practicing presence
What we think of prayer and speaking with God and how we practice such things may have little to do with how God speaks or communicates with us. Learning more of the nature of God’s communication and native language from the ancient Christian tradition can tremendously help point us in the best direction when it comes to unceasing prayer.
Stars Beneath Our Feet
Dave Brisbin 9.22.19
Years ago, I drove all the way to Death Valley deep in the Mojave desert, arriving late at night so I could walk out into a dune field under a really dark sky to see the stars. I wasn’t disappointed. The vast canopy turned overhead with the band of the galaxy angling across, and from my dunetop perch, I felt close to the stars. But was I any closer there than here in the city where I can count the stars on a couple of hands, or during the day when no stars pierce the blue curtain at all? Truth is, the stars are just where they are all the time, whether we can see them or not. And more mind bendingly, there are stars beneath our feet as well. It’s just that the ball we’re standing on always obscures. God’s presence is like the stars—always there whether we see/feel it or not.
Years ago, I drove all the way to Death Valley deep in the Mojave desert, arriving late at night so I could walk out into a dune field under a really dark sky to see the stars. I wasn’t disappointed. The vast canopy turned overhead with the band of the galaxy angling across, and from my dunetop perch, I felt close to the stars. But was I any closer there than here in the city where I can count the stars on a couple of hands, or during the day when no stars pierce the blue curtain at all? Truth is, the stars are just where they are all the time, whether we can see them or not. And more mind bendingly, there are stars beneath our feet as well. It’s just that the ball we’re standing on always obscures. God’s presence is like the stars—always there whether we see/feel it or not.
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To realize that God’s presence overhead can be obscured by the rising of our nearest star—our own consciousness, and God’s presence beneath our feet is hidden by our focus on the needs of our physical lives and our very worldview. To conceive of a presence that is everywhere at once, equal density and distribution like the stars in every direction, is a first step. But meditatively practicing the setting of our conscious thought stream to create a dark sky for God’s presence overhead, and mindfully practicing the sensing of God’s presence beneath our feet during the whirlwind of our daily lives is the experience of a presence that will remain real whether we feel it or not.
Maundy Thursday
Dave Brisbin 4.7.19
Fifth Sunday of Lent: And so we come to Maundy Thursday as we work through the liturgical days of Holy Week. The traditional scripture passages associated with Maundy Thursday are all the events and preparations for the Last Supper, the agony in the Garden, and Jesus’ arrest. It’s a busy day as Jesus gives a new commandment to his friends at supper—to love each other as he has loved them, institutes the Eucharist/communion, washes his friends’ feet, and prays a long prayer before going to the garden of Gethsemane. But as we look at the deeper significance of each of these events, the principle at the core of all of them is the unity for which Jesus prays at the end of supper.
Fifth Sunday of Lent: And so we come to Maundy Thursday as we work through the liturgical days of Holy Week. The traditional scripture passages associated with Maundy Thursday are all the events and preparations for the Last Supper, the agony in the Garden, and Jesus’ arrest. It’s a busy day as Jesus gives a new commandment to his friends at supper—to love each other as he has loved them, institutes the Eucharist/communion, washes his friends’ feet, and prays a long prayer before going to the garden of Gethsemane. But as we look at the deeper significance of each of these events, the principle at the core of all of them is the unity for which Jesus prays at the end of supper.
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The new commandment, the washing of feet, communion, the return to the Father’s will in the garden all point toward the need to be one in identity, meaning, and purpose. And as we add Thursday to the four preceding days of Holy Week, we can see an overlay with the four stages of spiritual growth that trace our progression from self to group to interior work to unity in the broadest sense. It is a beautiful and essential representation of both the final week of Jesus’ journey and the totality of our own.
Tuesday and Wednesday
Dave Brisbin 3.31.19
Fourth Sunday of Lent: Each liturgical day of Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday has a name and scripture passages designated that tell the story of the final week of Jesus’ earthly life. But each day and its passages also tell another story when we look beneath the literal meaning. They show us the internal experience of the Way of Jesus…the path he takes all the way to the cross.
Fourth Sunday of Lent: Each liturgical day of Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday has a name and scripture passages designated that tell the story of the final week of Jesus’ earthly life. But each day and its passages also tell another story when we look beneath the literal meaning. They show us the internal experience of the Way of Jesus…the path he takes all the way to the cross.
