(40/40) Thank you.

I ended last year's set of 40 spiritual-religious e-mails by quoting Rev. Jeremy Taylor, an ordained Unitarian Universalist minister and Jungian dream analyst. (It's looking like I'm about to start a tradition.) Here are his words:

• Meister Ekhart, Black Elk, and the Dalai Lama


• All have said:


• "If the only prayer you ever uttered was 'thank you' it would be enough."

Amen.

Gratitude: what a beautiful concept on which to end this year.

Let me here publicly thank those who made financial contributions to Religion-Outside-The-Box in 2007:

A friend / Amy Kahn / Amy Sweeney / Andy Soboil / Anonymous / Anonymous / Anonymous / Aurora Draper / Beatrisa Tseytlin & Nathan Bannister / The Beer-Dietz Family / Bishop V. Gene Robinson / Bob Beuth & Terry Frias / Bryan & Alissa Binns / Carolyn & Liston Witherill / Casandra Thomson & Brian Pomerantz / Casey Heeg / Catherine Rosenberg / Cathy Gordon, Adi Liberman, & Family / Cecilia Nevarez & Diane Goodman / Chapen Hayslett / Claire Bateman / Constance Reynolds / Dana Berk / Daniel Buckley / David Leopold / Dayla Frazier / Diane Fujino & Matef Harmachis / Doug Cox / Elaine Wiener / Elder & Mrs. Joan Jackson / Emma & Doug Rappaport / Erik & Mimi Neandross / The Frodis Family / Galina Shapiro / Gregg & Tokiko Binkley / Herb Gore / Jack Lampl / Jackie Jimenez & Debby Doitch / Jamie Bloomquist / Jeanne Robinson / Jennifer & Adam Lasser / Jennifer Lang / Jodi Cooley / John Haldi / Joshua Bleier / Julie Klee / Julie Lang / Julie Palladino / Justin Connors / Kirk Wilson / Kurt Meredith & Andi Roast / Larry Arnold / Lawrence & Sherri Cirac / Leah Sullivan / Linda Censor / Lisa and Chris Wyett / Lisa Grossman / Lorraine Axeman / Lynnanne Zager / Lynne Stewart / Marcel Nimni & Fabiola Cordoba-Nimni / Margaret Altshul / Martin Rutte & Maida Rogerson / Mary Gibbins / Mary VanArsdel / Matthew & Shelly Stein / Meir Yedid / Michael Simson & Andrea Aucoin / Michele Peterson / Mitchell Blum & Don Lively / Mollie Pier / Natasha Kaul / Norman & Joan Marks / Paige & Jamison Selby / Patricia Oster / Peter Ostrow / Pierce Delahunt / Ray Xifo & KayFoster / Richard & Peggy Roast / Rickersam / Robert Joy / Robin Shanker & Joseph Anzelmo / Ruth Zimmerman / Sally Kervin / Sara & Bob Ross / Sara Reed / Sari Mayer / Sera Gamble / Susan, Laurence, & Elisabeth Lerner / Suzanne Haring / Tarin Bross & Deborah Korney / Thomas & Betty Krumal

Click here if I omitted you. (I'm terribly embarrassed if that happened.)
Click here if you didn't get a tax-deductible form. (I'm a great rabbi, not a bookkeeper... also, if you made subscription, an end-of-year-donation form should be arriving soon.)
Click here if you would like to make a tax-exempt contribution to help further this ministry-rabbiniate's goal of empowering people to find and be with (the) God (of their understanding).

Thank you and with love,

(39/40) Say, Do, Feel

I want to share with you one of the most amazing quotes that I have seen. These words are attributed to Maya Angelou:

“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

How true! How true! How true!

I can't tell you the exact words that my grandfather said to me when I was a child. And I don't have a treasure trove of memories of things that he did. But oh, how I remember the way I felt around him... I felt loved, and adored, and seen.

What we say and what we do is not as important as how we make others feel.

How true! How true! How true!

Let me ask you a question: if you could choose how you were going to be remembered by other people, wouldn't you choose to be remembered because you made them feel heard, seen, valued, cherished and loved?

I pray, dear God and dear reader, that we all spend less time trying to be clever or to do things that get us noticed and that we focus more on making the people with whom we interact feel wonderful just as they are.

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(38/40) My Smoothie Truck

When we talked on the phone last, my friend David told me he is pondering an entrepreneurial venture selling fresh fruit smoothies out of modified ice-cream trucks.

“Cool,” I said.

“I’m glad you think it’s a good idea,” he told me putting enough emphasis on the word “you” to let me know that others hadn’t been as supportive.

Three things immediately struck me:

• How frequently people, without being asked for their opinion, feel entitled to “troubleshoot” other people’s problems for them.
• How much we all listen to these party poopers.
• How jealous people are of those who follow their dreams.

Let's examine those three realizations, one at a time:

With regard to people who feel they have the right to offer their opinions on other people’s dreams:

Unless we are somehow specifically asked to make comments, our unsolicited advice on how something can be "improved" is probably not going to be well received.

At wedding ceremonies, I ask those who are in attendance if they will promise to honor and support the couple as they have vowed to live their lives together. They always say yes. I then explain to that this means that should the couple ask for their opinion, they should gladly give it, but should the couple not ask, they are “to honor and support the couple as they have vowed to live their lives together.”

I can tell you that while I am not expert at this yet, I have learned to curb my offerings of unsolicited criticism and life is better for it.

