theeffect Podcasts

Doug Fanney | 1.20.19

Although the words mystic and contemplative have developed bad connotations in conservative Christian circles, there is a rich Christian mystical tradition from the earliest generations of Jesus followers. And though today contemplation and mysticism are often equated with occult practices, Christians have used the terms to mean the practice of experiencing God non-verbally and non-rationally, to be completely in God’s presence and present to God as opposed to thinking about God intellectually. Under this definition, from New Testament evidence, Jesus and Paul, among others, show both contemplative practice and mystical experiences. Of course the goal of Christian mystics was to forge a balance between the experiential and intellectual, and that is what we are after in a contemplative setting. To better understand the contemplative practices of the mystics we are continuing our ongoing series of presenting outstanding Christian mystics, and here Doug Fanney presents Meister Eckhart, a 14th century German priest, scholar, educator, and mystic who defied the church of his time to work, write, and teach his people, bringing them into direct contact with their God to experience the love that would transform everything about their lives.

Dave Brisbin | 1.13.19

The passing of Shirley Boone, Pat Boone’s wife of 65 years has had a big impact on many of us. A close personal friend and staunch supporter and member of our community for the past five years, she will be hugely missed here and of course worldwide. But watching Pat moving through the final months of her life and through the week following her death has been a great lesson for me. Pat prayed for healing ceaselessly, but prayed in such way that his faith and characteristically cheerful attitude toward life and God’s presence continues now unabated. He described his wife’s passing as a simple change of address, a moving to a place he will visit soon. He described his prayers in the last few weeks as a search for God’s intention in whatever direction that moved—as finding a direction he could cooperate with. When we are faced with impending loss, as we desperately desire a specific outcome, how then shall we pray? Looking at Jesus’ modeling and teaching of prayer, we see the instruction to pray “in my name” over and over, but until we unpack that tiny phrase from an Aramaic point of view, we can’t see how Jesus and Pat are on exactly the same page…praying in such a way that any outcome remains right in the center of our sense of God’s presence in our lives.

Dave Brisbin | 1.6.19

January 6th has lost its significance in our non-liturgical, Western churches. Known as the feast of the Epiphany since ancient times, it celebrates the appearance of God to Magi and the rest of the world and sits in the transition between the 12 days of Christmastide and the 28 days of Epiphanytide—the 40 days of the full Christmas season. It is a season full of other feast days and colorful, even superstitious, activities and rituals of the ancient and medieval church. But though we see these now as curious and quaint, they held the people together in common cause and experience in ways our culture has lost. Rituals and practice repeated at the same time in the same order for lifetimes and centuries of lifetimes defines a people—not the outcomes of those actions, however spectacular. We judge our effectiveness by our accomplishments, but the spiritual life centers on what we do over and over each day, regardless of outcomes that remain outside our control. Jesus shows us how this is done through his entire life, but encapsulated in his prayer at Gethsemane is his willingness to let Father handle the outcome as he just shows up for the next indicated step. It’s all about acceptance. Holding lightly to our heart’s desires as we keep showing up to epiphany, the appearance of God-with-us in this moment.

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. 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.

Dave Brisbin | 12.16.18

We all tend to look for anything where we expect it to be. Makes perfect sense. Works for car keys and laundry detergent, but not so much when you’re looking for truth. Truth has a way of showing up in the most unexpected places, and if you’re only willing to look where you already believe it to be, you’ll miss it every time. How in the world would anyone think to look for or see in the face of a dirt-poor infant the truth of all that Jesus was? And yet the Magi did—advisors to their king, co-regents, scientists, religious leaders. And Galilean shepherds did—the uneducated poorest of the poor. And twelve hundred years later, Francis of Assisi did—a rich man’s son voluntarily living a pauper’s life. What do all these varied people have in common? What allowed each of them to see beyond and beneath the surface of things to a timeless truth? We need to know, because what they have to tell and teach is critical if we’re to also enter into the real meaning of Christmas, a meaning that Jesus will spend the rest of his life trying to teach as well... That our God is a humble God, vulnerable and unassuming, willing get right down on the level of each beloved like a mother playing with her child. And that regardless of their station in life, only those who have learned to value and practice humility and vulnerability will be able to accept a God who values and practices the same—to recognize that truth resident in Jesus even in his most vulnerable and powerless moments.

