David Brisbin's Blog, page 27

Momentary Meaning

Off to the mountains last week.

All the pieces were in place: rented house at Big Bear Lake for four days, my wife Marian, our fourteen year old son, and his grandparents. Our son is one of the quietest kids you’ll ever meet, and his grandparents, Marian’s parents, are moving slowly now in their eighties and are very sensitive to noise—even car radios. So imagine a very quiet trip always paced to the slowest common denominator of grandpa’s gait.

There was a shock of deceleration for me, like...

Zero Sum and Abundance

 

In our modern western economy, our understanding of life itself revolves around zero sum, legality, and scarcity. On the other hand in God’s economy, Jesus is painting a very different picture of his and our Father constantly throughout the Bible.

When we look at what Jesus is portraying through his teachings and prayers, we see an exuberant extravagance, an overwhelming abundance always flowing from Father that can’t be stopped or slowed in any way. Just as a desert dweller living in a cu...

Zero Sum and Abundance

In our modern western economy, our understanding of life itself revolves around zero sum, legality, and scarcity. On the other hand in God’s economy, Jesus is painting a very different picture of his and our Father constantly throughout the Bible.

When we look at what Jesus is portraying through his teachings and prayers, we see an exuberant extravagance, an overwhelming abundance always flowing from Father that can’t be stopped or slowed in any way. Just as a desert dweller living in a cult...

Sharing Meaning

Communication is such a fragile thing. Often an exhausting thing.

How close do we ever get to saying what we really mean? Or hearing what was really meant? Conversations, like wrestlers circling each other on the mat, moving in closer with each circuit…but traveling half the distance from A to B and then half again and again…do we ever really get there? Arrive at shared meaning?

To paraphrase Churchill, language is the worst form of communication ever devised by man. Except for all the other...

A Submarine Moment

An image sticks with me.

Sitting in a group discussing the importance of presence in our lives, we talked about how rarely our thoughts are actually filled with only what we’re doing at the moment—who we’re with. I ask each person if there’s a remembered moment when they were fully present, a moment so intensely overflowing there was no space for even a single stray thought.

A young woman tells us that when she was little, her father was in the Navy and would be at sea up to six months at a t...

Manufactured Moments

I got an email from a good friend who wrote, “Some days I am worried about the future of our finances, my relationships, my kids, or the health of those I love. Other days I am just content to have a roof over my head and can blissfully clean the garage without a care…” He also wrote about going for a walk that morning with his dogs: “I thought to myself how cool, I am going to be out for thirty minutes surrounded by nature and my loving critters who every time we go for a walk act like it’s...

A Political Jesus

Is Jesus a liberal or conservative?

I’ve read many commentators and scholars over the years who see in Jesus a political ideology or social cause. Whether liberal or conservative, no surprise they generally see him on their side of the spectrum or as a political revolutionary or social justice warrior working to remake the world in ways it still needs remaking today. And good cases can be made for most if not all these claims—but that’s the point: good cases can be made for most if not all th...

Redefining Pointless

So I’m on my way in to an event at our church.

We’ve got a well-known guest musician coming in, there are additional details to deal with, I’m running late, and nearly out of gas. Not a good combination. Of course the gas station is packed, and I’m marooned in confused lines trying to maneuver into the one that will put the pump on the right side of the van. I feel tension mounting and time ticking as I finally get a receipt and swing around to escape.

One more gauntlet to run: the car wash n...

Here Be Dragons

I played football the first two years of high school. Well, I was on the team…didn’t play much. But for what I lacked in ability on the field I tried to compensate with what I could do well: study. I knew that playbook backward and forward. Every play to the letter.

Scrimmage—second team up. Huddle—end around on three. End—that was me, split end back around behind quarterback to carry the ball for the first time. I knew exactly what to do from my three point stance, ball snapped, explode out...

White Bag

I spoke at the funeral of a friend today. Military service at the national cemetery at Miramar. Crisp white naval uniforms folding the flag, taps from a lone distant bugle, fighter jets overhead, thanks from a grateful nation. Watching family and friends navigate the service—the tears and laughter, children obliviously running and playing afterward, I remembered what I felt and something I wrote a few years ago…

 

I picked up my mother’s ashes from the mortuary today.

Before that I had breakf...