavior at all. Sin is the state of being separated. John sees Jesus as the one who takes away the sin of the world. Sin singular. Not endless acts of unlawful behavior, but the human condition, the egoic perception of separateness. Sin, hataha, is missing the mark of the fullness and oneness of God. The “sin” of becoming aware of self as a separate entity, represented in the Garden by eating of the tree, creates the fear that drives unlawful behavior. We say sin leads to separation, but sin is separation itself. Any act that leads to separation is sinful, but to focus on behavior, on symptom, is to lose sight of the cause—our separation anxiety. The Good News is that God's love is not legal, conditional, but the bedrock reality that any sense of separation is illusion. Pure egoic projection. To wake us from our illusion of separation, take away our sin, is Jesus' mission. For if we believe everything must be earned, nothing is freely received. We're either guilty or entitled. Never grateful. Never free to pursue our theosis.

Dave Brisbin 5.24.26 When Jesus says, do not judge, for in the way that you judge, you will be judged, and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you, he is saying something immense. But we don't get it. Squeezed through our default perspective, which is always legal, we see life through a performance-based, reward and punishment paradigm that peels off just one of the possible meanings of Jesus' saying: that if we consciously judge/condemn others, we will be judged back. And through our legal lens, God is the one doing the retaliatory judging in some karma-like way. But the Aramaic language itself and Jesus as a Jewish mystic point to much more. Our minds are judging machines. That's all they do. Compare, contrast, calculate odds for advantage and survival, dualistically judging each moment and everything in it as good or bad for our needs and agenda. Good and evil appear mutually exclusive and morally opposed against the standards we have absorbed since childhood. And those standards objectify all of life around us, create heroes and villains, preferences and aversions, and a sense of separation from everything we encounter. Like an exhausting game of chess, every move we make is calculated toward a never-ending series of outcomes always present in our minds but never the moment. In Aramaic, taba and bisha, good and evil, are not legal terms, they are relational. Literally meaning ripe and unripe, the highest good and evil for an ancient, agrarian society, they form a continuum from immaturity to maturity—the ability to nourish, preserve life and relationship. To begin to see good and evil as a continuum of functionality is a first step into the flow of life and away from constant judging, objectifying, separating. The full reach of Jesus' statement is to master the automatic, unconscious working of our minds that takes us out of the flow of every moment, out of connection with everything we encounter. Until we can use our minds as the tools they are, tempered with the ability to stop judging, seeing life as pairs of opposites, we remain stalled along our Way from bisha to taba…and our own sweet ripeness.

Dave Brisbin 5.17.26 Jesus never told his friends to worship him. He told them to follow him…not conceptually or theologically or even physically, but to follow his Way of living and seeing. To worship Jesus as savior is a passive waiting for transformation to be gifted from outside in, a static bestowal for which we conform, not transform. But Jesus insists that the awakening that is Kingdom is not out there somewhere to be entered from outside in. To follow Jesus is to actively emulate his Way of becoming attuned to an experience of God's presence directly, from inside out. Following Jesus' Way develops the one skill that changes everything, or better, opens the door to everything: awareness—the ability to notice thought itself. To be able to step back from the torrent of our minds' activity, to observe it without identifying with it any longer. To realize that our thoughts aren't us, just the by-product of what minds do. Without this one skill nothing else along Jesus' Way is available because, carried along by thoughts and their attendant emotions, we can't be present, see what is really sharing the moment with us, give what love requires. Cognitively fused with unconscious beliefs and fears, we're trapped inside a bubble that extends only as far as the inside of our eyelids. When Jesus says from the cross, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing, he is speaking to this unaware state. When he urges to sell all we possess, he's showing us how to strip down to naked awareness of a truth that makes us free. He starts with the law. As long as unquestioned thoughts believe blind obedience is enough, will contractually gain God's favor, we're not free, not aware that passive conformance doesn't even scratch the active surface of transformation. Yet Jesus isn't abolishing. He deconstructs only what is necessary to reclaim awareness. That's the lesson. Not deconstruction for its own sake, but to graduate from blind obedience to thoughts that rule like law, to develop that one skill…to notice our thoughts, not as mandates to obey, but a threshold to cross on the Way to reclaim our awareness and remember who we are.

Dave Brisbin 5.17.26 Jesus never told his friends to worship him. He told them to follow him…not conceptually or theologically or even physically, but to follow his Way of living and seeing. To worship Jesus as savior is a passive waiting for transformation to be gifted from outside in, a static bestowal for which we conform, not transform. But Jesus insists that the awakening that is Kingdom is not out there somewhere to be entered from outside in. To follow Jesus is to actively emulate his Way of becoming attuned to an experience of God's presence directly, from inside out. Following Jesus' Way develops the one skill that changes everything, or better, opens the door to everything: awareness—the ability to notice thought itself. To be able to step back from the torrent of our minds' activity, to observe it without identifying with it any longer. To realize that our thoughts aren't us, just the by-product of what minds do. Without this one skill nothing else along Jesus' Way is available because, carried along by thoughts and their attendant emotions, we can't be present, see what is really sharing the moment with us, give what love requires. Cognitively fused with unconscious beliefs and fears, we're trapped inside a bubble that extends only as far as the inside of our eyelids. When Jesus says from the cross, forgive them, they don't know what they are doing, he is speaking to this unaware state. When he urges to sell all we possess, he's showing us how to strip down to naked awareness of a truth that makes us free. He starts with the law. As long as unquestioned thoughts believe blind obedience is enough, will contractually gain God's favor, we're not free, not aware that passive conformance doesn't even scratch the active surface of transformation. Yet Jesus isn't abolishing. He deconstructs only what is necessary to reclaim awareness. That's the lesson. Not deconstruction for its own sake, but to graduate from blind obedience to thoughts that rule like law, to develop that one skill…to notice our thoughts, not as mandates to obey, but a threshold to cross on the Way to reclaim our awareness and remember who we are.

Dave Brisbin 5.10.26 God is love. What does that even mean? If we define love as nondual presence, consummate oneness, then the scriptures are trying to tell us that God is fully identified with each and every speck of creation. That God, us, everything are ultimately of one and the same substance. Love is the experience of that oneness, awareness of that identity. To be in love is to be relieved of any sense of self, the generator and container of the illusion of separateness. Judeo-Christian tradition demands this oneness of God, but God as one creates no end of conceptual problems for us living in a dualistic world of endless paradox. To explain the existence of evil, we split God into many gods, some good, some bad, or we post Satan to oppose God's goodness. We split God into three to explain God experienced also in human form and unseen spirit. We split God in two by calling him Father, implying a glaring feminine space left unoccupied. Does scripture imply any such unbalanced rift in God? Though God is always referred to linguistically as masculine, God is not always portrayed that way. God's wisdom, hockhmah, is a feminine word, and wisdom is portrayed as female throughout Hebrew scripture. Ruach, God's spirit, shekinah, presence, and malkutha, kingdom are also feminine words…making spirit, she, and kingdom, queendom. God is often anthropomorphized as female, both human and animal, offering nurturing affection in contrast to the impartial justice of the king. The Hebrew mind couldn't conceive of father without mother. Hebrew words for father and mother mean one who brings strength to the house and the glue that holds the family together—the blending of accomplishment, performance, structure with relationship, compassion, affection. Both necessary, complementary, a paradox that must never be resolved. God is the eternal oscillation between father and mother, and only in the oscillation do we find the perfect parent. Resolution is a return to duality, separation. God is nondual presence, the blurring of all attributes into one. To experience that oneness, the loss of all sense of separateness is to bathe in all of God.

Dave Brisbin 5.10.26 God is love. What does that even mean? If we define love as nondual presence, consummate oneness, then the scriptures are trying to tell us that God is fully identified with each and every speck of creation. That God, us, everything are ultimately of one and the same substance. Love is the experience of that oneness, awareness of that identity. To be in love is to be relieved of any sense of self, the generator and container of the illusion of separateness. Judeo-Christian tradition demands this oneness of God, but God as one creates no end of conceptual problems for us living in a dualistic world of endless paradox. To explain the existence of evil, we split God into many gods, some good, some bad, or we post Satan to oppose God's goodness. We split God into three to explain God experienced also in human form and unseen spirit. We split God in two by calling him Father, implying a glaring feminine space left unoccupied. Does scripture imply any such unbalanced rift in God? Though God is always referred to linguistically as masculine, God is not always portrayed that way. God's wisdom, hockhmah, is a feminine word, and wisdom is portrayed as female throughout Hebrew scripture. Ruach, God's spirit, shekinah, presence, and malkutha, kingdom are also feminine words…making spirit, she, and kingdom, queendom. God is often anthropomorphized as female, both human and animal, offering nurturing affection in contrast to the impartial justice of the king. The Hebrew mind couldn't conceive of father without mother. Hebrew words for father and mother mean one who brings strength to the house and the glue that holds the family together—the blending of accomplishment, performance, structure with relationship, compassion, affection. Both necessary, complementary, a paradox that must never be resolved. God is the eternal oscillation between father and mother, and only in the oscillation do we find the perfect parent. Resolution is a return to duality, separation. God is nondual presence, the blurring of all attributes into one. To experience that oneness, the loss of all sense of separateness is to bathe in all of God.