Dave Brisbin | 12.9.18

It’s hard enough to communicate spiritual experiences and truth when we’re honestly trying. But what about when we’re not? When consciously or unconsciously, we’re hiding behind spiritual platitudes and practices to justify our actions or inactions, to gain some advantage or outcome…? It can be tricky because it’s easy to convince ourselves that the language we speak and religion we practice and believe is “right” and spiritual in itself, but once again, Jesus is telling us something different. When at the last supper he told his friends he was giving them a new commandment—to love each other as he had loved them; that everyone would know they were his followers by their love. How literally are we to take Jesus’ actual definition of followership? How literally did his first followers take his new commandment and definition? When we look at the historical record, extremely literally. Several ancient sources define early Christians by their love with Tertullian in the second century writing that even those who were enemies of Christianity had to say: behold how they love one another. And a modern sociologist writes that Christianity was not simply and urban movement, but a new culture capable of making life in ancient cities more tolerable. Seems that’s a way of living that speaks spiritual truth unequivocally, and a definition for followership of which Jesus would be proud.

Dave Brisbin | 12.2.18

When we say to each other, just give it to the Lord, surrender your life to Jesus, or let go and let God... When we say, ask Jesus into your heart, pray about it, or you need to find God’s plan for your life…do we really know what we mean? And even if we do, does the person we’re speaking to have a chance at the same understanding? And even if they do, do they have any idea how to accomplish them? We can call them platitudes, but that makes them too easy to dismiss. They all carry truth—at least they were true when experienced by the person who coined them, but afterward, when put into words, they became pointers that will only be true again when re-experienced by the hearer. If we’re going to be honest about our spiritual communication, we have to admit that words have limits, and dig deep to make sure we’re getting past mere mental concepts to the concrete experiential steps that are the only way to the truth we seek. If we know how to look, Scripture helps show us the process that each one of these aphorisms-become-platitudes is meant to describe. Aphorisms dealing with faith and trust, relationship, and decision making—words that are completely true but completely unhelpful at the same time—point us to scriptural passages that show us a way of life that makes the words true again.

Dave Brisbin | 11.25.18

When it comes right down to it, the main effects of an authentic spiritual journey are gratitude and humility. From these two attributes flow every other attribute we may associate with our spiritual progress. Why? If humility is defined as an undistorted view of ourselves and our relationships with God and each other; if gratitude is defined as an undistorted view of the moment we’re in, that it contains everything we need in the moment and is enough, then these two attributes are the reflection of the experience joy and contentment of pure presence. So, how do we get there? Here, a character who doesn’t normally get a lot of attention can come to our rescue…John the Baptist. John tells his followers that he must decrease as Jesus increases, and in his relationship as forerunner and the closeness to Jesus it affords, his joy is complete. John has a breakthrough moment standing in the waters of the Jordan that brings his humility and gratitude to a focus, but later in prison, he questions whether Jesus is the expected one or whether he should look for someone else. The beauty of scripture is that it gives us an undistorted view of the human condition and the journey to humility and gratitude, which themselves are the undistorted view of Kingdom life.

Nina Dreyer | 11.11.18

Through the study of the mystics and contemplatives we’ve been conducting both on Sundays and midweek, we’ve covered several historical personalities. Several of them have been studied by staff and members of our community, and several of those chose to present in first person, even dressed for the part to bring home the fact that these storied saints of the church were simply flesh and blood people who answered life’s circumstances with a fierce desire to know God completely. Here, Nina Dreyer, one of our staff and licensed social worker and psychotherapist, takes on the persona of Julian of Norwich, the 14th century English anchoress, mystic, counselor, and the first woman to write a book in the English language. Her story, though extreme, contains the same shape of the journey that can be applied to our own stories here and now.

Dave Brisbin | 11.18.18

Most of the questions we ask about religion and scripture and theology are really the same question over and over, because all of our questions and difficulties center on the one question of unconditional love and acceptance. In other words, we want to know if God is keeping a light on for us… But the answer we crave, the one that will really set our anxieties down, can’t be found in anything made of words. Even our scripture can only point to the truth, a truth that has to be lived to be believed at a level that transforms. Jesus knows this, of course, and so gives us a model prayer that when understood from the Aramaic context in which it was delivered, becomes a prayer not to be recited in words, but a sequence of actions to be lived out. To understand the Lord’s Prayer as a roadmap for living Kingdom life is to bring it back as a mirror of Jesus’ own lifestyle. To decode the Lord’s Prayer and start living its five steps as a daily way of life will show us the “answer” we’ve been waiting for as we experience the Father’s love directly and intimately.