David Brisbin Podcast

Dave Brisbin 4.24.22 Jesus gave us just one Way to experience the oneness of the Father, which when followed looks like presence, emotional regulation, and vulnerability. But this Way remains elusive because it’s nothing less than the complete deconstruction of our egoic consciousness—everything we think we are and have—in favor of a truth we can only see when everything false is removed. Very hard to do, and Jesus says few go by the narrow road to new life, rebirth. Our churches haven’t been teaching this Way; it’s a tough sell. We don’t want to hear about a path that doesn’t ascend straight to prosperity or salvation, that curves down into the depths of ourselves, painfully purging until we can see where we really need to go. Everything in us wants a kinder, gentler way, a miracle cure or a savior we can passively accept. But without the healing that only a dive into our deepest fears can bring, we will always be looking for something or someone to do for us what we can only do for ourselves: become vulner

Dave Brisbin 4.17.22 It has always struck me that the gospels tell us nothing about the resurrection of Jesus. The central event around which Christianity orbits is left entirely offstage. The gospels pick up the story after the resurrection has occurred and focus not on the event itself, but the effect it has on Jesus’ friends. The gospels are telling us, with their own gaze, where to look, what is important to see. What we see is that none of Jesus’ closest friends recognize him when they first see him again. They watched him die. They buried him. Regardless of what he taught, they fully expected him to stay buried and stay dead. The gospels are showing us that the miracle of resurrection in our lives is not an external event, but a process of recognizing the miraculous. That we all see what we expect to see until something breaks the spell of rational limitation. We see the resurrection as a huge supernatural event as well as a huge theological truth. But in the gospels, nothing huge, supernatural, or t

Dave Brisbin 4.10.22 Our fears define us, make us see everything through the pain of our unmet wants and needs—or the compulsive need to hold on to what we think we already have. If we’re afraid of change, it’s because we’re invested in our status quo and see change as a threat to our powerbase. If we’re afraid of no change, we feel marginalized and oppressed, victims looking for a savior to fix our problems. Einstein said we can’t solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them. Seems obvious, but each of us is stuck trying to use conscious and unconscious tools created by our fears to fix problems also created by fear. This is really the point of Palm Sunday: when Jesus rides into Jerusalem, the people see him as either savior or threat based on their fears. But Jesus is neither and both, a true paradox, and he weeps that his people couldn’t remain in the tension of his paradox long enough to recognize what he was really bringing: the invitation to a way of seeing past their fea

Dave Brisbin 4.3.22 When we were kids, my sister did a paint-by-numbers of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. You remember those…a canvas board with a printed outline of an image, jigsaw-puzzled into numbered patches to correspond with paint colors. She worked day by day, filling in the patches with the right colors, and when she was done, if you stood about a block away, the colors fused into a whole in your eyes the way digital sound fuses in your ears. Contrast her experience filling in the patches with Da Vinci’s after a lifetime of preparation, an image in mind, planning composition and technique, grinding pigments, mixing colors, experiencing the flow of bringing something radically new into the world. The two are as far as night from day, east from west. In Jesus’ day, the Pharisees had created a paint-by-numbers spirituality and righteousness. All legalists do. They imagine that our most profound experiences in life can be digitized, reduced to numbers that if followed in the right sequence will create a produ

Dave Brisbin 3.27.22 Ever think about why you’re here? On this planet? Breathing? Maybe you have no idea, or maybe you have answers that will most likely have to do with accomplishment—things we do that give us a sense of meaning and purpose. But if Jesus and Brene Brown are right, we’re here to connect, to be at one with each other. All the rest is commentary. Could it be that simple? Could human purpose have nothing to do with accomplishment, only how and whether we relate? Hard to process. We want to do something concrete, purposely control outcomes. But what would accomplishments mean in isolation, with no connection to share? Accomplishments are only meaningful in the context of connection. They end at our head stones, yet we chase them as ends in themselves. Truthfully, what we accomplish is important, but only as a meaning/purpose delivery device—a means for delivering connection. An ancient desert Christian saying: “If you see a brother by his own will climbing to heaven, take him by the foot and t

