Podcast appearances and mentions of dave brisbin

Dave Brisbin 9.13.26 Years ago, a co-worker became a good friend—a man from India with very dark skin and big, white teeth. When he smiled it was exactly like snapping on a high-powered flashlight. And he was always smiling. I liked him immediately, and we'd go to lunch and meet after work hours as well. Just one fly in the ointment…he was always late. Not just a little. Sometimes an hour or more. I was developing an appropriate resentment, so I knew I had a choice to make…somehow grin and bear the tardiness or end the friendship. Neither was acceptable, so I found a third door. Without even telling him why, I'd always ask to meet at my apartment. That way, I just lived my life until he showed up, which was then always at the right time, often with homemade Tandoori chicken and the smile. He marched to a very different drummer and was always exactly himself, which is what I loved. I didn't have vocabulary or concept for it then, but Chinese Daoists call it ziran, “self-so.” Means living or acting authentically, without constraint or ulterior motives, just as we naturally are and exist to be. My friend flowed to a different sense of time and lived accordingly. I could accept that and flow with, or not. But I couldn't change him even if I'd wanted. Life is always self-so, always what it intrinsically is. Can't change it, though we always want to, because life is difficult and full of challenges and trials. The whole point of life is to use those difficulties like a gravity assist to launch us into growth, but to do that we must first reframe life, see it not as a victim, but a student. Remain open to opportunities for growth, welcome them even if they hurt. And they always hurt—but are not always injurious. James tells us to count it all joy when difficulties come, because enduring them through gritted teeth is not the endurance James is talking about, that produces wisdom, maturity. When we let life be self-so, the universe no longer persecutes but teaches, life will still hurt, but is no longer difficult… Having learned that through each difficulty a smiling presence persists, we can enjoy our friends whenever they arrive.

Dave Brisbin 9.6.26 I don't usually do verse-by-verse scripture studies. Too easy to get lost in details, lose the forest for the trees. Too easy to be consumed with commentary and lose the application to everyday life. Without that application grounding scripture in human relationship and community, we lose relevant meaning. The exceptions are the Sermon on the Mount and the Book of James. Why? They're all application. No coincidence that Matthew, containing the Sermon on the Mount, and James are the two most Jewish books of the NT and may have been originally written in Hebrew/Aramaic. Or that James was Jesus' brother cut from the same Jewish cloth. Or that the Sermon on the Mount and James were used as catechisms for the early movement of Jesus followers. You won't find high theology in the Sermon or James, only the building blocks of everyday life. James has been called the “Proverbs of the New Testament” and is filled with practical wisdom, aphorisms for living ethically in community along Jesus' Way. Just as the Sermon opens with the Beatitudes, a multifaceted portrait of the finished product: a person transformed into the awareness of Kingdom life—James opens with a barrage of moral teachings, the attributes of communal life along Jesus' Way. Starting with Endurance, accepting life's hardships as teachers bringing us to completion, he then moves on to Wisdom, the by-product of Endurance, which is not “granted” but realized if we don't Doubt—become paralyzed by our need for certainty. Then in quick succession, the Degreelessness of God's love, Reward, Temptation, and Presence. The Sermon gives us the permission and means of stripping away the limitations that hold us in the hell of separation, and James, the ABCs of bringing that transformation back into everyday life in community. Greatly misunderstood in the West, James must be viewed with Jewish eyes. When we do, just as liquid takes the shape of any container into which it's poured, we can distinguish the content of the message frozen in its Jewish container, and warmed to room temp, pour it fresh into the containers of our own lives. Same message, new shape.

Dave Brisbin 8.30.26 Wait, Jesus had a brother? Scripture says he had four—James, Joses, Judas, Simon—and sisters too, unnamed and unnumbered. Not talked about much because Jesus with full siblings, DNA from both Mary and Joseph, blows up the doctrine of virgin birth that most Christianity accepts. If they were half-siblings, Mary having children after Jesus blows up the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity that Catholic and Orthodox churches accept. But there's a third door. With no word for cousin in Hebrew/Aramaic, they had to say son or daughter of my uncle. Cumbersome. So mostly they just said brother or sister. Jesus' brothers could have been cousins, as Jesus' aunt, Mary of Clopas, had at least two sons named James and Joses. Whew. However you see it, Jesus had a brother named James. We hear all about Peter and Paul as leaders of the early Jesus movement, but in the confusion following the crucifixion, there was only one man who had the reputation, trust, and kinship to hold the fledgling movement together: Ya'akov ha-Tsaddiq, James the Just, Jesus' brother. James was above reproach, a lifelong Nazirite—formally dedicated to God. He didn't follow Jesus during his ministry, but joined the movement after the crucifixion, and the people elected him nasi, overseer, a position he held for thirty years. Jewish authorities illegally stoned him in 62 CE, and the people were so outraged, it accelerated the unrest that led to the war with Rome four years later. James maintained the spiritual and social purity of the movement from the crucifixion to the war that ended the Jewish state and temple religion…time needed for the church to take root. James' book in the bible was used as a catechism, laying out in very Jewish fashion the concrete way of life that honored Jesus' teaching in a Jewish frame. His writing is foundational, starting with accepting life as it is, enduring hardships that teach and mature, understanding faith and faithful life in community. James is a window on how Jesus was understood by those who knew him best, grew up with him. We need to bring Jesus' brother out of the shadows and let him speak.

