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So, how am I going to approach this task that is assigned to me to do? Am I going to approach the “work” ahead as something that I have to do, or am I going to approach it as something I get to do?

All the tasks before me, when I look at them with the right set of lenses, are meditative, inner practices.

Friend and frequent contributor to ProgressiveChristianity.org,  Rabbi Brian, has compiled conversations with 12 of his Biblically literate friends in a series of podcasts that both delight and educate.

Join Rabbi Brian as he talks to Reverend Jim Burklo, Dr. Tracy Hartman, Rev. Irene Monroe, Pastor John Pavlovitz and more as he seeks to find out what the bible is and how to use it to fight oppression.

If you are not familiar with this audio-clip phenomenon, you might not believe that two people can listen to the same sound, yet hear different words. If you’ve not done it, here is a link so you can try it and learn more. Listening to the same clip, some people hear “Laurel” and some people hear “Yanny.”

When anti-Semitic violence occurs, Brian and I are surrounded by lots of love and support. Many non-Jewish friends are horrified and they tell us they have our backs as an interfaith/intercultural family. On Saturday afternoon, a neighbor with tears in his eyes handed me a piece of paper with a scratched out message on kitchen notepaper: “My heart is breaking for you.” Our wonderful, loving contractor from years ago sent me a text late last night: “I love you guys. I have your back.” Many clergy friends and newly made Baptist-identified friends called Brian when they heard. We heard over and over: We love you. We do not stand for this. We are so sorry.

People feel so helpless in the face of tragedy. People want to have an impact; they want to help change what is so wrong. The love we have received is beautiful.

This article is lengthly. But, worth it. Take four minutes right now to read it.

It is in three parts. ​​​​​​​The first two parts begin with scientific studies. The third part is more of a sermon.

1. It’s real: what you can’t see can still harm you
2. Taking it: you don’t have as much will power as you thought
3. stand with the oppressed

Why do people shout? It has to do with our hearts.

An outside-the-box, modern rabbi from Portland, Oregon explains the Jewish messages of Jesus. Rabbi Brian’s style is approachable, warm, honest and quirky. He quotes Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy to help explain the intent of the phrase “I am the way the truth and the life. No one gets to the Father except through me.”

When I officiate at funerals, I ask mourners to think about the characteristics of the deceased that they will miss most. After they have thought of those traits, I implore them to live those qualities into the world as a tribute.

When two people are kind to each other – when two people love each other – they don’t even need to speak to know the thoughts of the other. They can just be silent, and they can see each other, and their hearts feel each other, and they can communicate.

But when our hearts grow distant from each other, we often raise our voices.

Perhaps the world wouldn’t be better if it conformed to our rules.
Perhaps the world would be better if we were better able to accept reality as it is.

Religion ought not shackle or limit people, it should set them free.

I am doing my part as I am certain you are doing yours. And, the state of the world right now requires us to double down and do more. So, let us pepper the world in a myriad of small, little, unsexy ways of being more loving, compassionate, caring, long-suffering, kind, humble, gentle, virtuous?

If you want to be angry, practice that.
If you want patience, practice that.

There is nothing that does not become lighter through habit and familiarity. – Shantideva

With lots of love and a little optimism that when we learn to accept reality as it is – that this is just how it is – that our world becomes less anxious.

We need to stop our striving and building and creating and making because we are making a mess. We know that we are.

Be like the peacemakers. Be like those who do not fight violence with violence. Find common humanity and celebrate it. Talk with people. Love people. Because hate does not dispel hate. Darkness cannot take darkness away. Only light can do that. Only love can cure what ails us.

Patience is not a beast we can slay and master.
Rather, patience is an adversary ever rising to do battle with us again.
The universe seems to conspire to always test our mettle.
We level up, we have more patience than we ever have had, and, again, yet and assuredly again, there arises a new situation that will demand yet more and more of us. We cannot win against patience.
At best, we can keep our calm for longer and longer than ever before.

You have a problem: you can’t convince people that you are right.
You’ve tried reason, arguing, logic, debating, and even pleading.
And yet they don’t go along with your thinking. Maybe you can get them to acquiesce while you hope for a later conversion, but that’s not your goal.
You want them to change their minds.You want to “save” them from their errant ways or in less religious terms, you want to help them or the greater good – and they just don’t understand this.This is a hard situation.

