David Brisbin Podcast

Dave Brisbin 10.25.20 Continuing with the theme of grace—the unmerited favor, unconditional love without which there is no gospel at all—we focus on why it is so hard for us to grasp and begin to trust in a way that changes our attitudes and experience of life. The opposite of the concept of unmerited favor is a legal understanding of our relationship with God. Reward from obedience to law is merited, earned, and kills grace because it places us in continuum thinking, seeing ourselves on a continuum or spectrum from good to evil, working toward the point at which we are acceptable to God. Continuum thinking is generally a better way to look at human relationships than categorical thinking that puts people in categories or boxes that can quickly become stereotypes and prejudices. But when it comes to God and God’s love, the continuum breaks down in the face of the infinite nature of spirit. To begin to trust a love that can’t be merited, earned, won, or lost is to take a leap off the continuum. All of Jesus’ t

Frank Billman 10.18.20 Grace is one of the cornerstones of the Christian faith. It is a concept that we all celebrate and eagerly accept because we all know that we need God’s grace desperately. The challenge comes in taking grace from a mental construct and making it experiential – moving it from our heads to our hearts. At the root of our difficulty is the nagging question of worthiness. Does God really love us unconditionally? Can the Good News really be this good? The message today will walk through the obstacles to accepting God’s grace and explore part of the process that takes us there because without grace there is no peace.

Dave Brisbin 10.11.20 A conversation with a friend who was just diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer rivets me. From stomach pain to hearing a doctor say that the metastasis was so extensive that she had maybe two weeks or two months with chemo, all in the space of one Covid-empty emergency room visit… Her twin sister flies in and takes her home cross-country to Pennsylvania where family surrounds. Best place she could be, but she tells me of the anger and depression. Wants to know what she did to deserve to die so young? She fears death and wants at least to make it through the holidays and see her nephew’s baby. She’s angry with God. Feels abandoned, and no amount of prayer brings a sense of his presence. I just listen, asking questions here and there, but mostly waiting for any cue or clue as to how I could possibly help besides just being on the other end of the line. Then she begins talking about her family—her sister and her sister’s children, how much she loves them and they her. Her nephew wh

Dave Brisbin 10.4.20 Have you ever been with someone who was so fully present and focused on you that you’ll never forget the moment? Someone who made you feel at that moment that you were the only person in the world? Or the room at least? Presence is an amazing thing. We can’t easily define it; it’s even harder to practice. But we know it instantly when it is trained upon us. Maybe because it is so rare these days that we instantly know it when we experience the difference. Years ago I had an elderly friend whose presence made me feel completely seen and accepted, and from that example, I can only image what it must have been to stand in Jesus’ presence and have those eyes trained on me. What a gift we give when we give our presence to another person. Why is it so hard for us? And how do become more present? If we look at the ways we can immerse ourselves in the day-to-day areas of our lives, maybe we can find the common thread between immersing ourselves in God, each other, in nature, and in our culture. I

Dave Brisbin 9.27.20 The poet Rumi writes that out beyond rightdoing and wrongdoing there is a field…he’ll meet you there. When we’re thinking of right and wrong, duty and obligation, law and obedience, we’re assessing our behavior and performance against some standard, and that’s better than not doing so, but it doesn’t make us present to moment and circumstance and whoever shares them with us. Presence is the key to having law and fulfilling it too, as Jesus would say. But presence is elusive and easily misunderstood, because you can be present without being aware and aware without being focused. We need to bring human awareness to the undistracted herenowness we call presence for contemplative prayer, and we need to add focus to presence and awareness to be mindful—focusing only on the task at hand, the person in our path. Jesus said the law would remain until heaven and earth pass away. But the word he used for pass away means to cross a boundary or barrier, to merge into. That field beyond rightness and