Dave Brisbin 3.20.22 I’ve been going on about Jesus as a poet. A great poet. And if that sounds strange and unfamiliar, how about considering that Jesus was a great psychologist too? Jesus deeply understands the human condition and human psychological development, and in the poetic language of his day and choosing, articulates a Way to psychological health and balance for which we all crave and pay big money these days. Jesus’ three temptations in the wilderness beautifully symbolize the three “energy centers” of Thomas Keating or Maslow’s deficiency needs—security and survival, esteem and affection, power and control. In earliest childhood, we develop unconscious, emotional programs to meet these needs that then emerge into consciousness as our attachments and aversions: things we like and don’t like, cling to for happiness or cling to not clinging to. Compulsive thought and behavior patterns are driven by these attachments and aversions, which create triggering events when frustrated in any way. Jesus’ ti

Dave Brisbin 3.13.22 Jesus is a very good poet. Like all good poets, he never tries to tell us what can’t be rationally told, but helps us sneak up on the feel of the experience. In short word-bursts full of image and metaphor, he shows us the effect of life lived as one with everyone and everything, while evoking the radical difference of the experience of getting there. He says, “the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field,” and we’re lost in a sea of literalism. The man already had the treasure. Why hide it again? Why sell everything to buy the field? Sometimes another tradition can come to our rescue, say the same thing in words unfamiliar enough to cut through centuries of assumptions and show us the truth in our own. Ancient Chinese tradition tells the story of a young disciple despairing that he’ll ever understand his teachers’ meaning. Old master tells him: “If you persist in tr

Dave Brisbin 3.6.22 One of the world’s top psychiatry journals published a study on the source of emotional disorders, and the takeaway was that “depression and anxiety are linked to an intolerance of uncertainty.” Intolerance of uncertainty. Says it all. Don’t know if we needed a study for that, but good to know the science validates common sense. We can’t even know tomorrow’s weather with certainty: uncertainty creates fear, and inability to accept fear as part of life causes us either to seek more and more information to answer endless questions or just pretend the questions are already answered—both of which create emotional disorder. Irony is, as we’re working to eradicate uncertainty from life, it is uncertainty that is the engine of spiritual and psychological growth. It is only at the end of logic, the precipice of rational thought when one more step takes us into complete unknown that a quantum leap, spiritual awakening, radical change is possible. Buddhists call this the “great doubt,” the point of

Dave Brisbin 2.27.22 A pastor came with us to Mexico to deliver food and supplies to one of the poorest areas along the US border. Our organization supplied five dining rooms that served before-school breakfasts, and the women who served the children every morning insisted on serving us lunch, because that was who they were. After lunch the pastor sat the women down and through an interpreter, led them through the “sinner’s prayer,” the ritual he believed brought them into the Christian fold and made them acceptable to God. The women dutifully did as he asked, but came to me later highly insulted. What went wrong? With every good intention but without knowing them, the pastor judged what they needed according to his standard of faith. He didn’t know they were all devout Catholics or Protestants who rose in the dark every morning to hours of work preparing food, cleaning for the next day, loving those kids as their own expression of gospel. Without taking time to find out whether they wanted or needed his hel

Dave Brisbin 2.20.22 Does anyone ever really change another person? Fix them? Lord knows we try. And though we can persuade, manipulate, even force people to do what we think they should, that’s compliance or obedience, but not change. We can help people: support them, talk to them, change circumstances, create the best environment for change, but any one of us changes only at the moment we’re ready. And no one can make us ready. All we can really give each other is support and information. Support can be material or emotional; information is conceptual. As good as those can be, the most important things in life are non-transferable because they are experiential. No one can give us the ability to play guitar, speak a language, ride a bike, trust, love, change, because no one can give us the experience of hours of immersion and relationship. We don’t change or fix others, and Jesus never said he did either. Instead of I heal you or I forgive you, he says your faith has made you whole, your sins are forgiven.