Dave Brisbin 5.3.26 We think we understand the scriptures because we can read them in plain English. But just as we never want to see our sausage being made, we have no idea the interpretive choices being made to translate ancient Eastern texts for modern Western minds. A word for word translation between any two languages is not possible. We're not just translating words, but an Agreement of meaning between cultures and worldviews. Until we understand the Agreement, we won't understand the words. When literally translated into English, Jesus' sayings make no sense, create wrong impressions, even seem immoral. We either pretend we understand or file them on a back shelf until we're ready to dig deeper. Jesus says that just an angry thought makes us guilty before the court, that we should not resist an evil person—if slapped on the right cheek, offer the other as well; if sued for our coat, give our shirt as well; if forced to go one mile, go two. He says we will always have the poor with us—uncompassionate, to accept oppressive taxation—unjust, tells a man to sell everything he has earned and to give whatever anyone asks of you—irresponsible. What's going on? Part of the Agreement is context, the context of a saying. We live in two contexts simultaneously: the micro and macro. Our daily interactions are micro—one on one—but always couched in the larger macro context of the group. In the macro, love looks like justice, because without equality, the integrity of the group is lost. But in the micro, love looks like mercy and compassion. Without that, there is no relationship. Jesus always points to perfect love. His mission is to convey that love. So Jesus' sayings are always code switching between micro and macro, mercy and justice, bringing what love requires to each moment in whatever context. Confusion arises when we are reading through the wrong context. We're geared toward justice, the macro law we've learned to obey, but God loves us always in the micro, mercifully spirit to spirit. God's love is not just. Its mercy unbalances the scales of justice in favor of each of us. Seems irresponsible…the price of perfection.

Dave Brisbin 5.3.26 We think we understand the scriptures because we can read them in plain English. But just as we never want to see our sausage being made, we have no idea the interpretive choices being made to translate ancient Eastern texts for modern Western minds. A word for word translation between any two languages is not possible. We're not just translating words, but an Agreement of meaning between cultures and worldviews. Until we understand the Agreement, we won't understand the words. When literally translated into English, Jesus' sayings make no sense, create wrong impressions, even seem immoral. We either pretend we understand or file them on a back shelf until we're ready to dig deeper. Jesus says that just an angry thought makes us guilty before the court, that we should not resist an evil person—if slapped on the right cheek, offer the other as well; if sued for our coat, give our shirt as well; if forced to go one mile, go two. He says we will always have the poor with us—uncompassionate, to accept oppressive taxation—unjust, tells a man to sell everything he has earned and to give whatever anyone asks of you—irresponsible. What's going on? Part of the Agreement is context, the context of a saying. We live in two contexts simultaneously: the micro and macro. Our daily interactions are micro—one on one—but always couched in the larger macro context of the group. In the macro, love looks like justice, because without equality, the integrity of the group is lost. But in the micro, love looks like mercy and compassion. Without that, there is no relationship. Jesus always points to perfect love. His mission is to convey that love. So Jesus' sayings are always code switching between micro and macro, mercy and justice, bringing what love requires to each moment in whatever context. Confusion arises when we are reading through the wrong context. We're geared toward justice, the macro law we've learned to obey, but God loves us always in the micro, mercifully spirit to spirit. God's love is not just. Its mercy unbalances the scales of justice in favor of each of us. Seems irresponsible…the price of perfection.

Dave Brisbin 4.26.26 What's worse than not knowing something really important, the trauma of uncertainty? Not knowing that you don't know is worse. Complete unawareness of a really important thing is a step back from, a block to the ability to even begin seeking. And what's worse than that? Thinking that you do know when you don't. Thinking you already know closes your mind, creates resistance when presented with anything new. This is how it is with Kingdom—the most important thing Jesus is trying to convey. His entire message hangs on the experience of what he calls the Kingdom of God, and arguably, his entire ministry is an extended definition of what he means by that phrase. His friends thought they knew Kingdom. For centuries they'd been taught it was a physical kingdom to be created by a warrior messiah who would reestablish a sovereign Israel, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham. We think we know kingdom too. That it's heaven, a reward after death we await if we've kept the contract implied by Law and church doctrine. After all, Matthew calls it the Kingdom of Heaven, but we don't know that heaven/shemaya, was a euphemism Jews used to avoid saying the name of God. The irony is, technically we're right…but we think we know heaven too. And even though Kingdom, heaven, God are equivalent in Jewish thought, we don't know what we don't know. Without understanding what Jesus means by heaven or Kingdom, we'll never understand how he's leading us to God. Kingdom/malkutha is not a place or territory, but the experience of king and people in symbiosis, resonating together. The people don't obey, they share the king's vision and values. What are those? God/Alaha means unity, oneness, identification with all. Heaven/shemaya is immersion in that unity right herenow. If we're waiting for heaven, we're not in kingdom. Or God. Kingdom-heaven-God, is herenow, embedded in the field through which we walk. If we're waiting for something, we won't see it. Jesus is trying to show us it's not what you think it is. It's not what you think at all. Until you let go of everything you think you know, you can't see what is already here.

Dave Brisbin 4.26.26 What's worse than not knowing something really important, the trauma of uncertainty? Not knowing that you don't know is worse. Complete unawareness of a really important thing is a step back from, a block to the ability to even begin seeking. And what's worse than that? Thinking that you do know when you don't. Thinking you already know closes your mind, creates resistance when presented with anything new. This is how it is with Kingdom—the most important thing Jesus is trying to convey. His entire message hangs on the experience of what he calls the Kingdom of God, and arguably, his entire ministry is an extended definition of what he means by that phrase. His friends thought they knew Kingdom. For centuries they'd been taught it was a physical kingdom to be created by a warrior messiah who would reestablish a sovereign Israel, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham. We think we know kingdom too. That it's heaven, a reward after death we await if we've kept the contract implied by Law and church doctrine. After all, Matthew calls it the Kingdom of Heaven, but we don't know that heaven/shemaya, was a euphemism Jews used to avoid saying the name of God. The irony is, technically we're right…but we think we know heaven too. And even though Kingdom, heaven, God are equivalent in Jewish thought, we don't know what we don't know. Without understanding what Jesus means by heaven or Kingdom, we'll never understand how he's leading us to God. Kingdom/malkutha is not a place or territory, but the experience of king and people in symbiosis, resonating together. The people don't obey, they share the king's vision and values. What are those? God/Alaha means unity, oneness, identification with all. Heaven/shemaya is immersion in that unity right herenow. If we're waiting for heaven, we're not in kingdom. Or God. Kingdom-heaven-God, is herenow, embedded in the field through which we walk. If we're waiting for something, we won't see it. Jesus is trying to show us it's not what you think it is. It's not what you think at all. Until you let go of everything you think you know, you can't see what is already here.

Dave Brisbin 4.19.26 When we beg Jesus to save us, we're missing the point of salvation. Salvation is not given to us. Can't be. Salvation is experiencing, remembering, the primal truth that we already have everything there is from a God who is love, withholds nothing. And what is that everything? Heaven? Understood as God's acceptance, identification with us, yes, heaven. Right now? Here? Doesn't look like heaven… And it won't until we've experienced that heaven isn't a place we're sent, it's remembering who we are in God's presence. Which raises another question. What if heaven is not the end of our journey, but the beginning? We think of heaven as the reward for a life of obedience, the ultimate paycheck. But at every turn, Jesus pounds against obedience as the basis of relationship with God. Obedience is motivated by fear of punishment, and fear can only breed more fear, never love. Jesus' Way is the process of casting out the need for fear by experiencing a perfect love we already possess. And truth is, we can't begin a process that requires stripping off everything to which we've clung for security our entire lives, until we're convinced we're already accepted—at least enough to overcome the fear of the first step. This is the Good News. That there is no bad news. Jesus leads with it, with acceptance. Always. Touches lepers before healing, reconciles with the unlawful before instructing, serves anyone in his path, whether woman, child, wealthy, poor, gentile, Roman. Acceptance first. Heaven first. It has to be. We can never obey our way to heaven. Reinforcing fear of punishment blocks the experience of love. But if the acceptance of heaven is experienced, and for even a moment we remember we are God's beloved, obedience transforms into an expression of love, the joy of our identification with God-as-love. It has the same effect as obedience, but we have graduated far beyond it. The means we use must match the ends we seek. We'll never end with heaven if we don't start with it first. It's all herenow: all God has to give and all we are to receive. This is the Good News. It costs us everything to comprehend. Good trade.

