David Brisbin Podcast

Dave Brisbin | 5.13.18 On Mothers’ Day, we’re recalling a question posed last year: I know that God loves me, but how do I know that he likes me? It’s a brilliant question if you think about it, but at first blush, why would it even come up? If we know God loves us, isn’t that enough? No, not really… We’re commanded to love one another, even to love our enemies. But liking implies affection, genuine delight and pleasure, desire to be with, a playful attention that is beyond any commandment. We can choose who we love, but no one can choose who they like—any more than we can choose whether we like broccoli or bacon (I know, everyone likes bacon). We have so focused on God as Father and love as duty and justice, that we have lost the connection with God as Mother and love as compassion and affection. The notion of God as mother pushes all the wrong buttons in our culture, even sounds blasphemous to some, but can our scriptures, placed back in their original Hebrew context come to our rescue? When we look at the

Dave Brisbin | 5.6.18 You’ve heard of heat seeking missiles…truth is, we humans are all pleasure seeking missiles. We seek pleasure and to avoid pain. Necessary trait for survival of the species. It guides us spiritually too, as long as we honestly consider in what we ultimately take pleasure. You could say that the spiritual journey is really an ongoing refining of our pleasure centers. Chinese proverb—to suffer yourself when all under heaven suffer, to enjoy only when all under heaven enjoy—implies an ultimate refining of our notion of pleasure that Jesus seems to affirm as he leads us to further and further expansion of our sense of relationship and connection. To love the enemy equally with our friends and neighbors and then to see even our attachment to family as a barrier to the fullness of unity are among the most difficult teachings of Jesus. A view of the perfect lover as a mirror that faithfully reflects the beloved without agenda or distortion, a mirror that is empty of self until the beloved steps

Dave Brisbin | 4.29.18 From the account of Pentecost in Acts 2, it can seem that the Spirit descending on Jesus’ followers like tongues of fire on each was an event that happened at a particular place and time as they passively waited. But the truth is, there’s nothing passive about the spiritual life. We need to resist the temptation to think of Pentecost or baptism of the spirit or the born again experience as the moment when Spirit is unleashed, no longer withheld. Spirit is always unleashed, permanently permeating everything all the time—never withheld. Pentecost is a conscious choice to return to unity with Spirit as we become aware of its presence in a fundamentally new way. It can be a gradual process, a process of becoming more and more aware until we realize at some point we have a very different relationship with Presence. What is this process? How does it work? Jesus’ Way to Father can be looked at as a return to the Garden of Eden, a return to the kind of connection with which each of started as c

Dave Brisbin | 4.22.18 If we’re serious about getting to Pentecost, experiencing the full awareness of spiritual presence, there’s a basic truth about the journey with which we have to come to grips…that the way to Pentecost begins at Calvary. Jesus said that it was to his closest followers’ advantage that he go away, so the Helper could come. Moses, after 40 years of faithfully leading his people, is not allowed to enter the promised land, but dies within sight of it. What is being communicated? Moses himself and Jesus himself had become physical impediments to their followers’ ability to take the next step in their spiritual journeys. As long as they clung to their leader as provider and deliverer, they would not find the direct connection with unseen Spirit that is Pentecost. Calvary is the moment all Jesus’ followers’ hopes and expectations, the entire world they’d been building is killed right before their eyes. It is the moment of Jesus’ greatest display of vulnerability, which forces the choice of his

Dave Brisbin | 4.15.18 Between Easter and Pentecost, or more specifically, between Pesach/Passover and Shavu’ot, stretches a period of fifty days called in Hebrew sefirat ha-omer—the Counting of the Omer. Jews were told to make a grain offering on the second day of Pesach, then count each day for seven Sabbaths, add one day, and make another grain offering. Starting as celebrations of the barley and wheat harvests, Pesach and Shavu’ot respectively grew into celebrations of the physical liberation of the people from Egypt and their spiritual liberation from slave mentality at the giving of the Law. Hebrews made a distinction between the physical liberation first and the spiritual liberation that naturally followed a people living in intimate relationship with God. The counting of the omer is their structure for an interior preparation for spiritual deliverance. Jesus makes the same distinction to Nicodemus—that he must be born again in spirit before he can see God’s kingdom. And though Nicodemus cannot unders