Dave Brisbin 8.30.26 Wait, Jesus had a brother? Scripture says he had four—James, Joses, Judas, Simon—and sisters too, unnamed and unnumbered. Not talked about much because Jesus with full siblings, DNA from both Mary and Joseph, blows up the doctrine of virgin birth that most Christianity accepts. If they were half-siblings, Mary having children after Jesus blows up the doctrine of Mary's perpetual virginity that Catholic and Orthodox churches accept. But there's a third door. With no word for cousin in Hebrew/Aramaic, they had to say son or daughter of my uncle. Cumbersome. So mostly they just said brother or sister. Jesus' brothers could have been cousins, as Jesus' aunt, Mary of Clopas, had at least two sons named James and Joses. Whew. However you see it, Jesus had a brother named James. We hear all about Peter and Paul as leaders of the early Jesus movement, but in the confusion following the crucifixion, there was only one man who had the reputation, trust, and kinship to hold the fledgling movement together: Ya'akov ha-Tsaddiq, James the Just, Jesus' brother. James was above reproach, a lifelong Nazirite—formally dedicated to God. He didn't follow Jesus during his ministry, but joined the movement after the crucifixion, and the people elected him nasi, overseer, a position he held for thirty years. Jewish authorities illegally stoned him in 62 CE, and the people were so outraged, it accelerated the unrest that led to the war with Rome four years later. James maintained the spiritual and social purity of the movement from the crucifixion to the war that ended the Jewish state and temple religion…time needed for the church to take root. James' book in the bible was used as a catechism, laying out in very Jewish fashion the concrete way of life that honored Jesus' teaching in a Jewish frame. His writing is foundational, starting with accepting life as it is, enduring hardships that teach and mature, understanding faith and faithful life in community. James is a window on how Jesus was understood by those who knew him best, grew up with him. We need to bring Jesus' brother out of the shadows and let him speak.

Dave Brisbin 8.23.26 Ever awaken at 3:30 in the morning? Doesn't it always seem to be 3:30? Maybe coming out of a disorienting dream, disembodied in the dark with all it means to be you laid aside? It's right there in that naked vulnerability that a lot of the work of Jesus' Way is already done for you… Your clothes are in the closet. Your Rolex on the night stand. Maybe your teeth are in the bathroom. Car and tools in the garage, diplomas on the office wall. The people reflecting your roles seem remote, no substance in the dark. Who are you then? How do you relate to anything of significance? Later you get up, make coffee, feel better. Your reflection in the mirror, your clothes and rituals rebuild you in the light, help you forget questions circling in the dark. Jesus' Way is the practice of waking at 3:30 AM and remaining quiet, disembodied, not running back to your reflection until all you've built around yourself becomes transparent enough to see right through to those central questions asked in the dark. But Jesus knew how we can also lose our Way down the rabbit hole of abstract questions, lose our connection to daily life. Like fish in water, the Way can't exist anywhere but daily life, can't be practiced anywhere but the physicality of our relationships. It's the action of becoming aware enough to experience our original connection to significance—everything immediately present in our moments. Jesus calls this experience Kingdom, the state of being so connected as to identify with. Which is why he doesn't get lost in abstract theology, but tells us to lose ourselves in intimate relationship. Without an effect on relationship, there is no Kingdom. No identification. Kingdom is the effect. We naturally want to think more, try to understand, but the Way is showing us how to act in a way that mimics the 3:30 moment, bringing our stripped down, disembodied awareness into the light of daily experience. Practical action that attenuates left brain ego dominance and amplifies right brain experience without judgment. Concrete steps we can take that slowly show us, not tell us, who we are and how we relate to significance.

Dave Brisbin 8.23.26 Ever awaken at 3:30 in the morning? Doesn't it always seem to be 3:30? Maybe coming out of a disorienting dream, disembodied in the dark with all it means to be you laid aside? It's right there in that naked vulnerability that a lot of the work of Jesus' Way is already done for you… Your clothes are in the closet. Your Rolex on the night stand. Maybe your teeth are in the bathroom. Car and tools in the garage, diplomas on the office wall. The people reflecting your roles seem remote, no substance in the dark. Who are you then? How do you relate to anything of significance? Later you get up, make coffee, feel better. Your reflection in the mirror, your clothes and rituals rebuild you in the light, help you forget questions circling in the dark. Jesus' Way is the practice of waking at 3:30 AM and remaining quiet, disembodied, not running back to your reflection until all you've built around yourself becomes transparent enough to see right through to those central questions asked in the dark. But Jesus knew how we can also lose our Way down the rabbit hole of abstract questions, lose our connection to daily life. Like fish in water, the Way can't exist anywhere but daily life, can't be practiced anywhere but the physicality of our relationships. It's the action of becoming aware enough to experience our original connection to significance—everything immediately present in our moments. Jesus calls this experience Kingdom, the state of being so connected as to identify with. Which is why he doesn't get lost in abstract theology, but tells us to lose ourselves in intimate relationship. Without an effect on relationship, there is no Kingdom. No identification. Kingdom is the effect. We naturally want to think more, try to understand, but the Way is showing us how to act in a way that mimics the 3:30 moment, bringing our stripped down, disembodied awareness into the light of daily experience. Practical action that attenuates left brain ego dominance and amplifies right brain experience without judgment. Concrete steps we can take that slowly show us, not tell us, who we are and how we relate to significance.