Dave Brisbin 4.19.26 When we beg Jesus to save us, we're missing the point of salvation. Salvation is not given to us. Can't be. Salvation is experiencing, remembering, the primal truth that we already have everything there is from a God who is love, withholds nothing. And what is that everything? Heaven? Understood as God's acceptance, identification with us, yes, heaven. Right now? Here? Doesn't look like heaven… And it won't until we've experienced that heaven isn't a place we're sent, it's remembering who we are in God's presence. Which raises another question. What if heaven is not the end of our journey, but the beginning? We think of heaven as the reward for a life of obedience, the ultimate paycheck. But at every turn, Jesus pounds against obedience as the basis of relationship with God. Obedience is motivated by fear of punishment, and fear can only breed more fear, never love. Jesus' Way is the process of casting out the need for fear by experiencing a perfect love we already possess. And truth is, we can't begin a process that requires stripping off everything to which we've clung for security our entire lives, until we're convinced we're already accepted—at least enough to overcome the fear of the first step. This is the Good News. That there is no bad news. Jesus leads with it, with acceptance. Always. Touches lepers before healing, reconciles with the unlawful before instructing, serves anyone in his path, whether woman, child, wealthy, poor, gentile, Roman. Acceptance first. Heaven first. It has to be. We can never obey our way to heaven. Reinforcing fear of punishment blocks the experience of love. But if the acceptance of heaven is experienced, and for even a moment we remember we are God's beloved, obedience transforms into an expression of love, the joy of our identification with God-as-love. It has the same effect as obedience, but we have graduated far beyond it. The means we use must match the ends we seek. We'll never end with heaven if we don't start with it first. It's all herenow: all God has to give and all we are to receive. This is the Good News. It costs us everything to comprehend. Good trade.

Dave Brisbin 4.5.26 There's not a single tenet of Christian doctrine that's not contested. Even within Christianity. The Resurrection is no exception. Christians agree that Jesus lives, but not how…physically, spiritually, collectively, some way we can't imagine? Ultimately, it's a matter of faith shaped by how literally we read scripture, but where can we go for guidance to meaning? Of course, the gospels show us just where to look. We focus on the supernatural miracle, debating veracity and mechanics, but the gospels focus on the effect of the miracle, not the event itself. The Resurrection happens offstage, no details, the story picking up afterward. The question the gospels are implying is not whether we believe the Resurrection, but what difference it makes that we believe. And that difference is not realized in mental assent to an offstage event, but a process that stretches from Easter Sunday to Pentecost. A fascinating detail the gospels do preserve is that no one recognizes the risen Jesus. We wonder whether he looked different, but that misses the gospels' point: that seeing the risen Jesus is a process of becoming ready to see the impossible, a process grounded in intimacy. Mary hears her name called in tones she'd heard a thousand times; Clopas sees Jesus break bread as he had a thousand more; for Peter, he's cooking breakfast. The gospels show the process of re-experiencing intimacy—always the proof of identity for any human. The meaning of Resurrection is not out there in history or doctrine, but within us, in every intimate detail of our lives. Gospels ask: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Life is motion. No motion, no life. Set beliefs are static, dead. If we look for the risen Jesus in books and beliefs, he is not there, any more than he was in the tomb. The gospels are showing us where to look—in the heart of every day life. If we can't find Jesus in the moving miracle of life herenow, we've missed the meaning of Resurrection. Jesus saw his Father in every intimate detail of his life. His friends couldn't see he had risen until they saw him in every detail of theirs. And neither will we.

Dave Brisbin 4.5.26 There's not a single tenet of Christian doctrine that's not contested. Even within Christianity. The Resurrection is no exception. Christians agree that Jesus lives, but not how…physically, spiritually, collectively, some way we can't imagine? Ultimately, it's a matter of faith shaped by how literally we read scripture, but where can we go for guidance to meaning? Of course, the gospels show us just where to look. We focus on the supernatural miracle, debating veracity and mechanics, but the gospels focus on the effect of the miracle, not the event itself. The Resurrection happens offstage, no details, the story picking up afterward. The question the gospels are implying is not whether we believe the Resurrection, but what difference it makes that we believe. And that difference is not realized in mental assent to an offstage event, but a process that stretches from Easter Sunday to Pentecost. A fascinating detail the gospels do preserve is that no one recognizes the risen Jesus. We wonder whether he looked different, but that misses the gospels' point: that seeing the risen Jesus is a process of becoming ready to see the impossible, a process grounded in intimacy. Mary hears her name called in tones she'd heard a thousand times; Clopas sees Jesus break bread as he had a thousand more; for Peter, he's cooking breakfast. The gospels show the process of re-experiencing intimacy—always the proof of identity for any human. The meaning of Resurrection is not out there in history or doctrine, but within us, in every intimate detail of our lives. Gospels ask: Why do you look for the living among the dead? Life is motion. No motion, no life. Set beliefs are static, dead. If we look for the risen Jesus in books and beliefs, he is not there, any more than he was in the tomb. The gospels are showing us where to look—in the heart of every day life. If we can't find Jesus in the moving miracle of life herenow, we've missed the meaning of Resurrection. Jesus saw his Father in every intimate detail of his life. His friends couldn't see he had risen until they saw him in every detail of theirs. And neither will we.

Dave Brisbin 3.29.26 Gospels show Jesus riding into Jerusalem not on a horse, as would a conquering king, not on a donkey, which would have meant peace, but on the colt of a donkey…even more unassuming. The people cheer, beg him to save them, lay their cloaks along his path, wave palm branches—greetings for a savior king—while Roman and Jewish authorities see threat of sedition and plan accordingly. No one is paying attention, seeing reflections of their own agendas, not the person and scene playing out in the streets. What the church has called a triumphal entry, Jesus called a tragedy. He wept over the city saying the people had no idea of the things that make for peace, that they missed the hour of their visitation. The writers of the gospels, who had come to see where Jesus was pointing, wanted us not to miss our own opportunity to see something radically different, to crack the first stronghold blocking our way to the truth behind Jesus' message. This is the significance of Palm Sunday. Seeing around our own egoic identity, past the desires, expectations, and compulsions such identity creates, seeing through our ego-filter to the truth of things as they really are, the truth of ourselves, who we really are is the first step, without which we can go no further along Jesus' Way. Jesus is showing who he really is in action, word, symbol, every tool at hand, revealing an unassuming presence, the stance of a servant, the opposite of a powerful savior come to fix our circumstances by force. Begging Jesus to save us misses the whole point of salvation. Salvation isn't passive, isn't given or bestowed. It is experienced…or not. Jesus' person and message is an invitation to follow the Way of experiencing the truth, the liberation that salvation is. Mother Teresa put it this way: I have an opportunity to be with Jesus 24 hours a day. Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, his hand in every happening…especially in the lowly appearance of the poor. Each of them is Jesus in disguise. Jesus is always riding into our lives. Every moment is Palm Sunday. Everything we need is all around us disguised as life.

Dave Brisbin 3.29.26 Gospels show Jesus riding into Jerusalem not on a horse, as would a conquering king, not on a donkey, which would have meant peace, but on the colt of a donkey…even more unassuming. The people cheer, beg him to save them, lay their cloaks along his path, wave palm branches—greetings for a savior king—while Roman and Jewish authorities see threat of sedition and plan accordingly. No one is paying attention, seeing reflections of their own agendas, not the person and scene playing out in the streets. What the church has called a triumphal entry, Jesus called a tragedy. He wept over the city saying the people had no idea of the things that make for peace, that they missed the hour of their visitation. The writers of the gospels, who had come to see where Jesus was pointing, wanted us not to miss our own opportunity to see something radically different, to crack the first stronghold blocking our way to the truth behind Jesus' message. This is the significance of Palm Sunday. Seeing around our own egoic identity, past the desires, expectations, and compulsions such identity creates, seeing through our ego-filter to the truth of things as they really are, the truth of ourselves, who we really are is the first step, without which we can go no further along Jesus' Way. Jesus is showing who he really is in action, word, symbol, every tool at hand, revealing an unassuming presence, the stance of a servant, the opposite of a powerful savior come to fix our circumstances by force. Begging Jesus to save us misses the whole point of salvation. Salvation isn't passive, isn't given or bestowed. It is experienced…or not. Jesus' person and message is an invitation to follow the Way of experiencing the truth, the liberation that salvation is. Mother Teresa put it this way: I have an opportunity to be with Jesus 24 hours a day. Seeking the face of God in everything, everyone, all the time, his hand in every happening…especially in the lowly appearance of the poor. Each of them is Jesus in disguise. Jesus is always riding into our lives. Every moment is Palm Sunday. Everything we need is all around us disguised as life.

Dave Brisbin 3.22.26 I've been on the whole of Lent about how the holy grail of all spiritual work, of Jesus' teaching, even our most ancient liturgical rites is…awareness. Waking up inside waking life. Until we can poke our heads above the waterline of our egoic selves, we're only ever seeing the inside of our eyelids, nothing of the real that is not only all around us, but within as well. We can't see the air; fish can't see the water. Hopefully our odds are better than theirs. But what happens when we do wake up? Blissful sweetness and light? Jesus sounds an alarm. He didn't come to bring peace, but a sword that would cut within our own families first. To help decode, the word for peace Jesus uses here is not shalom—he's the prince of that—but shayna, calm, tranquility. The immediate context is the rift that inevitably stresses our closest relationships after radical transformation, but more deeply, there is an interior rift that opens when we're no longer experiencing life the way we once did. Some authors put it this way: There's a peculiar suffering that comes with awareness. A kind of exile that happens not when you leave the world, but when you begin to truly see it. Conversations that once felt normal feel empty. Environments that once felt safe start to feel small. Awakening stretches your awareness until the old version of your life no longer fits the same way. This creates a profound loneliness—not of being physically alone, but of being awake in a world that's sleeping. If this is true, why would we ever take the red pill and wake up? Pulling off a blindfold in sunlight is painful, but as eyes adjust, would we ever opt for blindness? Becoming aware is transitionally painful, and if the awareness is merely conceptual, cognitive, it can harden into a jaded sense of separation, even condescension with life. But if we carry our awareness into momentary experience, we fall back in love with life, now with the deeper knowing we're not above anything. We're part of that whole. Awareness is waking up to remember who we are. Insignificant parts of an infinite whole that considers each part the center of its universe.