Dave Brisbin | 4.8.18 Moving past the Resurrection and anticipating the spiritual filling of Pentecost fifty days later, is there a model for the shape our days if we’re living a spiritually aware lifestyle? What does that look like? Jesus teaches and demonstrates all through the Gospels of course, but the nation of Israel itself shows most clearly the ideal of what day to day conscious connection to God looks like. Leaving Egypt, Moses establishes a law that takes Israel out of the death and next world obsession of Egypt and places all the emphasis on immersion in this world, herenow. And perhaps more to the point, the promised land the Hebrews eventually occupy in Canaan had no major river or natural water source that would support irrigation and agriculture as Egypt had. Israel had to rely on its annual rains, the Yoreh and Malkosh, the early and latter rains that fell in fall and spring and without which there was no sustenance. You can harness the flow of a river, but not the rains. To be completely depe

Dave Brisbin | 4.1.18 There is one detail in the post resurrection accounts of Jesus appearing to his closest friends and followers that is common to all of them, and yet this detail hasn’t gotten much airplay or consideration in terms of what it may mean to us who are still trying to follow Jesus so long after that first resurrection Sunday. None of the friends and followers to whom Jesus appeared after his crucifixion recognized him at first. This seems utterly impossible, if you think about it. How could they not recognize him? Mary, as close as she was to Jesus, loving him as she did, doesn’t recognize him standing right in front of her by the tomb until he calls her name. The Emmaus travelers walk the entire trip and get halfway through supper before they realize who he is. Peter and the fisherman don’t recognize him on the shore until they pull in an impossible catch of fish. Did he look physically different? Some sort of cloaking miracle? The Gospels are only as important as they are relevant to our li

Dave Brisbin | 3.25.18 On Palm Sunday, what is the importance of the details of Jesus’ big entrance into Jerusalem that kicked off what turned out to be his last week before crucifixion? Do we focus on historical facts that occurred nearly 2,000 years ago or on spiritual truths as immediate as our next breath? Standing behind all the historical details are rich symbolic truths that point us in an inescapable direction: that Jesus was not coming as a conquering national hero, but a humble, spiritual servant of anyone and everyone in his path. But of the four main groups of people watching him ride by on the colt of a donkey, none saw who he really was. Each group saw what they wanted to see, colored by their needs and ambitions: a warrior messiah set to overturn the Roman occupation, threat to power and tax bases, the chance to rise to relevance and power... Shortly before all this, Jesus asks his closest friends: “Who do you say that I am?” That is still the central question today for anyone who sets off to f

During our grand opening celebration for our new San Clemente location, we took time to have several effect members talk about their personal journeys leading them to theeffect and beyond. The stories are classic tales of spiritual transition and community. Also, the family of one of our founders who recently passed was on hand to present a portrait of him for our facility.

Dave Brisbin | 3.18.18 The central question for any who calls themselves Christian or a follower of Jesus has to be the one Jesus asks his followers--and by extension all of us--in Mark 8, “Who do you say that I am?” The question has as many answers as there are followers most likely, but how do we come to the best answer that we can muster as a group? Leonard Sweet comes to our rescue with the term EPIC, which for him is an acronym standing for Experiential, Participatory, Image-based, and Communal. He has said that this is the way the youngest generations among us process information as opposed the older generations of the Modern world who are Propositional, Representational, Word-based, and Individualistic. The differences are profound in terms of worldview and attitude toward life, but the immense relevance really hits home, when we realize that the ancient peoples who wrote our scriptures were EPIC too. Our interpretation of ancient, EPIC scripture has been arrived at through anti-EPIC glasses and has be