Dave Brisbin 2.13.22 The reality we believe is the reality we endure. What we believe about reality becomes our experience of it and shapes our lives so profoundly that we don’t see reality as it is—only what survives the filter of our worldview. Because this is true, every responsible philosophy and religion on earth teaches some form of non-attachment, stepping aside from entrenched beliefs to make us free enough to see and accept what really is. There is no peace until we do. Jesus said, don’t judge or you will be judged, and the way you judge, your standard of measure, will be measured to you. Don’t judge, narrowly understood as condemning or at least condescending others, is deeply embedded in our cultural psyche, and yet, on more levels than we’re even aware, our entire world is built on judgment. But isn’t that necessary? Don’t we have to make judgments about people and situations in order to know who we can trust, how to choose alternatives? We need to make a distinction here between judging and dis

Dave Brisbin 2.6.22 A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it…from Frank Herbert’s Dune. But we won’t see the truth of this until we first see the process. Ancient Hebrews called God’s spirit ruach: breath, wind, and spirit all at once. Defined by motion. A process. Ancient Christians called God trinity, which they best defined as a blur of constant interaction, a relational process within God. A belief about God is a mental snapshot that stops the process. This is where we miss the bus: thinking about God as something that can be thought about—God’s action as events completed in time. Living things are defined by motion, so God and life are in constant motion; they will never be understood by thinking about them. If we want to see them as they are, we need to change everything we think we know about seeing. Only by letting go of our thoughts, thought itself, accepting the flow, can we know what it means to be alive in G

Dave Brisbin 1.30.22 What is the goal of the spiritual life? After all, if you’re going to spend the time and energy to engage spiritual formation, don’t you want to be really clear on the goal? After counting off peace, love, joy, salvation, redemption—all of which would be really good to have, it’s clarifying to see how Jesus answers: if we follow his Way of living and loving life, we will know the truth and the truth will make us free. Freedom. Surprising? Not when you consider that freedom is both the cause and effect of perfect love. How do you know something is free, that you are free from it? Unless you’re a scuba diver, air is still free. And until I called your attention to it, you were as unaware of your breathing as of your hair growing. Contrast that with food, of which we think about constantly. Something is free when we don’t have to think about it, plan, work, save, pay, fight, or worry over it. The things from which we are most free are the things we worry about the least. But even if somethi

Dave Brisbin 1.23.22 Jesus is relentless. Never lets us rest in old ideas. Or even new ones that have become set and quickly growing old. Like a personal trainer always spurring us on to one more rep, he systematically deconstructs any thought or behavior pattern that, regardless of original value, has now become a limitation. Whenever we feel we’ve arrived: at right action, right thinking, or right belief that is paying off in material wealth or social or religious standing, Jesus is there to say we have our reward in full, which means we’ve only found treasures here on earth. Wonderful, as far as they go, but treasures on earth are temporary, fleeting, ultimately unsatisfying, and if they represent the extent of our heart’s desire, then we are bound to them here on earth. Jesus is all about treasures in heaven, an Aramaic idiom for God’s presence, always here and now. Treasures found in God’s presence are forever beyond what moths and rust can destroy or thieves steal, and are what give fulfilment and bala

Dave Brisbin 1.16.22 We call people passive-aggressive so casually these days, it’s likely we’re no longer sure what it means. Just as guerrilla warfare is an indirect way of opposing a much greater force, passive-aggression is an indirect way of getting what we want or expressing anger and frustration without directly confronting another person. But where guerrilla warfare is a conscious tactic to turn weakness into strength, passive-aggression is usually an unconscious expression of a person’s perceived powerlessness. People who don’t believe they can make significant choices in life are naturally passive-aggressive in their interactions with others. From chronic lateness, forgetfulness, or losing things to constant complaining, blaming, keeping relationships chaotic and ambiguous, a person who feels victimized finds passive ways forward. Belief systems feed the passive-victim narrative: the belief in an all-powerful God, can make us feel like cosmic victims of fate or destiny, that God is the only actor w