Dave Brisbin 3.22.26 I've been on the whole of Lent about how the holy grail of all spiritual work, of Jesus' teaching, even our most ancient liturgical rites is…awareness. Waking up inside waking life. Until we can poke our heads above the waterline of our egoic selves, we're only ever seeing the inside of our eyelids, nothing of the real that is not only all around us, but within as well. We can't see the air; fish can't see the water. Hopefully our odds are better than theirs. But what happens when we do wake up? Blissful sweetness and light? Jesus sounds an alarm. He didn't come to bring peace, but a sword that would cut within our own families first. To help decode, the word for peace Jesus uses here is not shalom—he's the prince of that—but shayna, calm, tranquility. The immediate context is the rift that inevitably stresses our closest relationships after radical transformation, but more deeply, there is an interior rift that opens when we're no longer experiencing life the way we once did. Some authors put it this way: There's a peculiar suffering that comes with awareness. A kind of exile that happens not when you leave the world, but when you begin to truly see it. Conversations that once felt normal feel empty. Environments that once felt safe start to feel small. Awakening stretches your awareness until the old version of your life no longer fits the same way. This creates a profound loneliness—not of being physically alone, but of being awake in a world that's sleeping. If this is true, why would we ever take the red pill and wake up? Pulling off a blindfold in sunlight is painful, but as eyes adjust, would we ever opt for blindness? Becoming aware is transitionally painful, and if the awareness is merely conceptual, cognitive, it can harden into a jaded sense of separation, even condescension with life. But if we carry our awareness into momentary experience, we fall back in love with life, now with the deeper knowing we're not above anything. We're part of that whole. Awareness is waking up to remember who we are. Insignificant parts of an infinite whole that considers each part the center of its universe.

Dave Brisbin 3.15.26 The earliest followers of Jesus understood that his Way of spiritual formation was about subtraction not addition—that there is nothing to acquire, no kingdom out there to make us whole. That everything there is, is already within, herenow, if we will only relinquish everything in our minds that blocks us from experiencing that reality. Our uniquely human egoic consciousness is all that separates us from everything else. Jesus' Way offers the experience of stepping outside the torrent of thoughts our minds constantly create and into the stillness where there is no separation. How could Eric Liddel train so hard to win the 1924 Olympic 400M race, yet be so relaxed before the race he could smile and wish each competitor luck? Even at age 22, he realized all that mattered was that he felt God's pleasure as he ran. When we've let go of outcomes to the point we can feel God's pleasure as we run, what do we know we didn't before? We know what has been called perennial wisdom, the universal truth that stands beneath all philosophy and theology, language and logic. This is the deep truth Jesus says will make us free. It can't be put into words, but maybe we could point by saying: We are all one, and because we're all one, nothing can exist outside of God—all that is seen and unseen is God. We emanated from and return to God, our source, and because of that, everything is truly good no matter how it appears. From that worldview, Richard Rohr extracts five more truths: Life is hard, we are not that important, our lives are not about us, we are not in control, and we are going to die. Sound brutal, but once couched in the oneness and non-separation of everything, they become consoling extensions of universal goodness: We are all parts of larger whole. Any identity apart from that whole is illusion. We are fulfilled only in the hard work of staying connected to and aware of that whole. We emanated from it and will return, but our minds actively block this reality. To experience it is to relinquish our minds' hold, surrender self to that larger whole. Knowing this truth is feeling God's pleasure as we run.

Dave Brisbin 3.15.26 The earliest followers of Jesus understood that his Way of spiritual formation was about subtraction not addition—that there is nothing to acquire, no kingdom out there to make us whole. That everything there is, is already within, herenow, if we will only relinquish everything in our minds that blocks us from experiencing that reality. Our uniquely human egoic consciousness is all that separates us from everything else. Jesus' Way offers the experience of stepping outside the torrent of thoughts our minds constantly create and into the stillness where there is no separation. How could Eric Liddel train so hard to win the 1924 Olympic 400M race, yet be so relaxed before the race he could smile and wish each competitor luck? Even at age 22, he realized all that mattered was that he felt God's pleasure as he ran. When we've let go of outcomes to the point we can feel God's pleasure as we run, what do we know we didn't before? We know what has been called perennial wisdom, the universal truth that stands beneath all philosophy and theology, language and logic. This is the deep truth Jesus says will make us free. It can't be put into words, but maybe we could point by saying: We are all one, and because we're all one, nothing can exist outside of God—all that is seen and unseen is God. We emanated from and return to God, our source, and because of that, everything is truly good no matter how it appears. From that worldview, Richard Rohr extracts five more truths: Life is hard, we are not that important, our lives are not about us, we are not in control, and we are going to die. Sound brutal, but once couched in the oneness and non-separation of everything, they become consoling extensions of universal goodness: We are all parts of larger whole. Any identity apart from that whole is illusion. We are fulfilled only in the hard work of staying connected to and aware of that whole. We emanated from it and will return, but our minds actively block this reality. To experience it is to relinquish our minds' hold, surrender self to that larger whole. Knowing this truth is feeling God's pleasure as we run.

Dave Brisbin 3.8.26 By all accounts, Eric Liddel, immortalized in the movie Chariots of Fire, was the embodiment of an old soul. At age 22, he won a gold medal at the 1924 Paris Olympics in the 400m race for Britain, and after over twenty years as a missionary to China, died there at age 43 in a Japanese internment camp at the end of WWII. But the real story lies beneath such events. The movie turns on the contrast between Liddel and his Olympic teammate Harold Abrahams and sister Jenny. Abrahams is obsessed with running, determined to win at any cost as revenge for antisemitic prejudice and proof of his superiority. Jenny is obsessed with religious duty and chastises her brother when he misses a prayer meeting, frivolously training for the Olympics. He tells her: I believe God made me for a purpose—for China. But he also made me fast, and I feel his pleasure when I run. Minutes before the start of his Olympic race, while the other runners are stretching and digging starting blocks, brows furrowed, intent on maintaining focus, Liddel, with a sport coat over his running shorts, is smiling and casually walking among them, shaking hands and wishing each one luck. Years later in the Japanese camp, fellow internees wrote of him: I never heard him say a bad word about anybody…he was overflowing with good humor and love for life, with enthusiasm and charm...his last words were, It's complete surrender… Abrahams and Jenny are the same person with different agendas. Driven, anxious, identified only with what they could do. Liddel's genius was to find within every physical task an eternal task always pointing to connection. That true meaning and purpose is found in that connection and nowhere else, and addressing that connection is to never let the hard work of change eclipse the radical acceptance of right now. That to celebrate the connections around us now is to accept ourselves and everything just as we are. Even as we train and strain toward not yet. Everything we do is meaningless… Until the moment duty is no longer obligation and running is no longer winning. Just the feeling of God's pleasure in the breeze of our passage.

Dave Brisbin 3.1.26 A few years ago, a billion painted lady butterflies fluttered over our heads migrating from inland deserts to the Pac Northwest. Was a very wet winter, and the high desert that usually get three inches of rain in a year, got that in a weekend. All the dormant seeds waiting in the cracked soil burst open, blanketing the desert floor in a spectacular bloom. Started the cycle of life that sent a billion butterflies north. Can't miss a billion butterflies. But we can miss one. Or two. We mostly take nature for granted in our concrete cities—only dimly aware of it turning in the background behind the urgency of our tasks and thoughts. But when nature becomes intense enough, it calls attention to itself, forcing us to see again and fall back into the wonder of the child. Should we have to be called? Wait for circumstance intense enough to break us open like desert seeds waiting for spectacular rains? Are we so husked over that we can't just get up and go find water? Desert seeds have no choice but to wait for rain. But there is water all around us, and we can bloom whenever we want. The question Lent is asking is how do we find the water? It has to do with deprivation, not as penance, but as a quieting. It has to do with prayer, not as words, but the awareness we need to be awed again by a single butterfly. Paul tells us to rejoice always, pray continuously, and in everything give thanks. Three directives that define prayer as falling into a constant state of gratitude, which always feels joyful by definition, present and aware by necessity. Unceasing prayer is engaging our entire experience in any given moment. Full presence and participation, seeing everything with all our senses without naming them in our head, aware of the connection that is God flowing beneath the level of thought. It's letting the smile spread across our face without permission, pulling the car over to take it all in. What makes us smile, makes us pray. It really is that simple. Our way out of the desert tomb. If we're waiting for rain, we're not blooming. But the waiting is over, kingdom is here. We can bloom any time we want.