Dave Brisbin 8.16.26 Are we human beings having a spiritual experience? Spiritual beings having a human experience? If you've been around the contemplative block, you know it's never either/or, but both/and. Duality exists only in our minds, specifically, our left brains. Once immersed in momentary, right-brain experience, duality dissolves. Physical and spiritual can't be separated as long as we're breathing in these bodies. Many traditions consider spirit conscious energy. Einstein—E=MC2—considers energy and matter the same thing in different states. Whether spirit is really conscious energy is endlessly debatable, but the analogy helps us see that we can't have spiritual experience apart from brains and bodies—the interpretation and sensation of any experience while human. For millennia, the Church has taught being more spiritual by being less physical, that the world is profane. But for ancient Jews who wrote our scripture, spiritual life was realized when fully immersed in physical life. Marriage, sex, food, children, labor…dig deep, get dirty, love it, learn from it. All sacred. Walling off our humanity as a mark of spiritual progress is a spiritual by-pass of the highest order, by-passing the very life from which we learn what mature spirituality means. Jesus' Way is living life as a sacrament—outward expression of inward transformation. Any ritual means nothing until a human heart consecrates it with conscious presence. Physical life is equally meaningless until consecrated by presence, and our presence can't be placed anywhere but the moment we occupy. Spiritual presence, physical moment. Inseparable. Clare of Assisi wrote to allow our entire being transformed into the image of the Godhead itself. Meaningless until she defines it: so that we may feel what friends feel. If you've ever had a friend as close as your own heartbeat, you know Godhead. What could be more physical? We don't approach God directly. We approach God through immersion in the momentary details of our lives. We don't love God directly. We love God by loving each other. We don't know God directly. We know God when we feel what friends feel.

Dave Brisbin 8.16.26 Are we human beings having a spiritual experience? Spiritual beings having a human experience? If you've been around the contemplative block, you know it's never either/or, but both/and. Duality exists only in our minds, specifically, our left brains. Once immersed in momentary, right-brain experience, duality dissolves. Physical and spiritual can't be separated as long as we're breathing in these bodies. Many traditions consider spirit conscious energy. Einstein—E=MC2—considers energy and matter the same thing in different states. Whether spirit is really conscious energy is endlessly debatable, but the analogy helps us see that we can't have spiritual experience apart from brains and bodies—the interpretation and sensation of any experience while human. For millennia, the Church has taught being more spiritual by being less physical, that the world is profane. But for ancient Jews who wrote our scripture, spiritual life was realized when fully immersed in physical life. Marriage, sex, food, children, labor…dig deep, get dirty, love it, learn from it. All sacred. Walling off our humanity as a mark of spiritual progress is a spiritual by-pass of the highest order, by-passing the very life from which we learn what mature spirituality means. Jesus' Way is living life as a sacrament—outward expression of inward transformation. Any ritual means nothing until a human heart consecrates it with conscious presence. Physical life is equally meaningless until consecrated by presence, and our presence can't be placed anywhere but the moment we occupy. Spiritual presence, physical moment. Inseparable. Clare of Assisi wrote to allow our entire being transformed into the image of the Godhead itself. Meaningless until she defines it: so that we may feel what friends feel. If you've ever had a friend as close as your own heartbeat, you know Godhead. What could be more physical? We don't approach God directly. We approach God through immersion in the momentary details of our lives. We don't love God directly. We love God by loving each other. We don't know God directly. We know God when we feel what friends feel.

Dave Brisbin 8.9.26 You may be familiar with an elevator speech. Whatever you have to offer, if you can't articulate who you are, what you do, why it matters in the time it takes to get to your floor in an elevator, you've lost the opportunity. Jesus' Way is purely experiential, not cognitive, but we still need an elevator speech to concisely understand what it is and isn't or we'll be digging holes where there is no treasure. We each need our own personal speech…but generally, it's not a path leading somewhere else. It's how we follow the path we're already on, growing awareness of the unseen Oneness of all things in two complementary ways: living as if oneness really exists while relinquishing everything that obscures it. Only way to see who we really are in relation to what really is. In 1996, a neuroanatomist had a stroke. Function by function, her left hemisphere went offline, leaving her entirely in her right mind. The left brain is the source of ego awareness, linear order, sense of separation and physical boundaries, deep ties to the past for threat assessment. The right brain is all about the present moment, flow, sense of oneness, experience without judgment, identification with everything. She watched with clinical fascination as her left brain faded, each area stopping function, her fear and horror muted by the overwhelming peace and oneness she felt as never before. Took eight years to bring her left brain back online, to bring her two hemispheres into balance, to choose which left brain parts she wanted back and which only obscured the world as one. Took a stroke, the loss of her left brain to force awareness of her right, contemplative mind. She wrote she wished there were a safe way to induce this awareness in people. Well, there is… Jesus' Way is a dive into the right mind by living as if all life is one, experiencing loving the enemy while relinquishing the dominance of the left mind, selling off everything that obscures us as one with. Want a really short elevator speech on Jesus' Way? It's a way of having a spiritual stroke. You'd have a lotta ‘splainin' to do, but at least you'd have their attention.

