David Brisbin's Blog, page 22

Undivided Presence

Nicolas Herman was an uneducated peasant in seventeenth century France, impressed into the military where he was assigned the most menial tasks. When he was released, he decided to enter a Carmelite monastery and there became Br. Lawrence of the Resurrection, and was assigned the most menial tasks. But after years of practice, even working in a noisy kitchen, he found a presence of God that sustained and transformed any task, no matter how small, into a sacred act.

A friend of his wrote down eve...

Waiting is Over

The first line of a book has always fascinated me. May not always be significant in content, but it establishes the author’s voice—manner, personality, mood—the nature of our link with the storyteller. Call me Ishmael…Moby Dick. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…A Tale of Two Cities. The first line Jesus speaks in the book of Mark is a simple proclamation and an appeal:

The time is fulfilled, the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.

These words establish...

Perfectly Imperfect

First apartment Marian and I rented  was near a nature reserve, and a colony of turkey vultures roosted in the tops of the eucalyptus all around us. Most people complained about the mess on the sidewalks, but I loved them. Waiting every morning for the sun to heat the updrafts that would take them aloft, like business people waiting for the train, they went to the office every day, all day, back home with the lowering sun. Day after day, seasons, weekends, holidays made no difference. No sense o...

Beginner’s Mind

On Christmas, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, we have been doing more immersive, “theater of the mind” type programs–like attending a live broadcast of an old radio program: voice actors reading scripts at microphones, music and sound effects filling out mood and scene. Without a lot of visual distraction, to look inward, let our imaginations paint the scene and put us in the sandals, mindset, and emotions of those who lived through the events we’re celebrating millennia later.

After all, if we ...

Risking Small

Woke up out of a dream in which a couple agreed to adopt triplets, but as soon as the adoption was final, found out all three infants were blind. Doctors told of a procedure that could repair the optic nerves, but no guarantee. Husband was furious, accused the bio-father of fraud, wanted to annul the adoption or add contingency for successful surgery. His wife turned to him—said when you have a baby, you don’t know what’s coming and whatever arrives is yours and you can’t give it back. She remin...

Patience of Job

We’ve all heard of the patience of Job.

Book of James called it to our attention in the West when King James translated it that way in 1611. But the word that James originally used primarily means endurance that is at least a bit stoic if not cheerful; when he means patience, he uses a different word. Question is, how cheerful or patient was Job?

To refresh, Job was a righteous, blameless, and incredibly wealthy man with a large family who, for no reason known to him, is stripped of everything h...

Freedom and Forgiveness

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 afte...

Perfect Year

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 blemi...

Seeing Christmas

When we think of our search for God or spiritual truth, we instinctively look up. But if we’re paying attention, Christmas is telling us to look down. Or at least bend down.

Christmas is the story of how lowering our perspective to that of a helpless infant is the only way to see the true nature of life. And though we were all born as Jesus was, we grew out of that childlike perspective. Jesus never did. He held on to a point of view just three feet off the ground, seeing the true nature and pre...

Christmas Morning

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 en...