Dave Brisbin 3.1.26 A few years ago, a billion painted lady butterflies fluttered over our heads migrating from inland deserts to the Pac Northwest. Was a very wet winter, and the high desert that usually get three inches of rain in a year, got that in a weekend. All the dormant seeds waiting in the cracked soil burst open, blanketing the desert floor in a spectacular bloom. Started the cycle of life that sent a billion butterflies north. Can't miss a billion butterflies. But we can miss one. Or two. We mostly take nature for granted in our concrete cities—only dimly aware of it turning in the background behind the urgency of our tasks and thoughts. But when nature becomes intense enough, it calls attention to itself, forcing us to see again and fall back into the wonder of the child. Should we have to be called? Wait for circumstance intense enough to break us open like desert seeds waiting for spectacular rains? Are we so husked over that we can't just get up and go find water? Desert seeds have no choice but to wait for rain. But there is water all around us, and we can bloom whenever we want. The question Lent is asking is how do we find the water? It has to do with deprivation, not as penance, but as a quieting. It has to do with prayer, not as words, but the awareness we need to be awed again by a single butterfly. Paul tells us to rejoice always, pray continuously, and in everything give thanks. Three directives that define prayer as falling into a constant state of gratitude, which always feels joyful by definition, present and aware by necessity. Unceasing prayer is engaging our entire experience in any given moment. Full presence and participation, seeing everything with all our senses without naming them in our head, aware of the connection that is God flowing beneath the level of thought. It's letting the smile spread across our face without permission, pulling the car over to take it all in. What makes us smile, makes us pray. It really is that simple. Our way out of the desert tomb. If we're waiting for rain, we're not blooming. But the waiting is over, kingdom is here. We can bloom any time we want.

Dave Brisbin 2.15.26 The number of people in South America who say they no longer affiliate with a religion has doubled over the past decade, but unlike the US and Europe, the number of atheists and agnostics has not grown from a small part of the population. With no loss of faith, Latin people continue to pray, meditate, and participate in rituals drawing from Christian, Indigenous, African, and Eastern traditions, redefining what constitutes a religion. More religiously unaffiliated people in Latin America say they believe in God, pray daily, and consider religion very important than do those who identify as Christian in European countries. What is going on? Scholars say Europe represents religion grounded in doctrinal belief and formal religious practice, while Latin Americans have an effervescence of religious experiences that go far beyond the purely rational. Latin American culture emphasizes believing in something beyond the material world, an enchanted reality, a dimension of life that we can't explain only by what we can see. Their trend toward religious disaffiliation is not secularization, but a change in how they approach belief itself—an enchanted view of the modern world, creating a vibrant spiritual and religious society doing things to engage with the unseen world. When Jesus says unless you become like children, you will never know the kingdom; when he always makes time to play with children, merge back into their enchanted reality, saying that such as these are kingdom itself, his is telling us that kingdom is not a place into which we are admitted if we believe or act correctly. It is the herenow experience of life when we merge back into the enchantment of the un-self-aware experience we once knew as children and forgot as adults. We don't need to practice a mixture of traditions as Latin Americans may, but we do need to unforget the enchanted reality of our children. Sixty years ago, a famous theologian said that the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all. Rational belief will not sustain us. Only the personal experience of the enchanted reality of God's presence can do that.

Dave Brisbin 2.15.26 The number of people in South America who say they no longer affiliate with a religion has doubled over the past decade, but unlike the US and Europe, the number of atheists and agnostics has not grown from a small part of the population. With no loss of faith, Latin people continue to pray, meditate, and participate in rituals drawing from Christian, Indigenous, African, and Eastern traditions, redefining what constitutes a religion. More religiously unaffiliated people in Latin America say they believe in God, pray daily, and consider religion very important than do those who identify as Christian in European countries. What is going on? Scholars say Europe represents religion grounded in doctrinal belief and formal religious practice, while Latin Americans have an effervescence of religious experiences that go far beyond the purely rational. Latin American culture emphasizes believing in something beyond the material world, an enchanted reality, a dimension of life that we can't explain only by what we can see. Their trend toward religious disaffiliation is not secularization, but a change in how they approach belief itself—an enchanted view of the modern world, creating a vibrant spiritual and religious society doing things to engage with the unseen world. When Jesus says unless you become like children, you will never know the kingdom; when he always makes time to play with children, merge back into their enchanted reality, saying that such as these are kingdom itself, his is telling us that kingdom is not a place into which we are admitted if we believe or act correctly. It is the herenow experience of life when we merge back into the enchantment of the un-self-aware experience we once knew as children and forgot as adults. We don't need to practice a mixture of traditions as Latin Americans may, but we do need to unforget the enchanted reality of our children. Sixty years ago, a famous theologian said that the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all. Rational belief will not sustain us. Only the personal experience of the enchanted reality of God's presence can do that.

Dave Brisbin 2.9.26 There seem to be two Jesuses in the gospels. The first is the unconditional-love-Jesus who accepts and sits with anyone who will sit with him, regardless of moral or social standing. This is the Jesus who says: Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Then there's another Jesus, a turn-or-burn-Jesus who sets performance criteria between us and God's love. He's the one saying: Unless your righteousness exceeds that of your religious lawyers, there is no way you will enter the kingdom of heaven. Will the real Jesus please stand up? Is God's love unconditionally free or a reward for acceptable behavior? Seems it can't be both, yet the contradiction stands. And therein lies the source of our religious dissociative identity disorder, the reason it is so hard for us to shake our existential fears of condemnation. But a contradiction is only impassable within a certain context. Change the context, evaporate the contradiction. Jesus presents all his teaching within the context of the kingdom of heaven. If we misunderstand kingdom's context, we misunderstand Jesus, and the contradiction stands. As Jesus tirelessly illustrates, the kingdom of heaven, malkhuta d'ashmaya, is not a future politically sovereign Israel, as his first followers believed, or future heaven of the afterlife, as we typically believe today. It's the quality of life right herenow, reflecting a person's experience of the connection of all life to God and each other. The context of a future kingdom, creates a permanent if/then contingency, as if our performance determines God's decision to admit us. But in the herenow context of Jesus' kingdom, everything resolves, yet both Jesuses stand. God loves and accepts unconditionally, but our “sinful” beliefs and behavior are those that create separation, not from God, but from the experience of oneness herenow, the only context in which kingdom exists. Kingdom is never closed, never withheld—always now, always available. God doesn't admit us or not. God is eternally open. God's presence is kingdom itself. We admit ourselves whenever we're ready to experience it.

Dave Brisbin 2.1.26 Asked by email: Do you believe the Bible? That the plagues of Moses, long day of Joshua, fiery furnace of Daniel really happened? Just the way the question was posed mirrored our view of scripture. In other words, if I don't believe that each event literally happened, I'm not believing the bible. For the past five hundred years in the West, we've been equating accuracy and truth. For us, something is true if it's accurate and accurate if it's true, but to the ancients who wrote and interpreted scripture, truth and accuracy were not the same. Something could be true even if not accurate. The ancients knew that spiritual truth existed beyond thought and words, that the infinite could only be experienced and pointed toward, never defined or rationally explained. So, with the experience of God ringing inside them, they pointed to that experience in every way they could—allegory, simile, hyperbole, metaphor. They played with numbers, using them symbolically to convey meaning rather than as literal renderings of factors and sums. And yes, sometimes they told stories exactly as they happened. Both Hebrew and early Christian theologians saw layers of meaning, from the literal to the mystical, that they understood to be simultaneously true, a pool of meaning creating the fullest possible pointing to truth. The holy grail here is original intent. Believing the bible means believing the original intent of the authors, which means swimming in their pool of meaning, not just scraping off one layer, imagining it matches our cultural definition of truth. But as important as knowing how to read what the authors wrote, is knowing what they didn't write. They wrote for each other, not for us. So if something was culturally understood by all, it didn't need to be stated, however critical to meaning. We do the same. Context tells us where to put the missing pieces. Original intent means learning to read the silence too. I believe the bible. That it is fully true. I also believe that much of it was never meant to be accurate…just the best humans can do to point to truth always residing a bit beyond what words can convey.

Dave Brisbin 2.1.26 Asked by email: Do you believe the Bible? That the plagues of Moses, long day of Joshua, fiery furnace of Daniel really happened? Just the way the question was posed mirrored our view of scripture. In other words, if I don't believe that each event literally happened, I'm not believing the bible. For the past five hundred years in the West, we've been equating accuracy and truth. For us, something is true if it's accurate and accurate if it's true, but to the ancients who wrote and interpreted scripture, truth and accuracy were not the same. Something could be true even if not accurate. The ancients knew that spiritual truth existed beyond thought and words, that the infinite could only be experienced and pointed toward, never defined or rationally explained. So, with the experience of God ringing inside them, they pointed to that experience in every way they could—allegory, simile, hyperbole, metaphor. They played with numbers, using them symbolically to convey meaning rather than as literal renderings of factors and sums. And yes, sometimes they told stories exactly as they happened. Both Hebrew and early Christian theologians saw layers of meaning, from the literal to the mystical, that they understood to be simultaneously true, a pool of meaning creating the fullest possible pointing to truth. The holy grail here is original intent. Believing the bible means believing the original intent of the authors, which means swimming in their pool of meaning, not just scraping off one layer, imagining it matches our cultural definition of truth. But as important as knowing how to read what the authors wrote, is knowing what they didn't write. They wrote for each other, not for us. So if something was culturally understood by all, it didn't need to be stated, however critical to meaning. We do the same. Context tells us where to put the missing pieces. Original intent means learning to read the silence too. I believe the bible. That it is fully true. I also believe that much of it was never meant to be accurate…just the best humans can do to point to truth always residing a bit beyond what words can convey.

