True North with Dave Brisbin

Dave Brisbin 9.20.26 In rhetoric—the art of persuasion—there are two basic ways to motivate someone to act. Protrepsis calls to another way of living or perceiving life, motivation to change. Paraenesis calls to continue a way of life already in motion, encouragement and advice to persevere. Biblical prophecy like that of Isaiah is protrepsis—calls to repent, change direction, avert the coming catastrophe. And when people don’t and are standing in the smoking crater of what once was everything they knew and believed, apocalyptic books like Daniel or Revelation are paraenesis—calls to remain steadfast, in faith that God remains present, all promises intact. Jesus and James share not only kinship, but their very Jewish teaching style as well. Even so, Jesus’ teaching is protrepsis, calling people to a relationship with God they could never imagine, to which their religion was no longer pointing. James, trying to hold the early movement together, taught through paraenesis, encouraging people to endure despite the difficulties they faced. Jesus’ teaching was intensely micro, bringing hearts and minds into an expanded awareness that would also serve community from the inside out. James, leading those already committed, was more macro, setting principles for living in community, correcting damaging behavior. We need both Jesus and James throughout our lives. Jesus calls us to awareness, to the unimaginably deep reality of life—the connection of everything as a degreeless, indiscriminate oneness that changes our perception and experience. But such experience is momentary. In the next breath, we question again, revert to the judgment that separates us subject from object, sending us back to the hell of our limitations. James tells us to speak and act as if we are to be judged by the law of liberty… The only “law” that liberates is a love that never separates. To live that love is to know we are judged only by standards we set for ourselves, chosen or instilled. Jesus and James work together: calling us to experience a perfect connection beyond our standards of judgment, then to keep choosing that connection in every relationship.

Dave Brisbin 9.13.26 Years ago, a co-worker became a good friend—a man from India with very dark skin and big, white teeth. When he smiled it was exactly like snapping on a high-powered flashlight. And he was always smiling. I liked him immediately, and we’d go to lunch and meet after work hours as well. Just one fly in the ointment…he was always late. Not just a little. Sometimes an hour or more. I was developing an appropriate resentment, so I knew I had a choice to make…somehow grin and bear the tardiness or end the friendship. Neither was acceptable, so I found a third door. Without even telling him why, I’d always ask to meet at my apartment. That way, I just lived my life until he showed up, which was then always at the right time, often with homemade Tandoori chicken and the smile. He marched to a very different drummer and was always exactly himself, which is what I loved. I didn’t have vocabulary or concept for it then, but Chinese Daoists call it ziran, “self-so.” Means living or acting authentically, without constraint or ulterior motives, just as we naturally are and exist to be. My friend flowed to a different sense of time and lived accordingly. I could accept that and flow with, or not. But I couldn’t change him even if I’d wanted. Life is always self-so, always what it intrinsically is. Can’t change it, though we always want to, because life is difficult and full of challenges and trials. The whole point of life is to use those difficulties like a gravity assist to launch us into growth, but to do that we must first reframe life, see it not as a victim, but a student. Remain open to opportunities for growth, welcome them even if they hurt. And they always hurt—but are not always injurious. James tells us to count it all joy when difficulties come, because enduring them through gritted teeth is not the endurance James is talking about, that produces wisdom, maturity. When we let life be self-so, the universe no longer persecutes but teaches, life will still hurt, but is no longer difficult… Having learned that through each difficulty a smiling presence persists, we can enjoy our friends whenever they arrive.

Dave Brisbin 9.6.26 I don’t usually do verse-by-verse scripture studies. Too easy to get lost in details, lose the forest for the trees. Too easy to be consumed with commentary and lose the application to everyday life. Without that application grounding scripture in human relationship and community, we lose relevant meaning. The exceptions are the Sermon on the Mount and the Book of James. Why? They’re all application. No coincidence that Matthew, containing the Sermon on the Mount, and James are the two most Jewish books of the NT and may have been originally written in Hebrew/Aramaic. Or that James was Jesus’ brother cut from the same Jewish cloth. Or that the Sermon on the Mount and James were used as catechisms for the early movement of Jesus followers. You won’t find high theology in the Sermon or James, only the building blocks of everyday life. James has been called the “Proverbs of the New Testament” and is filled with practical wisdom, aphorisms for living ethically in community along Jesus’ Way. Just as the Sermon opens with the Beatitudes, a multifaceted portrait of the finished product: a person transformed into the awareness of Kingdom life—James opens with a barrage of moral teachings, the attributes of communal life along Jesus’ Way. Starting with Endurance, accepting life’s hardships as teachers bringing us to completion, he then moves on to Wisdom, the by-product of Endurance, which is not “granted” but realized if we don’t Doubt—become paralyzed by our need for certainty. Then in quick succession, the Degreelessness of God’s love, Reward, Temptation, and Presence. The Sermon gives us the permission and means of stripping away the limitations that hold us in the hell of separation, and James, the ABCs of bringing that transformation back into everyday life in community. Greatly misunderstood in the West, James must be viewed with Jewish eyes. When we do, just as liquid takes the shape of any container into which it’s poured, we can distinguish the content of the message frozen in its Jewish container, and warmed to room temp, pour it fresh into the containers of our own lives. Same message, new shape.