Dave Brisbin 8.9.26 You may be familiar with an elevator speech. Whatever you have to offer, if you can't articulate who you are, what you do, why it matters in the time it takes to get to your floor in an elevator, you've lost the opportunity. Jesus' Way is purely experiential, not cognitive, but we still need an elevator speech to concisely understand what it is and isn't or we'll be digging holes where there is no treasure. We each need our own personal speech…but generally, it's not a path leading somewhere else. It's how we follow the path we're already on, growing awareness of the unseen Oneness of all things in two complementary ways: living as if oneness really exists while relinquishing everything that obscures it. Only way to see who we really are in relation to what really is. In 1996, a neuroanatomist had a stroke. Function by function, her left hemisphere went offline, leaving her entirely in her right mind. The left brain is the source of ego awareness, linear order, sense of separation and physical boundaries, deep ties to the past for threat assessment. The right brain is all about the present moment, flow, sense of oneness, experience without judgment, identification with everything. She watched with clinical fascination as her left brain faded, each area stopping function, her fear and horror muted by the overwhelming peace and oneness she felt as never before. Took eight years to bring her left brain back online, to bring her two hemispheres into balance, to choose which left brain parts she wanted back and which only obscured the world as one. Took a stroke, the loss of her left brain to force awareness of her right, contemplative mind. She wrote she wished there were a safe way to induce this awareness in people. Well, there is… Jesus' Way is a dive into the right mind by living as if all life is one, experiencing loving the enemy while relinquishing the dominance of the left mind, selling off everything that obscures us as one with. Want a really short elevator speech on Jesus' Way? It's a way of having a spiritual stroke. You'd have a lotta ‘splainin' to do, but at least you'd have their attention.

Dave Brisbin 8.2.26 We have always been taught that Jesus came to save us from our sins. Not true. Not sins plural as in all the harmful choices we make or actions we commit. God understands those, loves right through those. In John's gospel, Jesus came to take away the sin of the world. Singular. Not choices or actions, but a state of being…separate. The universal sin of the world—the pervading illusion of separation, of ourselves as separate from, in competition with everyone and everything else—the state from which every harmful choice and action proceeds. The price of human self-awareness is to experience ourselves as separate beings, a sensation so physically pervasive, it overwhelms the unseen truth of ultimate connection. As infants, we swim in undifferentiated oneness until old enough to conceive of ourselves with distinct edges. Then the hurts and traumas of childhood pile up creating a narrative of unworthiness indoctrinating us to believe we're not worthy of the connection we more and more dimly remember. Between Mark 1 and 2, Jesus heals a leper, forgives a paralytic, and calls a tax collector to community back to back to back. Which means we're supposed to see these encounters as connected. All three are outcasts. They know it, have accepted the narrative of unworthiness laid upon them. But Jesus touches the leper before healing, forgives the paralytic before restitution, calls the tax collector before repentance. He declares his connection with them even as their narratives stare in disbelief. This was Jesus' plan all along. Not to save us from sins, but to touch, forgive, call with the warmth of a smile that erased all doubt of connection. Only when we have felt completely unworthy and yet completely accepted at the same time, can we see shame for what it is—a narrative, a fear of disconnection that keeps us disconnected. Shame is the only thing standing between us and the Good News that our original connection remains, waiting patiently beneath old stories of original sin. It's the long way home, but Jesus came to save us from the separation that is sin. But to do that he first had to save us from shame.

Dave Brisbin 8.2.26 We have always been taught that Jesus came to save us from our sins. Not true. Not sins plural as in all the harmful choices we make or actions we commit. God understands those, loves right through those. In John's gospel, Jesus came to take away the sin of the world. Singular. Not choices or actions, but a state of being…separate. The universal sin of the world—the pervading illusion of separation, of ourselves as separate from, in competition with everyone and everything else—the state from which every harmful choice and action proceeds. The price of human self-awareness is to experience ourselves as separate beings, a sensation so physically pervasive, it overwhelms the unseen truth of ultimate connection. As infants, we swim in undifferentiated oneness until old enough to conceive of ourselves with distinct edges. Then the hurts and traumas of childhood pile up creating a narrative of unworthiness indoctrinating us to believe we're not worthy of the connection we more and more dimly remember. Between Mark 1 and 2, Jesus heals a leper, forgives a paralytic, and calls a tax collector to community back to back to back. Which means we're supposed to see these encounters as connected. All three are outcasts. They know it, have accepted the narrative of unworthiness laid upon them. But Jesus touches the leper before healing, forgives the paralytic before restitution, calls the tax collector before repentance. He declares his connection with them even as their narratives stare in disbelief. This was Jesus' plan all along. Not to save us from sins, but to touch, forgive, call with the warmth of a smile that erased all doubt of connection. Only when we have felt completely unworthy and yet completely accepted at the same time, can we see shame for what it is—a narrative, a fear of disconnection that keeps us disconnected. Shame is the only thing standing between us and the Good News that our original connection remains, waiting patiently beneath old stories of original sin. It's the long way home, but Jesus came to save us from the separation that is sin. But to do that he first had to save us from shame.