Dave Brisbin 1.25.26 Ever heard a line so impactful you thought, I wish I'd said that? Few days ago, I ran across a line attributed to the one-time road manager of the band ACDC…of all people. To be fair, he did become a pastor and a kind of pop theologian: God is the name of the blanket we throw over mystery to give it shape. Oh yeah, I wish I'd said that. The invisible man is standing in front of you. You sense him, but can't see a thing. Throw a blanket over empty space, and drape a shape. No detail, but at least a shape, a spatial relationship. I've been saying forever that every theology is wrong. How could it be anything else? How could finite language ever define the infinite? Much as we crave that sort of certainty, theology was only ever meant to give shape to a relationship. To limit error and create a paradigm that allows us to navigate—accept life on life's terms while holding a sense of hope and gratitude. He said all that…just much pithier. We think we know God because we've read the book—words with edges that limit and restrict. But the word God is just a placeholder for infinite mystery, to which words can point but never describe. And if Jesus and the Father are one, then Jesus is mysterious too. We think we know Jesus because he had a shape and seems to be saying something we read as concrete and certain in a language that wouldn't exist for a thousand years. Jesus is the word we give to a man who was named Yehoshua, shortened to Yeshua in Hebrew. But to his friends, in Aramaic, the language of the street, he was Eesho. Eesho. Just the sound of it shatters our familiarity. To look at Jesus from an Aramaic perch, to exhale all we think we know and see the shape that emerges as we throw our blanket out over empty space, is to begin to meet Eesho for the first time. A man who speaks in words without edges, in poetry and stories that invite us to confront all we've managed to avoid. If your Jesus is familiar, comfortable, he is not Eesho. Eesho is always beckoning farther up and further in, never resolving mystery, but giving just enough shape that we can experience with him what words can never contain.

Dave Brisbin 1.25.26 Ever heard a line so impactful you thought, I wish I'd said that? Few days ago, I ran across a line attributed to the one-time road manager of the band ACDC…of all people. To be fair, he did become a pastor and a kind of pop theologian: God is the name of the blanket we throw over mystery to give it shape. Oh yeah, I wish I'd said that. The invisible man is standing in front of you. You sense him, but can't see a thing. Throw a blanket over empty space, and drape a shape. No detail, but at least a shape, a spatial relationship. I've been saying forever that every theology is wrong. How could it be anything else? How could finite language ever define the infinite? Much as we crave that sort of certainty, theology was only ever meant to give shape to a relationship. To limit error and create a paradigm that allows us to navigate—accept life on life's terms while holding a sense of hope and gratitude. He said all that…just much pithier. We think we know God because we've read the book—words with edges that limit and restrict. But the word God is just a placeholder for infinite mystery, to which words can point but never describe. And if Jesus and the Father are one, then Jesus is mysterious too. We think we know Jesus because he had a shape and seems to be saying something we read as concrete and certain in a language that wouldn't exist for a thousand years. Jesus is the word we give to a man who was named Yehoshua, shortened to Yeshua in Hebrew. But to his friends, in Aramaic, the language of the street, he was Eesho. Eesho. Just the sound of it shatters our familiarity. To look at Jesus from an Aramaic perch, to exhale all we think we know and see the shape that emerges as we throw our blanket out over empty space, is to begin to meet Eesho for the first time. A man who speaks in words without edges, in poetry and stories that invite us to confront all we've managed to avoid. If your Jesus is familiar, comfortable, he is not Eesho. Eesho is always beckoning farther up and further in, never resolving mystery, but giving just enough shape that we can experience with him what words can never contain.

Dave Brisbin 1.18.26 Before Scott Adams—the creator of the Dilbert cartoon and pundit/podcaster—died recently after a long bout with cancer, he released a video stating that he “planned to convert” to Christianity. A lifelong religious skeptic, he had Christian friends imploring him to convert before it was too late. He appreciated their sincere concern and said if it turned out that at death he simply ceased to be, he would be no worse off for his belief, but if Christianity were true, he'd have a much better outcome than unbelief would allow. Scott seemed more interested in comforting his friends than genuine conversion, which is Christlike itself, but his reasoning simply restates Pascal's wager: that the best bet is to convert, since if Christianity is false, you lose nothing, but if true, unbelief means forever hell and paradise lost. Perfectly logical, unassailable even, but depends entirely on a contractual view of Christianity—a reward and punishment paradigm that is tightly focused on personal advantage, reducing faith to contractual terms. It also keeps us word-based, only focused on and aware of what the mind can conceive. Like looking at a ball game through a hole in the fence or trying to capture a big sky on a cell phone, there's too much to possibly fit in such small containers. Trying to capture spirituality in words is equally impossible. The infinite has no edges, nothing to hold on to, which scares us. But as soon as we put the infinite in words, it's no longer infinite. Words have edges, defined limits, so the best we can do in words is poetry, which points to meaning without creating edges that limit the experience of all we can't express. The majority of the bible is poetry or poetic prose that points, never defines. Jesus is a poet. Genesis, Job, all the prophets are poets. They know anything we can think is limited to our hole-in-the-fence minds. The tools of poetry open us to vastness. What kind of belief is a good bet? Not after death…here and now? Only non-contractual, belief-turned-conviction through experiences of awe, expressed in words without edges always pointing back to deeper experience.

Dave Brisbin 1.18.26 Before Scott Adams—the creator of the Dilbert cartoon and pundit/podcaster—died recently after a long bout with cancer, he released a video stating that he “planned to convert” to Christianity. A lifelong religious skeptic, he had Christian friends imploring him to convert before it was too late. He appreciated their sincere concern and said if it turned out that at death he simply ceased to be, he would be no worse off for his belief, but if Christianity were true, he'd have a much better outcome than unbelief would allow. Scott seemed more interested in comforting his friends than genuine conversion, which is Christlike itself, but his reasoning simply restates Pascal's wager: that the best bet is to convert, since if Christianity is false, you lose nothing, but if true, unbelief means forever hell and paradise lost. Perfectly logical, unassailable even, but depends entirely on a contractual view of Christianity—a reward and punishment paradigm that is tightly focused on personal advantage, reducing faith to contractual terms. It also keeps us word-based, only focused on and aware of what the mind can conceive. Like looking at a ball game through a hole in the fence or trying to capture a big sky on a cell phone, there's too much to possibly fit in such small containers. Trying to capture spirituality in words is equally impossible. The infinite has no edges, nothing to hold on to, which scares us. But as soon as we put the infinite in words, it's no longer infinite. Words have edges, defined limits, so the best we can do in words is poetry, which points to meaning without creating edges that limit the experience of all we can't express. The majority of the bible is poetry or poetic prose that points, never defines. Jesus is a poet. Genesis, Job, all the prophets are poets. They know anything we can think is limited to our hole-in-the-fence minds. The tools of poetry open us to vastness. What kind of belief is a good bet? Not after death…here and now? Only non-contractual, belief-turned-conviction through experiences of awe, expressed in words without edges always pointing back to deeper experience.

Dave Brisbin 1.11.26 Back in Catholic grade school, the nuns would walk up and down the aisles drilling us through the Baltimore Catechism. We'd all recite answers from memory in that sing song way kids do. She'd ask, why are we here? We'd answer, to glorify God. Had no idea what that meant. Seemed to include praising God…all the time? I liked praise, assurance I was doing things right, right things, enough, part of the group. Was God that insecure? Also seemed to include doing good works for God…the bigger and more spectacular, the better. But all these years later, I realize those works, however good, are ego-deep, and as mere accomplishments, God is not impressed if in the process, we still haven't gotten to know him intimately. So, remembering that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, seems glorifying God is really reflecting God's essence in our lives. Jesus came out of the wilderness saying that he and the Father were one. We glorify God by becoming indistinguishable from God in the way we choose and experience our lives. We're not here to do the things we do. We're here to be so connected that we are indistinguishable from, one with, all that is. Does that mean that all our accomplishments are meaningless? Ecclesiastes says yes, all tasks are equally meaningless, unless through them we engage the task within every task: to fall back in love with the moment that contains the task, with the sensation of the work itself, with those and everything sharing it with us. Falling back in love is how we come to know God, is all God is hoping for in us. This doesn't mean we don't pursue excellence in what we do. Without taking the task seriously, we won't seriously engage the task within it. But Jesus is trying to rewire the way we look at the world, give us back our priorities. He said that there was no one born of woman greater than John the Baptist, but the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. Even the least in the kingdom is still one who has fallen back in love with this moment. God's “greatest in the world” is anyone who realizes they're nothing great except in their connection to everything else.