Let us be unified in non-violence.
Let us be bastions of love.
Let us assure them that we are thankful for what we have.
We can even thank them for their contributions that we enjoy – after all, we enjoy the roads we drive upon and the gas we put in our cars. Let us thank them for keeping the peace in our communities.

All relationships require tune-ups.

Relationships between parents and children, relationship between co-workers, and relationships between ourselves and reality all require the occasional tune-up – and some forgiveness.

It’s the last relationship that I want to talk about – you getting right with (the) God (of your understanding).

  Acceptance is saying “what is is.” Acceptance The more we fight with reality, the less smoothly our lives go. The spiritual word for “not fighting with reality” is acceptance. (The religious word is surrender.) The more …

The only one who can make your holidays feel wonderful – holy – is you.

You can bring holiness to this time of year.

My words in this article will implore you to live a life of love. My tone borders on zeal. You will hear echoes of the Buddha, Chasidic masters, Mother Teresa, 1 Corinthians 13, and what you know in your heart to be true. If you are not able to consider living your life in more love, please do not proceed. If you read this and do not like parts of what I write, please respond so we can both learn and grow.

I no longer believe that we have as much freedom of will as I initially thought. And I’m ok with that.

While it runs counter to our normative North American Protestant work ethic, I want to suggest that we are not as autonomous as we might believe ourselves to be. For example, we know that our environment has a very strong influence on us. In fact, it’s so strong that it affects our choices, even when we think we’re choosing freely.

While we might work really hard to control reality and predict what will happen to keep us from having to deal with change, the bottom line is that we all have to deal with uncertainty and change.

This article will help you towards making positive changes in your spiritual-religious life.

I sent out an email a few weeks ago about fear.

I wrote that I was scared.

And I was when I wrote it.

I am not in that sharp place of re-surfaced terror today.

When I wrote, I wrote from a place of fear. My sense of alarm was apparent to those who read my words. (I am thankful to be a powerful enough writer to express my emotions in my words.)

Allowing myself to be scared made me feel I was not so alone. Support from so many allies followed, and that also made me feel I was not so alone.

The other side – no matter how vile, how much they hate me – are human beings. Stereotyping and dehumanizing them is wrong. Causing harm to them is wrong. Period.

No matter how wrong someone is, we must not treat them inhumanely.

They might be the problem. They might shout at us. They might threaten us. But hate is never the solution.

Hate is a narrowing; it makes the table more and more narrow, inviting fewer and fewer people to be with us. Love invites more people to join us.

This article about messaging is in three parts:

• Part One: Michelangelo’s Biblical Errancy
• Part Two: Meaning and Message Are Intertwined
• Part Three: Asking You to Choose to Believe in Awe

Fear can transform our rational, mammalian brains into reptilian, fight-flight-flee, us-versus-them brains.

Fear – as many are experiencing right now – paralyzes us and robs us of our very humanity.

Fear makes us scattered.

We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant. Wherever men and women are persecuted because of their race, religion, or political views, that place must – at that moment – become the center of the universe.

What is empowering? What is the spiritual life?

The definition of the word empower is to give someone the authority to do something and to make them stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.

I am Rabbi Brian – an ordained rabbi on a mission from God – a rabbi with John Lennon’s inclusivity and a Blues Brothers mission. My mission, to empower people in their spiritual lives – so that they can feel the seat of their religious authority within them.

For many people, their spiritual life is a place where they are the frog.
Many people know that their spiritual life needs tending to.
But, like the frog, they have decided to take action without actually doing so.

Perhaps, with regard to your spiritual life, you feel like the fish or Plato.
Maybe you feel that tending to your spiritual life is a matter of life and death.

Surprises undo us. Most of us dislike being completely fooled. We don’t mind if a spoon bends, and we don’t mind if the signed card is now in a wallet — as long as we were somewhat expecting that to happen. We are comfortable with our expectations being messed with as long as we are expecting our expectations to be messed with. We do not like when things happen far outside our expectations.

Want a richer spiritual practice?
Need some help getting more gratitude in your life?
Would you trade 20 minutes to get spiritually fit?

Did you know that the word “talent” is a Greek word which in ancient times was a unit of currency? By ancient standards, it was a real large sum of money.

The dictionary defines talent as: any natural ability or power; a superior ability in an art, etc.

So, what to do instead of hate?

Take your anger, feel it. But, then find love and put it into action.

Let me conclude with words from Dr. Martin Luther King – who is celebrated today in the United States,
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”