Dave Brisbin 9.20.20 Still talking about presence as the foundation of Jesus’ Way and the contemplative prayer that will take us there. When Moses came down off the mountain with God, his face was shining, and when contemplatives and mystics come back from their experience of presence, they say strange things to try to express themselves: “Run from what’s comfortable. Forget safety. Live where you fear to live. Destroy your reputation. Be notorious. I have tried prudent planning long enough. From now on I’ll be mad.” (Rumi) What are we to make of such words? When Jesus says unless we hate our fathers and mothers, children and even our own lives, we can’t follow him, what are we to make of that? Truth is, trying to understand the words of those who come back from the experience of presence is like trying to understand the equations on Einstein’s blackboard—a dense wall of numbers and symbols that stops you in your tracks with its sheer incomprehensibility. It’s not until there’s enough of a change in our minds

Dave Brisbin 9.13.20 We’ve been talking about presence. Presence as the foundation of Jesus’ Way. Though Jesus doesn’t use the word presence in the gospels, he’s always talking about love, and love isn’t possible without presence. Love is the effect of being present—what it feels like to be present. To be fully present is to be in love. And what is the effect of being in love? Love understood as complete identification with another is a great definition of humility, fully realizing our position as equals in relationship. And what is the effect of humility? Service, of course. Jesus is always talking about service. For him, it’s the proof of a heart inclined toward his Way, kingdom. Service can be done for all sorts of reasons: duty, honor, obligation, reward. But service done for any reason not present in the moment of connection never reflects love or humility. When service is as automatic as breathing, as essential as good food, it becomes less what we do and more who we are. We won’t need to go looking for

Dave Brisbin 9.6.20 I have been talking with people, so many lately, who have suffered tremendous loss. Seems almost like a flood of loss floating on top of the collective loss we’ve all been experiencing this year. Loss of parents and children to death, overdose, loss of jobs, careers and vocations due to Covid and financial downturns. Losses that fundamentally change the ground of a person’s life. Losses that ask a common question of all of us: who are we when we lose a defining part of our lives? We naturally see our identity in terms of the roles we play, the accomplishments we achieve, and the attributes we display as humans, but anything that can be taken from us is not our identity, and everything it means to be human is taken at death, which is why we fear it—who are we then? If you think about it, all our fears in life stem from the basic fear of loss of identity. When we assume we are the voice that talks to us in our heads, the egoic mind, the “false” self or small self of Thomas Merton, we are co

Dave Brisbin 8.30.20 I was asked this week by someone who said he always asks this question of someone he’s meeting for first time: what is the most important thing you’ve learned in life? My answer was immediate. Presence. He was surprised and said that no one has ever answered that way before. I asked how most people answered, and he said either love or virtue. My spiritual journey has been many things over the years from truth to salvation to serenity and peace to love and joy, but at this point it’s all about presence. Without presence first, we won’t find anything else along the way. Presence is the foundation and the way to love—can’t have one without the other. But then, what is the way to presence? Prayer is the way to presence, but only prayer understood in the way Jesus actually taught and lived it. Jesus tells us not to make a show, not to use words, and not even to bring our needs to the table. To retreat to a secret place both interiorly and exteriorly and connect with a Father who knows what we

Dave Brisbin 8.23.20 There are two basic ways we make choices. The first is with judgment—applying all we have experienced and learned to a particular situation or circumstance. We’ve been taught all our lives that it is wisdom to exercise good judgment. Then Jesus tells us not to judge. Are we supposed to throw out all the programming, the learned and experienced data of a lifetime that has helped us survive? Of course not. But when it comes to personal relationships and spirituality, a preprogrammed response necessarily brings the biases and stereotypes that kill relationships by allowing us to make decisions about people without ever being present to them. Which bring us to the second way to make choices: to choose what love requires. What does love require? First and foremost, it requires presence. Love is not possible without presence: being connected, one with the beloved. When it comes to our relationships with the people around us all day long, our relationship with the unseen spirit in all of creatio