Dave Brisbin | 3.11.18 On the fourth Sunday of Lent, trying to re-imagine Lent as time of sensory deprivation in order to clear away all that distracts and obscures God’s face, if we’ve begun practicing moment by moment awareness, if we’ve begun to confront our limiting beliefs and obsessive behavior patterns and become willing to overturn those interior tables, what truth starts to become apparent? Jesus gives us a big clue traditionally read on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week. During the Last Supper, he strips off his mantle and tunic, wraps a towel around himself and kneels in front of each of his friends to wash feet. It’s hard for us as modern Westerners to comprehend the full scope of this outrageous action, or to understand Peter’s violent reaction. But Jesus is showing us something absolutely profound, something we have to be prepared to see, as Peter and the rest of the room as yet were not. By showing as radically and graphically as possible that he was an unassuming, humble, servant leader, Jesus--as

Dave Brisbin | 3.4.18 On the third Sunday of Lent, continuing to look at how taking Lent seriously as a time of clearing away all that distracts and obscures the truth of our lives…after we commit to the process of increasing awareness moment by moment, what’s next? As we become more aware of our emotions and emotional triggers, thought and behavioral patterns, as we begin to see ourselves as with a third eye moving and choosing and relating based on whatever has become our worldview to date—what are we going to do with that information? If our thought and behavior patterns are healthy, creating healthy relationships, then nothing of course. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. But if not, then just as Jesus did in the Jerusalem temple, are we willing to overturn the tables of our own ingrained beliefs in order to rearrange a life that has become unable to produce the fruit of its design? Make it once again resemble its original promise? That is the lesson of cleansing of the temple and cursing of the fig tree, a

Dave Brisbin | 2.18.18 On the first Sunday of Lent, how do we learn about this 40 day journey to Easter from the tradition of liturgy? Each day of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday has passages from the Gospels embedded that can help us prepare for the new life of Easter if we’re paying attention. Looking at the passage traditionally read on Palm Sunday, as Jesus is entering Jerusalem before the crucifixion, he tells those who are trying to silence the cheering crowd that even if these were silent, the rocks would cry out. What can we learn from singing rocks? That all creation is an unceasing expression of truth? That if we can learn to become still and silent inside, that we will be able to hear the music playing through each moment? Paul calls this sort of interior attitude unceasing prayer, and at 1Thessalonians 5, gives us not one, but three directives that if understood properly and practiced consistently, will transform the quality of our most basic relationships and take us a long way towar

Dave Brisbin | 2.11.18 Lent is upon us. Already. Again. What do we really know about Lent? For those of us who grew up in liturgical churches, what we learned may have had little to do with the traditions that established Lent, and what we remember now, may even subvert those ancient intentions. What does the word Lent mean? Why 40 days and how was Lent initially used in early church life? What traditions like Pancake Day, Mardi Gras, and Ash Wednesday have sprung up around it and what is their significance? But most importantly, how can we understand and even reimagine Lent to take us on a 40 day journey to the new life of Easter? If Lent became a time of fasting and deprivation as penance for sin, can we use Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness as model to begin to see Lent as deprivation for the purpose of clearing away all that distracts from the Presence that will bring new life on Easter? Because just as Jesus’ first followers continued to look for the living among the dead, we need to practice new ways of

Dave Brisbin | 2.4.18 Once we begin to get a new notion of the Father’s love, we are immediately assailed with all the reasons why not, why it couldn’t be so, that something that seems to be this good, it just can’t possibly be. And so we need to protect the love—not the love itself; it needs no protecting as the first and most durable substance in the universe, but we do need to protect our convictions. Traumatic and challenging life events will chip away, difficult relationships, betrayals, abandonments, religious practice and doctrine, and even scripture itself make Father look like unconditional love at certain points and something else in others. How do we navigate all this? How do we read our scriptures in such a way that Father’s love remains in our hearts exactly as Jesus said it was? Taking sample passages from Paul’s letter to the Galatians and first letter to the Corinthians, we see how the Father’s love stands firm even in the face of passages that seem to directly refute it and can always remain