Dave Brisbin 1.9.22 Who can really set us free? Judge, jury, priest, pastor, lover, forgiver? We say Jesus is our savior. And we wait. But Jesus said if we followed him, we’d know truth, and that would make us free. Jesus, truth, law, circumstance? Who can really set us free? In a movie, an old convict is released from prison. Gets a job bagging groceries and drives his boss crazy raising his hand every time he needs a bathroom break. Finally told he doesn’t have to ask, just go, we hear his voice tell us that after forty years, he couldn’t squeeze a drop without sayso. The state released him, but who can really set him free? In the other direction, Gandhi and MLK found an interior freedom that even the full weight of British and American empires could never crush with all the laws and soldiers they could muster. Who set them free? In Jesus’ language, freedom and forgiveness share the same root that means to release, restore, return to original position or form. In the Semitic mind, to be forgiven is to be

Dave Brisbin 1.2.22 The universe is a clock. A clock made of circles. Circles within circles. Stars, planets, orbits, rotations, all scribing out time in days, months, years, longer years. Ironic that we think of time as line segments when the universe thinks in circles. And in the language of Jesus, each time a circle is completed as on New Year’s Day, it is perfected. 2021 is now a perfect year. Complete. Fulfilled. Along with thinking in little line segments, we also think of perfection as without fault or blemish. None of us would say that 2021 was without blemish, and neither would the Aramaic word g’mar, which would simply affirm that it came full circle. James says it best at the top of his letter: “Let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.” When Jesus says, “Be ye perfect” and his brother James says,” be perfect and complete,” are they implying we can be without fault or blemish? Obviously not part of human condition or experience. Jesus and Jam

Dave Brisbin 12.5.21 What are you trained to see that others miss? If you’re trained in art and art history, when you look at a painting you can see color, palette, composition, technique down to the brushstrokes. You can place a painting in its genre and era, maybe assess its importance and value as others pass by without a second glance. If you’re trained in architecture, you see a building very differently from others. If trained in music, sports, mathematics, fashion, horses, dogs, cats…if you choose to spend enough time with another person, when someone asks what you see in that guy, it’s obviously something others have missed. We’ve all heard the adage that seeing is believing, but the truth is that we can all look at the same thing and see or believe different things about it. Or not see it at all. Some things need to be believed before they can be seen—we have to be prepared to see them, the real significance of them. Billions of us raised in the Christian tradition have the Christmas story imprinte

Dave Brisbin 11.21.21 Some ideas are just too big to fit into our minds all at once. We can understand the meaning of the words, but not the significance. The number trillion is thrown about these days the way a billion was a few years ago, the way a million was a generation ago. You can count a million seconds in twelve days, but counting to a billion would take thirty-two years. Breathtaking, until you learn that counting to a trillion would take thirty-two thousand years… Jesus’ concept of kingdom is like this: contradicts our worldview and experience of life so deeply that even understanding the words, the reality remains out of reach until we take the first tentative steps toward experiencing it. As encapsulated in the Lord’s Prayer—not a prayer to be recited but an expression of the intention to live life prayerfully—we are being asked to release everything we have used to save ourselves in order to be saved by what we’ve not yet considered. That kind of vulnerability and the trust it implies are too b

Dave Brisbin 11.14.21 There was something different about the way Jesus prayed. His friends watched him, watched other religious leaders. They saw their Jewish teachers praying in the marketplace or temple court in full view of the people, saw gentiles praying loud and long, entreating their gods over and over with petitions. Then they saw Jesus, after a grueling day teaching and healing, disappear into the hills sometimes for days, or wake to find him already gone, returning later with the energy and enthusiasm for another grueling day. The difference was so stark, it finally pushed them to ask, “Lord, teach us to pray.” What is it you do out there in the wilderness for hours or days on end? What is it you do that brings you back to us restored? He tells them not to make a show, to retreat into their secret place, to use few words since the Father knows what they need before they ask. Then he gives them five simple lines. How does that work? How do five lines of prayer take us deep into the secret space of