Dave Brisbin 8.16.20 Watching a spider hanging for days motionless in its web up in a remote corner of our ceiling gets me thinking about the purpose of a life lived only to keep on living. Obviously spiders have purpose in the ecosystem, but many people have been telling me during this pandemic lockdown that they feel caught in a Groundhog Day time loop, where every day is like every other, purpose and meaning falling away, depression taking their place. While it’s true that may of the activities that used to give us a sense of purpose whether related to work, church, sports, or entertainment have been restricted or eliminated, where does meaning and purpose really come from? Purpose that survives any difficult circumstance or loss in life? When Jesus is facing his own death, he shows us what he craves most in the garden of Gethsemane. He takes his three closest friends with him and asks them to be with him the way a child may ask someone to stay with them till she falls asleep. Jesus has lost a sense of pre

Dave Brisbin 8.9.20 When I first began working in recovery, I heard an AA oldtimer emphatically say that he was grateful to be an alcoholic, and I couldn’t process that statement. How could alcoholism be a good thing? But now a couple decades later, I see how for him, the pain and trauma of his alcoholism created a hinge moment, a point in his life, because of his choice for recovery, that angled the trajectory of his life in a new direction, like an alternate timeline in those time travel movies. Hinge moments are usually only seen in retrospect, years later, but what if we could get a sense of them when they are actually happening? How would that help us step up to the challenges we face and put purpose behind the pain that allows us to overcome? If we consider the shape of the Hero’s Journey—the one story plot we’ve been telling ourselves since we’ve been painting on cave walls—we can get a sense of the shape of our longest journey from birth to death. But we can also begin to see that life is a series of

Dave Brisbin 8.2.20 A public debate we’ve been having for past few months and past sixty or seventy years is whether violence is necessary to effect needed political change in our society and law. Or can non-violent methods work just as well? Better? Both sides have persuasive arguments, so the debate continues. Martin Luther King brought non-violent resistance to the civil rights movement in the nineteen fifties, but he stood on the shoulders of Mohandas Gandhi and his application of non-violent non-cooperation in his fight for India’s independence from Britain in the nineteen thirties. And Gandhi stood on the shoulders of Henry David Thoreau and his non-violent civil disobedience in response to institutional slavery and American imperialism in the eighteen forties. And all stood on the non-violent teachings of Jesus in the zero thirties. They all believed that non-violent protest and resistance alone had the power to both create fundamental change that would also provide the chance for healing and unity on

Dave Brisbin 7.26.0 Ever wonder why the world is the way it is? Why isn’t it some other way? Why is life so difficult? Why do we have to eat other living things to stay alive? Why is there so much evil in the world? Death and destruction? Hate, bias, racism, greed? Would you have created the world this way? And if you wouldn’t and God did, what does that say about God? If you haven’t asked these questions, then you haven’t been very plugged in. Humans have been asking as long as there have been humans. And humans have been trying to create a better way, a better world—minimizing risk and danger, maximizing safety and security…but usually not for everyone. The fight we’re in here in our own country is basically over two competing philosophies for making the world better and more equitable for all. Same goal, but very different ways of achieving it, and all the angry voices are missing a deeper point and question: what if the world is just the way it’s supposed to be? What if our main purpose in life is not to

Dave Brisbin 7.19.20 I was asked to talk about leadership last week, and I took a deep breath before responding because I realized what a loaded topic it was and how the request itself was coming from a profound disappointment in our current political leadership. I think I said I’d think about it, but the more I did, the more it seemed like it needed to be discussed. What makes a great leader? When I really considered it, analyzed the leaders I admire most, laid their qualities against the leadership exemplified by Jesus, I shouldn’t have been surprised that the qualities that make a great leader are the same that make a great person. When you think on it, we’re all leaders in one way or another, but no matter how small or large the scope of our leadership, the principles remain the same. What was it about our greatest presidents, like Washington and Lincoln, leaders like MLK, Gandhi, and Churchill that is common and points to great ability to lead. It’s easy to criticize the leadership we see or don’t see ar