Dave Brisbin 7.26.26 Played high school football my first two years. Bookish kid trying to fit in, never got off the bench in league play. But I could learn that playbook. Knew it cover to cover better than the starters. Took some nerdy pride in that. Small and fast, they put me at tight end and during a training scrimmage, quarterback called an end around. I knew that play cold: two steps off the line, planted, spun around across the backfield, quarterback fading into view, ball suspended in my path, slapped against my chest. Clamped down and turned back toward the line. Perfectly executed. But in my mind, the play was over. No more lines on the page. Holding the ball with absolutely no idea what to do next. A big linebacker showed me. I had focused on what I could understand, but everything it means to be a football player starts where the playbook ends. The parts we can read and memorize are not why we go to football games. What we do when nothing is telling us what to do…that's worth a ticket. In real life, though, excitement turns to panic when we can't see the path ahead. It's an honest mistake. We see the path snaking behind, choices and events like stones in a lawn, and we imagine the future laid out in front of us as well… destiny, fate, God ordained…if we could just get a glimpse. But wise man say the path is made by walking on it. Life is not a worn path in the woods, stretching out behind and before. It's an adventure, a masted ship at sea. You see the wake behind, ahead only trackless ocean. A cloud of possible futures, constantly shifting with each choice/event. We look to religion, its scripture, laws, beliefs, rituals—playbook and promise. If we follow the book, we'll be safe. Saved. It may actually seem to work for awhile, until we suddenly find ourselves holding the ball with no idea what to do next. Religion puts the play in motion. Jesus shows us how to exceed the playbook and run downfield with the ball. Life begins where the playbook ends. Why we buy the ticket. The way ahead is trackless ocean, a field of linebackers. Frightening. We could get in trouble. But that's how you know it's an adventure.

Dave Brisbin 7.26.26 Played high school football my first two years. Bookish kid trying to fit in, never got off the bench in league play. But I could learn that playbook. Knew it cover to cover better than the starters. Took some nerdy pride in that. Small and fast, they put me at tight end and during a training scrimmage, quarterback called an end around. I knew that play cold: two steps off the line, planted, spun around across the backfield, quarterback fading into view, ball suspended in my path, slapped against my chest. Clamped down and turned back toward the line. Perfectly executed. But in my mind, the play was over. No more lines on the page. Holding the ball with absolutely no idea what to do next. A big linebacker showed me. I had focused on what I could understand, but everything it means to be a football player starts where the playbook ends. The parts we can read and memorize are not why we go to football games. What we do when nothing is telling us what to do…that's worth a ticket. In real life, though, excitement turns to panic when we can't see the path ahead. It's an honest mistake. We see the path snaking behind, choices and events like stones in a lawn, and we imagine the future laid out in front of us as well… destiny, fate, God ordained…if we could just get a glimpse. But wise man say the path is made by walking on it. Life is not a worn path in the woods, stretching out behind and before. It's an adventure, a masted ship at sea. You see the wake behind, ahead only trackless ocean. A cloud of possible futures, constantly shifting with each choice/event. We look to religion, its scripture, laws, beliefs, rituals—playbook and promise. If we follow the book, we'll be safe. Saved. It may actually seem to work for awhile, until we suddenly find ourselves holding the ball with no idea what to do next. Religion puts the play in motion. Jesus shows us how to exceed the playbook and run downfield with the ball. Life begins where the playbook ends. Why we buy the ticket. The way ahead is trackless ocean, a field of linebackers. Frightening. We could get in trouble. But that's how you know it's an adventure.

Dave Brisbin 7.19.26 A contemporary theologian and semiotician—how meaning is communicated—saw that our youngest generations process information differently than older Westerners in the modern era. He called it EPIC: experiential, participatory, image-based, and communal. Pretty much the exact opposite of our modern method: propositional, representational, word-based, individualistic. We propose abstract concepts rather than experience a process; passively receive information rather than participate in an exchange; view the world through words as an individual rather than images within community. The hallmark of the modern West is to remain intellectually detached, observing life and attempting control from a safe distance. But the youngest among us jump right in, experiencing and participating in a communal world awash in image. Absorbing this decades ago, the light went on when I realized that ancient cultures, especially the Hebrews who wrote our scriptures, were EPIC too. Here we are, modern Westerners, reading ancient EPIC texts in a diametrically opposed, non-EPIC way. Explains a lot. Jesus called himself the Way. Not as propositional truth to use as a litmus test for orthodoxy, but as the invitation to participate and experience relational truth that could promise liberation no other way. Jesus' earliest followers called themselves Followers of the Way. Not followers of Jesus in a representational, passive attempt to ride his coattails, but in the discipline of living lovingly in community. The Way, urha in Aramaic, means not just the path, but the light that reveals the path and opens possibility. When we view Jesus' sayings of way, truth, life; ask, seek, knock; the five lines of the Lord's prayer through an EPIC lens, they become sequences in a process of participatory experience, not words agreed upon for personal salvation. We want to see the path that leads us to God. But when Jesus says the only Way to God is through him-as-Way, he is EPICly saying an unseen God can only be found on an unseen path…experienced in participation with each step, conveyed through image, and realized in identity with community.