Dave Brisbin 8.30.26 Wait, Jesus had a brother? Scripture says he had four—James, Joses, Judas, Simon—and sisters too, unnamed and unnumbered. Not talked about much because Jesus with full siblings, DNA from both Mary and Joseph, blows up the doctrine of virgin birth that most Christianity accepts. If they were half-siblings, Mary having children after Jesus blows up the doctrine of Mary’s perpetual virginity that Catholic and Orthodox churches accept. But there’s a third door. With no word for cousin in Hebrew/Aramaic, they had to say son or daughter of my uncle. Cumbersome. So mostly they just said brother or sister. Jesus’ brothers could have been cousins, as Jesus’ aunt, Mary of Clopas, had at least two sons named James and Joses. Whew. However you see it, Jesus had a brother named James. We hear all about Peter and Paul as leaders of the early Jesus movement, but in the confusion following the crucifixion, there was only one man who had the reputation, trust, and kinship to hold the fledgling movement together: Ya’akov ha-Tsaddiq, James the Just, Jesus’ brother. James was above reproach, a lifelong Nazirite—formally dedicated to God. He didn’t follow Jesus during his ministry, but joined the movement after the crucifixion, and the people elected him nasi, overseer, a position he held for thirty years. Jewish authorities illegally stoned him in 62 CE, and the people were so outraged, it accelerated the unrest that led to the war with Rome four years later. James maintained the spiritual and social purity of the movement from the crucifixion to the war that ended the Jewish state and temple religion…time needed for the church to take root. James’ book in the bible was used as a catechism, laying out in very Jewish fashion the concrete way of life that honored Jesus’ teaching in a Jewish frame. His writing is foundational, starting with accepting life as it is, enduring hardships that teach and mature, understanding faith and faithful life in community. James is a window on how Jesus was understood by those who knew him best, grew up with him. We need to bring Jesus’ brother out of the shadows and let him speak.

Dave Brisbin 8.23.26 Ever awaken at 3:30 in the morning? Doesn’t it always seem to be 3:30? Maybe coming out of a disorienting dream, disembodied in the dark with all it means to be you laid aside? It’s right there in that naked vulnerability that a lot of the work of Jesus’ Way is already done for you… Your clothes are in the closet. Your Rolex on the night stand. Maybe your teeth are in the bathroom. Car and tools in the garage, diplomas on the office wall. The people reflecting your roles seem remote, no substance in the dark. Who are you then? How do you relate to anything of significance? Later you get up, make coffee, feel better. Your reflection in the mirror, your clothes and rituals rebuild you in the light, help you forget questions circling in the dark. Jesus’ Way is the practice of waking at 3:30 AM and remaining quiet, disembodied, not running back to your reflection until all you’ve built around yourself becomes transparent enough to see right through to those central questions asked in the dark. But Jesus knew how we can also lose our Way down the rabbit hole of abstract questions, lose our connection to daily life. Like fish in water, the Way can’t exist anywhere but daily life, can’t be practiced anywhere but the physicality of our relationships. It’s the action of becoming aware enough to experience our original connection to significance—everything immediately present in our moments. Jesus calls this experience Kingdom, the state of being so connected as to identify with. Which is why he doesn’t get lost in abstract theology, but tells us to lose ourselves in intimate relationship. Without an effect on relationship, there is no Kingdom. No identification. Kingdom is the effect. We naturally want to think more, try to understand, but the Way is showing us how to act in a way that mimics the 3:30 moment, bringing our stripped down, disembodied awareness into the light of daily experience. Practical action that attenuates left brain ego dominance and amplifies right brain experience without judgment. Concrete steps we can take that slowly show us, not tell us, who we are and how we relate to significance.