Dave Brisbin 1.11.26 Back in Catholic grade school, the nuns would walk up and down the aisles drilling us through the Baltimore Catechism. We'd all recite answers from memory in that sing song way kids do. She'd ask, why are we here? We'd answer, to glorify God. Had no idea what that meant. Seemed to include praising God…all the time? I liked praise, assurance I was doing things right, right things, enough, part of the group. Was God that insecure? Also seemed to include doing good works for God…the bigger and more spectacular, the better. But all these years later, I realize those works, however good, are ego-deep, and as mere accomplishments, God is not impressed if in the process, we still haven't gotten to know him intimately. So, remembering that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, seems glorifying God is really reflecting God's essence in our lives. Jesus came out of the wilderness saying that he and the Father were one. We glorify God by becoming indistinguishable from God in the way we choose and experience our lives. We're not here to do the things we do. We're here to be so connected that we are indistinguishable from, one with, all that is. Does that mean that all our accomplishments are meaningless? Ecclesiastes says yes, all tasks are equally meaningless, unless through them we engage the task within every task: to fall back in love with the moment that contains the task, with the sensation of the work itself, with those and everything sharing it with us. Falling back in love is how we come to know God, is all God is hoping for in us. This doesn't mean we don't pursue excellence in what we do. Without taking the task seriously, we won't seriously engage the task within it. But Jesus is trying to rewire the way we look at the world, give us back our priorities. He said that there was no one born of woman greater than John the Baptist, but the least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than he. Even the least in the kingdom is still one who has fallen back in love with this moment. God's “greatest in the world” is anyone who realizes they're nothing great except in their connection to everything else.

Dave Brisbin 1.4.26 The hardest thing to comprehend about Jesus' Way—what I call the Fifth Way—is its utterly stark difference from the first Four Ways we use to get from here to there in life. They are as far apart as east is from west, which never meet or change direction at the poles like north and south. You're just always going west until you turn and face east. The Fifth Way is like that. If you haven't stopped and consciously turned to face it, you're on one of the other Four. We know the Four Ways well. To acquire what we need and want in life, we can yield to, manipulate, exit, or destroy the challenges we face in any combination. In gentler language, we can compromise, influence, set boundaries, or disempower…completely healthy and necessary in life, but always beginning at the point of need, in a world of scarcity in which we scratch out our living. Jesus isn't denying that this is the way the physical world works. He works within it himself. But if where we ultimately want to go is not of this world, then a completely different vehicle is needed. A jet is the greatest method of travel across the earth, but if where you want to go is even a low orbit, you must get out of the jet and into a rocket capable of escape velocity. The Fifth Way is that rocket, taking everything we know about life and turning it on its head. It's the only Way to the Father because the Father has nothing to do with scarcity. When we experience abundant presence, that God is all poured out around us, nothing withheld ever, then our Four Ways become not only instantly irrelevant, but a block to the connection, oneness, love that is God. As long as we're working for what we already have, we're not living the abundance that already is. The Fifth Way is not another method of acquisition, but a relinquishment of anything, everything that obscures the abundant truth… We're not here to acquire something to make us whole or acceptable. We're here to fall in love with love itself, the all-poured-out-ness of in-love-ness. The relinquishment, the letting go of in-love-ness is the difference…no longer aching for what has always been freely given.

Dave Brisbin 1.4.26 The hardest thing to comprehend about Jesus' Way—what I call the Fifth Way—is its utterly stark difference from the first Four Ways we use to get from here to there in life. They are as far apart as east is from west, which never meet or change direction at the poles like north and south. You're just always going west until you turn and face east. The Fifth Way is like that. If you haven't stopped and consciously turned to face it, you're on one of the other Four. We know the Four Ways well. To acquire what we need and want in life, we can yield to, manipulate, exit, or destroy the challenges we face in any combination. In gentler language, we can compromise, influence, set boundaries, or disempower…completely healthy and necessary in life, but always beginning at the point of need, in a world of scarcity in which we scratch out our living. Jesus isn't denying that this is the way the physical world works. He works within it himself. But if where we ultimately want to go is not of this world, then a completely different vehicle is needed. A jet is the greatest method of travel across the earth, but if where you want to go is even a low orbit, you must get out of the jet and into a rocket capable of escape velocity. The Fifth Way is that rocket, taking everything we know about life and turning it on its head. It's the only Way to the Father because the Father has nothing to do with scarcity. When we experience abundant presence, that God is all poured out around us, nothing withheld ever, then our Four Ways become not only instantly irrelevant, but a block to the connection, oneness, love that is God. As long as we're working for what we already have, we're not living the abundance that already is. The Fifth Way is not another method of acquisition, but a relinquishment of anything, everything that obscures the abundant truth… We're not here to acquire something to make us whole or acceptable. We're here to fall in love with love itself, the all-poured-out-ness of in-love-ness. The relinquishment, the letting go of in-love-ness is the difference…no longer aching for what has always been freely given.

Dave Brisbin 12.28.25 Before he sails off to the Trojan war, Thetis tells her son Achilles that if he stays home, he will find peace. Will marry a wonderful woman and have children and grandchildren who will love him and remember his name. But when they are all dead, his name will be forgotten. If he goes to Troy, he will find such glory that his name will never be forgotten. But he will not come back, and his mother will never see him again. Obviously, he went or we wouldn't be talking about him. The world remembers those who do great things, leave a legacy of spectacularly big things. But such legacies always come at a price. Did Achilles make the right choice? Is the building of a legacy that lives beyond the generations we actually touch more important than what happens within them? Such choices are not binary, of course. If we're consciously careful, we can have at least some elements of both. But where do we find real meaning in life? If all our focus is on not yet, imaginings of a great legacy, Solomon, traditional writer of Ecclesiastes has a Hebrew word for all our efforts: hevel. Vain, futile, meaningless, of no purpose or profit…chasing after the wind. After acquiring and accomplishing everything possible in a human lifetime, he writes, Meaningless! Everything is meaningless. Generations come and generations go…no one remembers the people of old, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. Sounds brutally depressing. Sounds like giving up, but it's not. It's redirection. Where do we find real meaning? In a legacy the world remembers even as we, the builders, are forgotten? Something more immediate? The question places us right at the crux of life. Solomon realizes that there is nothing better than for us to be glad and do good while life is in us, take our food and drink and have joy in our work. He's saying all that matters is contained in this moment and nowhere else. Even if we work to build a lasting legacy, if we're immersed in the joy of the work itself and those with us, we find meaning. Because in the end, the only legacy that matters is a legacy of little things.

Dave Brisbin 12.28.25 Before he sails off to the Trojan war, Thetis tells her son Achilles that if he stays home, he will find peace. Will marry a wonderful woman and have children and grandchildren who will love him and remember his name. But when they are all dead, his name will be forgotten. If he goes to Troy, he will find such glory that his name will never be forgotten. But he will not come back, and his mother will never see him again. Obviously, he went or we wouldn't be talking about him. The world remembers those who do great things, leave a legacy of spectacularly big things. But such legacies always come at a price. Did Achilles make the right choice? Is the building of a legacy that lives beyond the generations we actually touch more important than what happens within them? Such choices are not binary, of course. If we're consciously careful, we can have at least some elements of both. But where do we find real meaning in life? If all our focus is on not yet, imaginings of a great legacy, Solomon, traditional writer of Ecclesiastes has a Hebrew word for all our efforts: hevel. Vain, futile, meaningless, of no purpose or profit…chasing after the wind. After acquiring and accomplishing everything possible in a human lifetime, he writes, Meaningless! Everything is meaningless. Generations come and generations go…no one remembers the people of old, and even those yet to come will not be remembered by those who follow them. Sounds brutally depressing. Sounds like giving up, but it's not. It's redirection. Where do we find real meaning? In a legacy the world remembers even as we, the builders, are forgotten? Something more immediate? The question places us right at the crux of life. Solomon realizes that there is nothing better than for us to be glad and do good while life is in us, take our food and drink and have joy in our work. He's saying all that matters is contained in this moment and nowhere else. Even if we work to build a lasting legacy, if we're immersed in the joy of the work itself and those with us, we find meaning. Because in the end, the only legacy that matters is a legacy of little things.