Dave Brisbin 7.19.26 A contemporary theologian and semiotician—how meaning is communicated—saw that our youngest generations process information differently than older Westerners in the modern era. He called it EPIC: experiential, participatory, image-based, and communal. Pretty much the exact opposite of our modern method: propositional, representational, word-based, individualistic. We propose abstract concepts rather than experience a process; passively receive information rather than participate in an exchange; view the world through words as an individual rather than images within community. The hallmark of the modern West is to remain intellectually detached, observing life and attempting control from a safe distance. But the youngest among us jump right in, experiencing and participating in a communal world awash in image. Absorbing this decades ago, the light went on when I realized that ancient cultures, especially the Hebrews who wrote our scriptures, were EPIC too. Here we are, modern Westerners, reading ancient EPIC texts in a diametrically opposed, non-EPIC way. Explains a lot. Jesus called himself the Way. Not as propositional truth to use as a litmus test for orthodoxy, but as the invitation to participate and experience relational truth that could promise liberation no other way. Jesus' earliest followers called themselves Followers of the Way. Not followers of Jesus in a representational, passive attempt to ride his coattails, but in the discipline of living lovingly in community. The Way, urha in Aramaic, means not just the path, but the light that reveals the path and opens possibility. When we view Jesus' sayings of way, truth, life; ask, seek, knock; the five lines of the Lord's prayer through an EPIC lens, they become sequences in a process of participatory experience, not words agreed upon for personal salvation. We want to see the path that leads us to God. But when Jesus says the only Way to God is through him-as-Way, he is EPICly saying an unseen God can only be found on an unseen path…experienced in participation with each step, conveyed through image, and realized in identity with community.

Dave Brisbin 7.12.26 If God were sitting next to you right now and you could ask one question, what would it be? Puts a pretty fine point on it, yes? To stop the ever-running assembly line of questions forming in your mind and pick just one… For adults, the questions were predictable: Why do you allow suffering? Don't all religions lead to you? How can I trust the bible? If you're really there, why don't you prove it? Children's responses were predictably less heady: How are you doing? Are you happy? And… If God was sitting next to me, I'd just like to give him a hug. Gotta love kids. That last one really points in the right direction. Adults have to face the fact that the most important questions in life don't have answers. Only the experience of asking. Life isn't answered and resolved rationally. Only lived. We can keep asking questions, but using our minds to navigate a spiritual journey is like bringing a knife to a gunfight…the mind is not the vehicle for such a journey. Even so, there is one question Jesus is asked that rises above the rest. What must I do to obtain eternal life? Two thousand years ago, yesterday, today, isn't that the question? Is what we see around us all there is to life or is there more? All other questions are just variants of this one, but Jesus doesn't answer except to say, if you've done all you can do to be certain and want to fill that place that is still lacking, then sell all you think you know and come give me a hug. We think of eternal life as a long time, life going on forever, an eternal future granted by God in exchange for believing the right things. But all of time is just one moment, eternally. And in Aramaic, eternal life is not life that goes on eternally, but life that is eternally alive—new, fresh, fulfilling, complete, abundant. Not then. Now. Not there. Here. Life only becomes eternal the moment we become present to the life that is now. We are not saved by the mind. By thinking, our minds separate us from this moment, from eternal life. To obtain that life is to stop thinking and start hugging. The hugging, embracing now as just enough is the eternal aliveness we seek.

Dave Brisbin 7.12.26 If God were sitting next to you right now and you could ask one question, what would it be? Puts a pretty fine point on it, yes? To stop the ever-running assembly line of questions forming in your mind and pick just one… For adults, the questions were predictable: Why do you allow suffering? Don't all religions lead to you? How can I trust the bible? If you're really there, why don't you prove it? Children's responses were predictably less heady: How are you doing? Are you happy? And… If God was sitting next to me, I'd just like to give him a hug. Gotta love kids. That last one really points in the right direction. Adults have to face the fact that the most important questions in life don't have answers. Only the experience of asking. Life isn't answered and resolved rationally. Only lived. We can keep asking questions, but using our minds to navigate a spiritual journey is like bringing a knife to a gunfight…the mind is not the vehicle for such a journey. Even so, there is one question Jesus is asked that rises above the rest. What must I do to obtain eternal life? Two thousand years ago, yesterday, today, isn't that the question? Is what we see around us all there is to life or is there more? All other questions are just variants of this one, but Jesus doesn't answer except to say, if you've done all you can do to be certain and want to fill that place that is still lacking, then sell all you think you know and come give me a hug. We think of eternal life as a long time, life going on forever, an eternal future granted by God in exchange for believing the right things. But all of time is just one moment, eternally. And in Aramaic, eternal life is not life that goes on eternally, but life that is eternally alive—new, fresh, fulfilling, complete, abundant. Not then. Now. Not there. Here. Life only becomes eternal the moment we become present to the life that is now. We are not saved by the mind. By thinking, our minds separate us from this moment, from eternal life. To obtain that life is to stop thinking and start hugging. The hugging, embracing now as just enough is the eternal aliveness we seek.