Dave Brisbin | 1.28.18 The Father’s love is so big, so pervasive that we still have more to talk about. How do we start to grasp something that by definition is ungraspable—as is anything that is infinite. In trying to understand anything, our minds immediately begin defining and categorizing, creating edges to distinguish that from this and give us something to hold on to. But this is not possible with the things of God that have no edge and no degree. Just as with the stars of the universe, which science tells us is finite, but has no edge—if there is no edge, there is no degree. The stars will look exactly the same in any direction: equal density and distribution. That’s the way it is with anything that can’t be measured. It always looks the same. The universe can’t be measured so it always looks the same wherever you are, which means wherever you are is exactly at the center of everything that is. God’s love has no edge and no degree, it can’t be measured and so always looks the same, which means that whe

Dave Brisbin | 1.21.18 Our co-founder, friend, and benefactor, Bob “Bubba” Beauchamp died January 16. It was a Tuesday morning when my phone rang at 7AM, and I saw Bubba’s son’s name and just knew things were going to be very different. Bubba was a larger than life character who filled rooms with presence and laughter--someone who never left you unchanged, always left you better than he found you. As we’ve been returning these past weeks to discover again the deepest principles of the faith community Bubba helped create, there is no more basic principle than the Father’s love and no one more suited to display it than our Bubba. Bubba found the connection. On the other side of the trauma and compulsions and resistance of his life, he found a love that consumed everything that had distracted him and left only the connection itself. For as long as knew him, he lived and loved that love, and showed us what it looked like in a beautifully imperfect package. All we can do now is be grateful for Bubba’s presence and

Dave Brisbin | 1.14.18 As we ease into our new space, seems a good time to revisit the foundational principles that define theeffect…go back to basics. This is never an irrelevant thing to do: the most fundamental principles in life are those that run so deep that we can only grasp them in stages. We need to revisit them over and over. And so it is with the most foundational of all the principles that Jesus gave us…the Father’s love: a love so consuming, pervasive, self-existing, even fierce, that GK Chesterton called the “furious love of God,” and Jesus called Abba. To really embrace such a love, one that has no degree, always looks the same lavished on any one of us, can’t be turned up, down, or away, that actually unbalances the scales of justice in favor of the beloved, is a love that will outrage and disturb us before it does anything in the direction of comfort. If God’s love hasn’t outraged us yet, we simply haven’t taken it seriously enough, haven’t waited to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. But on

On our first Sunday in our new space, we revisit the idea of consecrating our new space just as our old space was consecrated over nearly a decade of service. And not just in terms of a formal prayer or ritual or even of the formal worship on a Sunday morning, but through every authentic vulnerability between each of us and another in this place. To consecrate, to set aside this space for use in God’s kingdom is to enter again into real relationship either formed here or brought here—every tearful share and open conversation, every embrace and kindness. These are the moments and actions that consecrate our space. Jesus called it worshipping in spirit and in truth, and to really get inside the nuances of what he meant by that phrase will take us like a laser to the heart of the truth we seek.

On New Year’s Eve, on our last day in the space and facility that has been our home for over nine years, it is a day of endings. But then tomorrow is a day of beginnings… How do we process all that? People have often told us that just stepping into our room gives them a sense of spirit or presence or just connection and peace. Is that something we’re leaving behind? If this has been God’s house for us for nearly a decade, will our next space be God’s house as well? When we look at scripture, at Moses experiencing holy ground before the burning bush, then building the first tent of meeting--God’s first house among the Hebrews--we start getting clues to how God views his house. Beyond the fact that his first house was portable, the story of the filling of his presence moves unmistakably from the enclosure, the space, to the people themselves. And in Numbers 33, we see that the Hebrews always recorded their journeys from their starting places, as series of setting out, not destinations. And if we’re paying atten