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Focusing on Holy Tuesday and Spy Wednesday that tell of the wise and foolish bridesmaids and about Judas and Mary, we find stories about balance. Jesus tells us that the parable of the bridesmaids is about watchfulness and readiness, and the context of the Jewish wedding tradition balances the anticipation of new life to come with the immersion in the life that is now. Judas, whether conspiring to have Jesus arrested or sparring with Mary over whether the perfume she pours over Jesus should have been sold for the poor, is wholly focused on macro political and social issues. Mary is only focused on her relationship with Jesus—intimate and vulnerable. Jesus is quick to point out the disconnect, and we are left to see how the balance between anticipation of new life to come and presence to daily details, the balance between the big issues over which we have no control and the intimacy of our closest relationships is part of this week of keys to Kingdom life.
the task within
Dave Brisbin 3.24.19
Third Sunday of Lent: Flipping channels, ran across the movie Chariots of Fire. Hadn’t seen it in decades and got immediately pulled in. Story of two runners preparing for the 1924 Olympics—a British Jew and Scottish Christian who couldn’t be more different. As the Brit is using running as a weapon against the prejudice he’s endured as a Jew, the Scotsman simply “feels God’s pleasure” when he runs. And his whole life as both athlete and Christian missionary to China reflects his ability to do two things: to see through the surface task—whether running or teaching—to the deeper, spiritual task beneath, and to radically accept life as it presents in any moment. Whether the pressure of an Olympic event or the advance of the Japanese army into China, he remains himself, wholly committed to the welfare of either competitors or students. How did he manage to get to this kind of balance? In his early twenties, no less?
Third Sunday of Lent: Flipping channels, ran across the movie Chariots of Fire. Hadn’t seen it in decades and got immediately pulled in. Story of two runners preparing for the 1924 Olympics—a British Jew and Scottish Christian who couldn’t be more different. As the Brit is using running as a weapon against the prejudice he’s endured as a Jew, the Scotsman simply “feels God’s pleasure” when he runs. And his whole life as both athlete and Christian missionary to China reflects his ability to do two things: to see through the surface task—whether running or teaching—to the deeper, spiritual task beneath, and to radically accept life as it presents in any moment. Whether the pressure of an Olympic event or the advance of the Japanese army into China, he remains himself, wholly committed to the welfare of either competitors or students. How did he manage to get to this kind of balance? In his early twenties, no less?
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And more importantly, how can we? When we read from sources as diverse as Nehemiah, Ecclesiastes, Jesus at Matthew 6, and dialectical behavior therapy skills, we see patterns forming that give us clues to the how of this balance between work for change and radical acceptance, between the task at hand and finding the evergreen task within the task. And by leaning in right there we can begin to live the difference between identifying with our work, using our tasks as weapons of self-worth and simply feeling God’s pleasure as we run.
living lent
Dave Brisbin 3.10.19
On the first Sunday of Lent, we stop to consider what Lent has meant since the middle of the second century to millions of Christians from ancient to medieval to modern times. What is its place in the liturgical calendar and how did it and the other seasons of the church along with their cultural practices bind the people together in common experience? A common experience we no longer possess in our culture. But understanding Lent by understanding the model from which it came, Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, we begin to see that regardless of what the church taught and practiced, Lent was not about suffering or deprivation as some sort of sacrifice for God’s favor. Nor was it about penance for past sin.
On the first Sunday of Lent, we stop to consider what Lent has meant since the middle of the second century to millions of Christians from ancient to medieval to modern times. What is its place in the liturgical calendar and how did it and the other seasons of the church along with their cultural practices bind the people together in common experience? A common experience we no longer possess in our culture. But understanding Lent by understanding the model from which it came, Jesus’ 40 days in the wilderness, we begin to see that regardless of what the church taught and practiced, Lent was not about suffering or deprivation as some sort of sacrifice for God’s favor. Nor was it about penance for past sin.
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Looking at the model of Jesus, we see a voluntary sense-deprivation, a quieting and removal of all distraction and whatever fuels the ego-self that obscures real identity and meaning. Jesus didn’t go into the wilderness to suffer, he went to be purged of everything that hid the truth from his eyes, but he accepted suffering as part of the process. This Lent, this 40 day preparation for the new life of Easter, can establish a structure for our own journey toward our real selves, if we let it. Will we? Let it?
forward and back
Dave Brisbin | 12.30.18
The run up to Christmas was full of personal setbacks and a difficult week, but the Christmas service itself seemed to simply erase all that angst in one stroke as I allowed myself to immerse in the images, music, and sense of connection to the people in the room. We think of our spiritual journey as one solid path that we’re either on or off, and once on, should stay on if we only have enough faith. But life and scripture tell a different story: that the spiritual journey is not one path, but one moment—a moment we either choose to be connected or choose not. That being on the spiritual Way of Jesus is stringing enough of those kingdom moments together to form a kingdom necklace, and that our progress along the Way is always marked by two steps forward and a step back.