Dave Brisbin 7.5.26 Truth is messy. We like the beginning of things, especially big things like nations, to be neat and tidy events, so looking back, we compress them into just such neat narratives. Our histories and memories rely much more on poems we write about our heroes than actual happenings. True beginnings are most often a messy process that scatters and diffuses the points we want to remember. The points remain, just not wrapped in a bow. July 4th, 2026, we celebrated the 250th anniversary of what? Our nation's birth? Beginning of revolution? Signing of the Declaration of Independence? None of those happened on July 4th, 1776. The war started a year before, and the Declaration wasn't first signed until August 2nd with signatures dribbling in through early 1777. The colonies simply adopted Jefferson's rough draft on the 4th of July. Truth is messy, but the point of the document remains… Jefferson speaks of political bands as existing only to serve the people—at their own consent—and when they no longer do, can and should be abolished. That all mankind are created equal with unalienable rights—rights that cannot be estranged. But that humans will suffer injustices infringing those rights as long as they are sufferable, knowing the path of revolution will make things much worse before ever better. Jewish scripture often depicts Israel as one person, God's son, moving through the shape of his journey to freedom. Those ancients believed “as above, so below,” that the movement of stars and nations mirrored our movement as individuals. What relational bands are keeping us in place? Do they serve all parties? Are they helping to secure our unalienable rights to love that can't be estranged? Or are we suffering what is sufferable until our fears bottom out? Jesus is a micro revolutionary calling us to fight an interior revolution for spiritual liberation. Jefferson mirrors that call with a Declaration stated as boldly as it gets. All in. Nothing left on the table. The moment our longing for freedom exceeds the fear of claiming our right to unalienable love, we can be as bold as that. As messy. All in. Our 4th of July.

Dave Brisbin 7.5.26 Truth is messy. We like the beginning of things, especially big things like nations, to be neat and tidy events, so looking back, we compress them into just such neat narratives. Our histories and memories rely much more on poems we write about our heroes than actual happenings. True beginnings are most often a messy process that scatters and diffuses the points we want to remember. The points remain, just not wrapped in a bow. July 4th, 2026, we celebrated the 250th anniversary of what? Our nation's birth? Beginning of revolution? Signing of the Declaration of Independence? None of those happened on July 4th, 1776. The war started a year before, and the Declaration wasn't first signed until August 2nd with signatures dribbling in through early 1777. The colonies simply adopted Jefferson's rough draft on the 4th of July. Truth is messy, but the point of the document remains… Jefferson speaks of political bands as existing only to serve the people—at their own consent—and when they no longer do, can and should be abolished. That all mankind are created equal with unalienable rights—rights that cannot be estranged. But that humans will suffer injustices infringing those rights as long as they are sufferable, knowing the path of revolution will make things much worse before ever better. Jewish scripture often depicts Israel as one person, God's son, moving through the shape of his journey to freedom. Those ancients believed “as above, so below,” that the movement of stars and nations mirrored our movement as individuals. What relational bands are keeping us in place? Do they serve all parties? Are they helping to secure our unalienable rights to love that can't be estranged? Or are we suffering what is sufferable until our fears bottom out? Jesus is a micro revolutionary calling us to fight an interior revolution for spiritual liberation. Jefferson mirrors that call with a Declaration stated as boldly as it gets. All in. Nothing left on the table. The moment our longing for freedom exceeds the fear of claiming our right to unalienable love, we can be as bold as that. As messy. All in. Our 4th of July.

Dave Brisbin 6.28.26 Eucharist—usually called communion—is the essential Christian sacrament, the centerpiece of Christian worship. When a sacrament persists for millennia as a defining ritual, it's telling us something about how earliest followers understood their journey. It can also tell us what we've forgotten about ours. Eucharist means thanksgiving…because Jesus gave thanks over bread and wine at that last supper…because we should gratefully remember Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, the means by which sins are forgiven, and we are saved. Jesus said that the bread was his body and wine a new covenant in his blood, but how we understand the word covenant has everything to do with how we understand communion. In the West, we've understood covenant as a legal contract obligating both parties as contracts do. If we keep the terms of the contract, God is obligated to accept us, save us. But through the lens of original sin, there is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy, so contractually, Jesus must do the heavy lifting. By believing in him theologically and not breaking the law, we are covered by his blood, but our side of the contract remains passive and vicarious. Salvation without transformation. In Hebrews 9, the same word Jesus used for covenant is described as a last will and testament, its primary meaning. Jesus is the mediator, we would say devisor, of a will that leaves his estate to his heirs. Such a testament only comes into effect with the death of the devisor, not while he lives. Jesus said it was to our advantage that he go--only then could we receive our inheritance. The new covenant is not a contract as was the old one. It is a handoff of the estate of Kingdom. We are heirs to all Jesus had, not passive legal obligation, the opportunity to actively engage the experience, the awakening of Pentecost, full authority to live and love as Jesus did. The earliest followers of Jesus called communion anamnesis, which means unforgetting. We would say remembrance. Unforgetting is better. To realize that Jesus willed Kingdom to us, that his Way of life has always been ours, is to unforget who we really are.