Dave Brisbin 7.12.20 A friend makes the comment that being a Christian is really hard. I ask why. He says it’s hard to meet moral and ethical standards, understand theological and doctrinal concepts, and live the precepts of the church. Well, he doesn’t put it that way, but more or less what he means. He also says it’s hard to put up with the bias he sees in our media and culture and encounters in his own life. Is it hard to be a Christian, or more on point, to be a follower of Jesus? We’ve made our faith so complex in legal and theological terms: created rules upon rules and dense theological arguments trying to describe spiritual realities that cannot be described in words. We’ve tied our faith to the politics and levers of power in each age and generation to better impose and legislate our worldview on others, earning their enmity and prejudice against us. This all makes Christianity hard to be. But does any of this have anything to do with Jesus and his teaching? Jesus couldn’t be clearer: loving God and

Dave Brisbin 7.5.20 My wife tells me we need to talk about hope on Sunday. It’s been so heavy lately, so much to process, so much disturbance, where do we look for hope? That’s the key isn’t it? To continue to find hope, to continue to trust that all will be well in any circumstance. I hear radio hosts glibly throwing around words like endurance, resilience, caring, mindfulness, but it feels true and insulting at the same time. Platitudes. Where can we find a way to hope that still acknowledges the reality of whatever pain we feel? I’ve been fascinated by the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto during WWII since the moment I first read their story. Walled off in a section of the city, over nine to a room on average, fed only 184 calories a day, with no medical services and brutal treatment from Nazi guards, they found a way to survive so successfully that eventually they had to be deported to death camps as the final solution. They smuggled food and other supplies, maintained underground hospitals, soup kitchens, orpha

Dave Brisbin 6.28.20 The current unrest over race relations has opened and even forced the opportunity for honest discussion about race and persistent inequality in our country. Unfortunately amid the demonstrations and destruction, the extreme voices are the ones heard the loudest, and emotions and rhetoric are high. Is it possible in this climate to actually talk to one another, to learn things we don’t know about each other’s culture and experience that is different from our own? And can we, will we use this present crisis as a head start down the path of self exploration to identify our own biases, hidden or otherwise, that keep us from being fully present to others regardless of race, creed, or political positions? We can allow this crisis to further our growth or we can try to wriggle off the hot seat and retreat to familiar patterns. In a fascinating story from the Gospels, Jesus appears to perpetuate the biased and racist attitudes of the Jews of his day, by essentially calling a Gentile woman a “dog,

Frank Billman 6.21.20 On this Father’s Day we explore the nature and attributes of our heavenly father. Before we look at the scripture it is important to consider what may block us from truly seeing him and understanding his true nature. We can have roadblocks like our early church experience. Or perhaps our earthly father left an impression on us that colors our view of God’s nature. It’s even possible that our understanding of how the world works—our worldview—can impede our understanding of God. These need to be recognized and healed as we begin our journey to truly understanding our heavenly father. Perhaps the most compelling scripture comes from the Old Testament – Micah 6:6-8. In this passage Micah is reminding the Hebrew people that God is not nearly as interested in their sacrifices on the altar as He is in their changed heart and behavior toward others. Micah ends these verses with the simple message of: act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with your God. Quite an amazing contrast to everything

Dave Brisbin 6.14.20 I’m often asked about end times and the apocalyptic passages and books of the bible that support popular end times scenarios. But especially now, there is an increase of questioning as the events of the last few months appear to mirror much end times imagery. A recent survey showed 56% of a group of pastors believing that we are in end times, but what can scripture itself show us about what we can and can’t know about end times? And what is prophetic and apocalyptic literature anyway? And since it’s so easy to get lost in the weeds of esoteric details that are highly contested and controversial within Christianity, are there main themes and guiding principles we can extract that can guide us to a personal response to life in this world? Starting with the famous Olivet Discourse, the “little apocalypse” of the gospels, Jesus first sets the context of his remarks, then makes three big statements that can serve to frame all apocalyptic literature. But as we look beyond that passage to Revela