The run up to Christmas was full of personal setbacks and a difficult week, but the Christmas service itself seemed to simply erase all that angst in one stroke as I allowed myself to immerse in the images, music, and sense of connection to the people in the room. We think of our spiritual journey as one solid path that we’re either on or off, and once on, should stay on if we only have enough faith. But life and scripture tell a different story: that the spiritual journey is not one path, but one moment—a moment we either choose to be connected or choose not. That being on the spiritual Way of Jesus is stringing enough of those kingdom moments together to form a kingdom necklace, and that our progress along the Way is always marked by two steps forward and a step back.
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Consider Peter’s journey in the Gospels: from the moment Jesus called him at the shore of the lake to his stepping out of the boat to walk on the water then sinking, to his refusal to let Jesus wash his feet to his declaration of faith and subsequent denial, Peter is a case study in the nature of the journey. Realizing how we humans live and process our spirituality is critical to being able to follow Jesus’ Way, to continuing to grow while seeing our difficulties and setbacks as just the preparation for the next two steps forward.
A Study in Presence
Dave Brisbin | 10.14.18
Last Thursday was a tale of two hospitals. First a trip to a prominent children’s hospital to speak to the director and manager of spiritual care about new programs they are initiating for patients, families, and clinical caregivers. I am struck by the unhurried presence of the two I meet. Unhurried, gracious, taking their time with me, as if I were the only person in their world until the moment they have to move on to their next meetings. From there, I drive forty miles to visit an elderly friend in critical care in a massive hospital downtown. Darker, more serious, not for kids. I walk into the darkened room and she asks what brought me all the way downtown. I say, only you, dear. I’m here just for you. She says, oh isn’t that wonderful? And we talk and hold hands and seven minutes later, she asks what brought me all the way downtown, and I realize her memory has reset itself. Still carrying the unhurried presence of the last hospital, I choose to enter her world and simply say, only you, dear. I’m here just for you, and she says, oh isn’t that wonderful? We repeat this every seven minutes for the 45 minutes I’m with her, and I have just as much a thrill in telling her as she does receiving the news.
Last Thursday was a tale of two hospitals. First a trip to a prominent children’s hospital to speak to the director and manager of spiritual care about new programs they are initiating for patients, families, and clinical caregivers. I am struck by the unhurried presence of the two I meet. Unhurried, gracious, taking their time with me, as if I were the only person in their world until the moment they have to move on to their next meetings. From there, I drive forty miles to visit an elderly friend in critical care in a massive hospital downtown. Darker, more serious, not for kids. I walk into the darkened room and she asks what brought me all the way downtown. I say, only you, dear. I’m here just for you. She says, oh isn’t that wonderful? And we talk and hold hands and seven minutes later, she asks what brought me all the way downtown, and I realize her memory has reset itself. Still carrying the unhurried presence of the last hospital, I choose to enter her world and simply say, only you, dear. I’m here just for you, and she says, oh isn’t that wonderful? We repeat this every seven minutes for the 45 minutes I’m with her, and I have just as much a thrill in telling her as she does receiving the news.
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I have been given the gift of presence voluntarily by two practiced professionals and involuntarily by my friend for whom I am the only person in her world for seven minutes at a time. It’s a study in presence that stays with me as I turn to see how Jesus handled presence, the steps he took to create and maintain, and I find five stories all back to back in one chapter of Luke—chapter five. Reading between the lines of stories that don’t tell but simply show, I find six lessons in the practice of presence that allow us to enter into the world as Jesus sees it, if only for seven minutes at a time.
Running with Swimmies
Dave Brisbin | 10.7.18
Sometimes insightful messages come in sets of threes, it seems. Or maybe it’s that as the first time goes right over our heads, second brings awareness, and the third really hits home, we’re just sensitive to the threeness of things. I suppose it’s always our choice to see life as either a series of coincidences or having divine influence or somewhere in between. And that’s the point: how we see the events in our lives and our place in them is a choice. Any worldview we choose will answer some questions and beg others, but whether we hit an objective accuracy we could never prove anyway, some views of life are just more fun. A series of events of the past week from a trip to the zoo to the homecoming greeting by our pet dog, to an email from a friend in crisis telling the story of a young boy running into the pool with his swimmies on, a pattern of experiences and images formed with an impact that seemed to far outweigh mere coincidence.