Dave Brisbin 12.14.25 Christmas is our biggest cultural holiday, but even among those still celebrating Jesus' birth, what do we really know about it? Only Matthew and Luke relate any birth narratives, but Matthew tells only of the visit of the Magi, leaving Luke to give all the birth details we have. And there aren't many. Luke tells us Jesus was wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. That's it. In any good story, details are critical, never random, always set with purpose. So what do these details tell us? That Jesus' birth followed ordinary Hebrew practice—so unremarkable that those in the house where Joseph and Mary were staying, most likely relatives or friends, didn't even make room for them in their living space. That's what the word mistranslated as “inn” means. Not a hotel, but the interior living space of every Hebrew home that was separate from the cooking space and that reserved for animals. Luke goes on to say that local shepherds are caught up in spectacular sights, and Matthew tells of astronomer-priests who travel a thousand miles to worship at the feet of a poor child they believe is king. How did those right in the house with the holy family miss all this? Truth is, every one of us can only see what we're prepared to see. Confirmation bias eats up the rest. The point these few birth details make is that our God is an unassuming God, a humble, vulnerable God who must be believed to be seen. To see significance under an unremarkable exterior is the preparation, the goal of spiritual formation. If you're already poor and marginalized, it's easier to disregard facades, but no guarantee. The genius of the Magi is that they were wealthy, powerful, educated, and yet still humble, vulnerable, willing to make fools of themselves on a long, risky journey with no guaranteed outcome. If we're to understand Christmas, it will be through the Magi's eyes, because we are wealthy and educated too. To let that go, sell all we have is the only way to see the promise of our star in an unformed child. We will always find our God as a child. Unformed and forming. Are we prepared to see?

Dave Brisbin 12.14.25 Christmas is our biggest cultural holiday, but even among those still celebrating Jesus' birth, what do we really know about it? Only Matthew and Luke relate any birth narratives, but Matthew tells only of the visit of the Magi, leaving Luke to give all the birth details we have. And there aren't many. Luke tells us Jesus was wrapped in cloths and laid in a manger because there was no room in the inn. That's it. In any good story, details are critical, never random, always set with purpose. So what do these details tell us? That Jesus' birth followed ordinary Hebrew practice—so unremarkable that those in the house where Joseph and Mary were staying, most likely relatives or friends, didn't even make room for them in their living space. That's what the word mistranslated as “inn” means. Not a hotel, but the interior living space of every Hebrew home that was separate from the cooking space and that reserved for animals. Luke goes on to say that local shepherds are caught up in spectacular sights, and Matthew tells of astronomer-priests who travel a thousand miles to worship at the feet of a poor child they believe is king. How did those right in the house with the holy family miss all this? Truth is, every one of us can only see what we're prepared to see. Confirmation bias eats up the rest. The point these few birth details make is that our God is an unassuming God, a humble, vulnerable God who must be believed to be seen. To see significance under an unremarkable exterior is the preparation, the goal of spiritual formation. If you're already poor and marginalized, it's easier to disregard facades, but no guarantee. The genius of the Magi is that they were wealthy, powerful, educated, and yet still humble, vulnerable, willing to make fools of themselves on a long, risky journey with no guaranteed outcome. If we're to understand Christmas, it will be through the Magi's eyes, because we are wealthy and educated too. To let that go, sell all we have is the only way to see the promise of our star in an unformed child. We will always find our God as a child. Unformed and forming. Are we prepared to see?

Dave Brisbin 12.7.25 We all know when we go too far. That can be measured. When we cross a line, feel the negative reaction or outcome, we can evaluate and pull back. But how do we know when we haven't gone far enough? How do you measure a negative, the absence of something? Can't do it directly, but there is a way. We can measure our disturbance. Not going far enough, means something inside is resisting, slowing or stopping forward motion. Unfamiliar ideas and landscape challenge the way we believe things should look and feel. That's disturbing and always seeks relief. Hard to remain in disturbing places. But we can't grow in comfortable places, smack in the middle of everything we already believe. Something different always creates dissonance, which feels like disturbance; something radically different creates radical disturbance, which feels like anger, outrage, panic. No disturbance, no growth. We need rites of passage, to embrace all three phases: separation, transition, reincorporation. The movement from child to adult, from any perspective to another is always preceded by the painful separation from what is comfortable and familiar, followed by the disorienting transition through a new world of altered concepts and action. Only after such a journey can we reincorporate into our relationships, whitened like Moses by the experience, offering more. Nothing is more radically different than the impossible love, with all its implications, that Jesus is teaching and living in the gospels. But if our reading of it is not disturbing, if our attempts at applying it in our lives is not disorienting, then we haven't yet separated from the world we imagined for ourselves. We haven't let love be impossible. Let it take us far enough and not too far at the same time. In a prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake as he set sail to successfully circumnavigate the globe: Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore… Measure your disturbance. If you can't find any, you're too close to the shore.

Dave Brisbin 12.7.25 We all know when we go too far. That can be measured. When we cross a line, feel the negative reaction or outcome, we can evaluate and pull back. But how do we know when we haven't gone far enough? How do you measure a negative, the absence of something? Can't do it directly, but there is a way. We can measure our disturbance. Not going far enough, means something inside is resisting, slowing or stopping forward motion. Unfamiliar ideas and landscape challenge the way we believe things should look and feel. That's disturbing and always seeks relief. Hard to remain in disturbing places. But we can't grow in comfortable places, smack in the middle of everything we already believe. Something different always creates dissonance, which feels like disturbance; something radically different creates radical disturbance, which feels like anger, outrage, panic. No disturbance, no growth. We need rites of passage, to embrace all three phases: separation, transition, reincorporation. The movement from child to adult, from any perspective to another is always preceded by the painful separation from what is comfortable and familiar, followed by the disorienting transition through a new world of altered concepts and action. Only after such a journey can we reincorporate into our relationships, whitened like Moses by the experience, offering more. Nothing is more radically different than the impossible love, with all its implications, that Jesus is teaching and living in the gospels. But if our reading of it is not disturbing, if our attempts at applying it in our lives is not disorienting, then we haven't yet separated from the world we imagined for ourselves. We haven't let love be impossible. Let it take us far enough and not too far at the same time. In a prayer attributed to Sir Francis Drake as he set sail to successfully circumnavigate the globe: Disturb us, Lord, when we are too pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we dreamed too little, when we arrived safely because we sailed too close to the shore… Measure your disturbance. If you can't find any, you're too close to the shore.

Dave Brisbin 11.30.25 Gratitude and thankfulness are not the same. I see thankfulness as a positive reaction to a specific gift or circumstance, and though gratitude begins there, it journeys on to a non-specific attitude, a view of life that is all-inclusive, sees everything around us as a gift we could never give ourselves. Once we're aware that life is the free reception of what we could never give ourselves or repay, that repayment is not even required, any sense of entitlement vanishes. Jesus said the highest form of love is loving the enemy: loving—identifying with—someone who had not earned the right to that gift. And the flip side: the highest form of gratitude is being thankful for something we believe we have already earned. We can't know love until we know gratitude, the opposite of entitlement, the ability to see everything as a gift no matter how hard we work. What blocks this ability? To help us survive, our brains have adapted to focus on anticipating and solving problems, to start from a base of scarcity and fear. This makes us quicker to react to challenges, but jealously entitled to what we can catch and kill. Jesus rejected scarcity, started from a base of abundance, that everything God has and is, is already ours, within us. Even as we struggle for the legal tender, using our minds as survival guides, our job spiritually is to learn the balance of remaining thankful for each gift we earn, let thankfulness incite the journey to gratitude. Gratitude is an umbrella term, covers and includes all positive emotions, excludes the rest. You can't be grateful and depressed at the same time. Or angry, anxious, envious, entitled, victimized. Literally impossible. So what does gratitude feel like? Like enough. No more or less than just enough. Enoughness is the feeling we call gratitude, which feels like happiness, fulfilment, meaning, purpose. We can't create gratitude. It's what happens when we begin to see everything in our moments as gifts we could never give ourselves—let go of the complexity, calculations, judgment upon which our minds insist. Instead of scarcity, see the abundance of each moment as enough.

Dave Brisbin 11.23.25 When I'd tell people the title of my book, The Fifth Way, first question was: what are the first four? That made perfect sense, because you can't understand the fifth way of Jesus until you understand how the first four operate in our lives. There are several systems that try to explain human behavior in terms of personality types, unconscious ways we process experience and approach challenges in life: Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, DiSC, Kiersey…the four ways operate similarly. In Jesus time, four sects dominated Jewish life, and each had a specific way of dealing with threats to their powerbases—specifically the Roman occupation. The Sadducees, yielded to Roman power; the Pharisees tried to influence or manipulate; the Essenes exited to build their own communities; and the Zealots tried to destroy Roman presence through rebellion. To yield, manipulate, exit, and destroy, are the north, south, east, and west of ways we can deal with challenges in life. From dysfunctional marriages to nations and armies, these four ways, with all the combinations in between, are what we have to work with, and each of us has learned to favor one as primary in our personal lives. They aren't bad or evil; they're necessary for navigating life. Only when we apply them to spiritual growth do they become limiting, destructive, never taking us where we need to go. The four ways answer physical needs we all have as humans, but until we become aware of them, they strip free will, reducing us to predictable, type-based behavior. When Jesus comes out of the wilderness, having overcome three temptations symbolic of all human need, he begins teaching a fifth way, turning the other four on their heads. Everything Jesus teaches and models is a refutation of our normal, ingrained ways of meeting our needs. Starting within and working outward, from an awareness of inexhaustible presence rather than scarcity, we realize that all we really need is not gained through acquisition but in giving away all we have. In the giving, we learn what we really possess is inexhaustible, restoring free will—our ability to choose in love, not just in need.