Dave Brisbin 6.28.26 Eucharist—usually called communion—is the essential Christian sacrament, the centerpiece of Christian worship. When a sacrament persists for millennia as a defining ritual, it's telling us something about how earliest followers understood their journey. It can also tell us what we've forgotten about ours. Eucharist means thanksgiving…because Jesus gave thanks over bread and wine at that last supper…because we should gratefully remember Jesus' sacrifice on the cross, the means by which sins are forgiven, and we are saved. Jesus said that the bread was his body and wine a new covenant in his blood, but how we understand the word covenant has everything to do with how we understand communion. In the West, we've understood covenant as a legal contract obligating both parties as contracts do. If we keep the terms of the contract, God is obligated to accept us, save us. But through the lens of original sin, there is nothing we can do to make ourselves worthy, so contractually, Jesus must do the heavy lifting. By believing in him theologically and not breaking the law, we are covered by his blood, but our side of the contract remains passive and vicarious. Salvation without transformation. In Hebrews 9, the same word Jesus used for covenant is described as a last will and testament, its primary meaning. Jesus is the mediator, we would say devisor, of a will that leaves his estate to his heirs. Such a testament only comes into effect with the death of the devisor, not while he lives. Jesus said it was to our advantage that he go--only then could we receive our inheritance. The new covenant is not a contract as was the old one. It is a handoff of the estate of Kingdom. We are heirs to all Jesus had, not passive legal obligation, the opportunity to actively engage the experience, the awakening of Pentecost, full authority to live and love as Jesus did. The earliest followers of Jesus called communion anamnesis, which means unforgetting. We would say remembrance. Unforgetting is better. To realize that Jesus willed Kingdom to us, that his Way of life has always been ours, is to unforget who we really are.

Dave Brisbin 6.21.26 At the extremes, physical reality is utterly different than the world we perceive each day. Unlike our solar system with distinct planets neatly orbiting the sun, inside an atom, an electron doesn't orbit a nucleus, but has a form that can only be described as a cloud of probability. It doesn't orbit. It surrounds the nucleus like a fog. Quantumly speaking, electrons are in superposition. In this state, subatomic particles don't exist in any one place. There is only a certain probability of being here as opposed to there…until we interact with them, measure them. Then superposition collapses, and from our point of view, the particle is forced to “choose” a position. Before we interact, all positions and energy states are possible. Within the atom, the particle is everywhere and nowhere and yet always right herenow. Ancient Hebrews described God hovering over the moment of creation, a conscious interaction that collapsed the void into the positions of space, time, and matter—a version of reality we can observe and measure. They imagined God's presence as a pillar of cloud, right herenow among them, but without form that could be pinpointed or represented. And they were forbidden to try. They knew God is always in the cloud. We could add, in superposition, the probability of everywhere and nowhere. When we interact with an electron, force it out of the cloud, we imagine we can measure and understand it. But we are not seeing the electron in its natural state, as it is when no one is looking. When we interact with God, force God out of the cloud, we imagine a version of God we can measure, but it's no longer God we see, just a representation we can imagine. The extremes of the physical universe sit closer to eternity, showing us if we want to experience ultimate reality, God, as they really are, we can't force them out of the cloud. We enter the cloud ourselves. Raise our frequency till we inhabit the everywhere and nowhere of unwatched electrons. This is prayer as Jesus prayed—his only Way to the Father that we can also travel once we accept there is no form to measure, only the cloud to breathe.

Dave Brisbin 6.21.26 At the extremes, physical reality is utterly different than the world we perceive each day. Unlike our solar system with distinct planets neatly orbiting the sun, inside an atom, an electron doesn't orbit a nucleus, but has a form that can only be described as a cloud of probability. It doesn't orbit. It surrounds the nucleus like a fog. Quantumly speaking, electrons are in superposition. In this state, subatomic particles don't exist in any one place. There is only a certain probability of being here as opposed to there…until we interact with them, measure them. Then superposition collapses, and from our point of view, the particle is forced to “choose” a position. Before we interact, all positions and energy states are possible. Within the atom, the particle is everywhere and nowhere and yet always right herenow. Ancient Hebrews described God hovering over the moment of creation, a conscious interaction that collapsed the void into the positions of space, time, and matter—a version of reality we can observe and measure. They imagined God's presence as a pillar of cloud, right herenow among them, but without form that could be pinpointed or represented. And they were forbidden to try. They knew God is always in the cloud. We could add, in superposition, the probability of everywhere and nowhere. When we interact with an electron, force it out of the cloud, we imagine we can measure and understand it. But we are not seeing the electron in its natural state, as it is when no one is looking. When we interact with God, force God out of the cloud, we imagine a version of God we can measure, but it's no longer God we see, just a representation we can imagine. The extremes of the physical universe sit closer to eternity, showing us if we want to experience ultimate reality, God, as they really are, we can't force them out of the cloud. We enter the cloud ourselves. Raise our frequency till we inhabit the everywhere and nowhere of unwatched electrons. This is prayer as Jesus prayed—his only Way to the Father that we can also travel once we accept there is no form to measure, only the cloud to breathe.

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.