Sometimes insightful messages come in sets of threes, it seems. Or maybe it’s that as the first time goes right over our heads, second brings awareness, and the third really hits home, we’re just sensitive to the threeness of things. I suppose it’s always our choice to see life as either a series of coincidences or having divine influence or somewhere in between. And that’s the point: how we see the events in our lives and our place in them is a choice. Any worldview we choose will answer some questions and beg others, but whether we hit an objective accuracy we could never prove anyway, some views of life are just more fun. A series of events of the past week from a trip to the zoo to the homecoming greeting by our pet dog, to an email from a friend in crisis telling the story of a young boy running into the pool with his swimmies on, a pattern of experiences and images formed with an impact that seemed to far outweigh mere coincidence.
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Jesus always points to children as the emblems of kingdom, but more than that, when we dig beneath some limiting translations, we find that he’s really saying that kingdom is us and we are kingdom when we look at life in a particular way—a way that makes us look like children. Whether to see the threeness of this last week as God’s guiding hand is my choice. And yours as well. But whatever the mechanics of life, some choices are just much more fun and childlike. Kingdomlike.
Such as These
Dave Brisbin | 7.23.17
If God is a playful God—as mirrored by Jesus who loved to play with children, tell colorful and funny stories, eat and drink with his friends—how are we to react and respond? How does this notion that God doesn’t live life as a duty to perform but a playground to be experienced change the shape of our journeys? Why is playfulness so important? Think on it: to be in a playful mood and mode is to be tender and open…to be vulnerable. It’s a place of the surrender of control, a suspension of disbelief and reason and defense. It’s far too frightening a place for many of us to go, who don’t feel safe enough to be playful.
If God is a playful God—as mirrored by Jesus who loved to play with children, tell colorful and funny stories, eat and drink with his friends—how are we to react and respond? How does this notion that God doesn’t live life as a duty to perform but a playground to be experienced change the shape of our journeys? Why is playfulness so important? Think on it: to be in a playful mood and mode is to be tender and open…to be vulnerable. It’s a place of the surrender of control, a suspension of disbelief and reason and defense. It’s far too frightening a place for many of us to go, who don’t feel safe enough to be playful.
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The arch enemy of playfulness is control, and control is always the foot soldier of fear. We can’t be playful, childlike until we know that we are loved. This is the essence of the Good News: that we are loved enough that being playful is not only possible, but the only possible response…which is why the emblem of Kingdom, the living out of God’s playful love, the proof of that love is always “such as these,” those who, like children, are free to live and love playfully.
A Playful God
Dave Brisbin | 7.16.17
On the 15th anniversary of my ordination, I took a look back at the subject of my first sermon on ordination day all those years ago: The Gospel According to Lou. A beloved friend who died from complications arising from diabetes two weeks before my ordination, Lou’s last words to me and my wife fueled a fundamental change in me and my first sermon that I thought I already had in the bag… “Love each other, just love each other…and kid around a little.” Twelve words. But it was the kidding around part that characterized Lou, who’s playful smile always made me feel I was the only person in a crowded room. It was his playfulness that made all of us aware that Lou actually enjoyed the love he expressed for everyone in his path.
On the 15th anniversary of my ordination, I took a look back at the subject of my first sermon on ordination day all those years ago: The Gospel According to Lou. A beloved friend who died from complications arising from diabetes two weeks before my ordination, Lou’s last words to me and my wife fueled a fundamental change in me and my first sermon that I thought I already had in the bag… “Love each other, just love each other…and kid around a little.” Twelve words. But it was the kidding around part that characterized Lou, who’s playful smile always made me feel I was the only person in a crowded room. It was his playfulness that made all of us aware that Lou actually enjoyed the love he expressed for everyone in his path.
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And it was his playfulness that finally broke through a theological view of God by showing me the playfulness of Jesus hiding in plain sight in the words of the New Testament. To see Jesus as a laughing, smiling, energetic man playfully living his relationships began redefining my understanding of God’s relationship with me and mine with everyone in my path. I wanted to become someone like Jesus, like Lou, who loved being in love and could state the Gospel with authority in only twelve words.