With regard to how much we all listen to the party poopers in our lives:

Do you really think that anyone knows what is best for you better than you do? Of course not! Still, we have all been conditioned from a very young age to listen to the opinions of others, to take their advice, and to “improve” ourselves based on that advice.

I want to offer you an alternative: Imagine that now, as an adult, you‘ve learned enough about yourself. What if you don’t need any more advice? What if you are the true authority on your own life?

With regard to the jealousy we hold towards people who follow their dreams.

Well, we are only human. When we see someone who has something that we want, we get jealous. That's just what we do.

Later in our conversation, I told David about the spiritual-religious books that I'm getting ready to publish and sell. "Hey," he said, "that's your smoothie truck... way to go!"

In the words of Langston Hughes:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow

So, the question I want to leave you with is this: what is your smoothie truck?

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(37/40) Change, Change, Change, Stop.

Stop Changing.

My darling wife, Jane, pointed out that after I bathed, I neglected to wipe down the shower door and asked me to please do so. So, I started to do so.

Time passed.

Jane brought my attention to the medicine cabinet that I didn’t close all the way and she asked me to please do so. So, I started to do so.

Time passed.

Jane noticed that I did not pay heed to the rug in the middle of the bathroom being straight and asked me to please do so. So, I started to do so. And then I started to wonder what would be next.

(This spiritual-religious article is not really about Jane and my bathroom. It’s really about human nature.)

We all think, "I'll be more content when such and such will change."

I'm not suggesting that we force ourselves to accept reality when we are dissatisfied with it or that we don't do things that will improve the quality of our lives.

What I'm suggesting is that we notice this tendency to not be in the present and that we work at being in the present — even if we don't like it.

Blaise Pascal wrote:

We never care for the present moment. We are so foolish that we wander in times that are not ours, and never think of the only time that belongs to us; we are so frivolous that we dream of the days that are not, and thoughtlessly pass over the only one that exists. We never live, but hope to live; and since we are always preparing to be happy it is inevitable that we shall never be so.

What's important is that we become aware of what we are doing and that we don't let our compulsion to change get out of control. We need to stop and take some time to accept the world as it is.

There is a saying by Ramana Maharshi that encapsulates this beautifully:

Wanting to reform the world without discovering one's true self is like trying to cover the hole world with leather to avoid the pain of walking on stones and thorns. It is much simpler to wear shoes.

We need to stop thinking that we would be more content if only, and learn to be with reality as it is and ourselves as we are.

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(36/40) Larry & Listening

I was talking with my best friend Larry a few days ago on our drive home from the stained glass class we religiously attend.

Earlier that evening, a man had sauntered up to our table under the pretense of asking Larry a question about the Bible. But instead of ever asking a question, the man blathered his homespun, uneducated opinions about the origins of certain Biblical ordinances.

“Larry,” I asked, “Why didn’t you interrupt that man and set the record straight?”

My dear friend answered, “I already know what I would have said—I wouldn't have learned anything from that. That man obviously wanted to talk, so I listened."

Oh, how I love Larry.

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(35/40) Gift Formula

Since we are about to embark upon gift giving season again, I thought it would be good idea to share a mathematical formula that Todd Quinto of Tufts University helped me come up with with regard to the value of gifts.

(During my undergraduate studies—at which time I thought I was taking high-level math courses thinking I would be an architect—Dr. Quinto was one of my favorite professors. He specializes in tomography which involves finding densities of objects from data such as X-rays from a CT scanner. Plus, he's really smart and nice.)

Keep this in mind when you shop for gifts this season:

The value of a gift is dependent on the cost ($) of the gift, the time (T) put in to making it or picking it out, plus the love (L) that the giver has for the recipient.

In mathematical-ese, it looks like this:

Value of gift = g ($ + T + L)

It behooves us to keep in mind that gift giving is not about the amount of money that we spend. It's actually about the thought behind a gift and the esteem the receiver has for the giver. This is why handmade gifts from children are so cherished. And it's what The Beatles were singing about in their song, Can't Buy Me Love.

The societal pressure to be good consumers will tell you otherwise, but the heart of the matter is that giving from the heart is what really matters.

Happy giving!


With love,


Rabbi Brian


P.S. If you've never heard of "Buy Nothing Day" this link will be of interest.

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(34/40) E-mail From God

An e-mail from God.

Imagine this...

You open your in-box and find an e-mail with the subject line:
An e-mail from God.

When you check who sent the e-mail, it simply reads, God.

What do you imagine the message would contain?

• Praise?
• Condemnation?
• An answer to a question that you've been asking?
• Advice?
• A forwarded joke?

As the head of Religion-Outside-The-Box, it is my job to remind you that it behooves each of us to have a healthy, open relationship with (the) God (of our understanding) because that relationship is the backbone of our spiritual-religious lives.

(I'm not saying that any of us ought to be clear in our understanding of God — after all, God is defined a lot of the time as the indefinable or incomprehensible.)

Nonetheless I want you to think about this:

What would be in that e-mail from God — howsoever you understand the word God?

Really take a moment to think about it.

What would God want to communicate with you?

(I'm leaving a space here to indicate that were this printed out you would write your answers. But, as this is e-mail, please give at least 30 seconds to thinking about your answer.)

Now, what about your response? What would you write back?

And how would you sign it?

With love,


Rabbi Brian

(If you want to e-mail me your thoughts about this spiritual-religious exercise—while I'm not God—I would be glad for the correspondence.)

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(33/40) More and Enough

Lynne Twist, in her book The Soul of Money, cautions that we in America face a perception problem with regard to quantity. She explains that we all are so bombarded with messages of "more" that we lose sight of the beauty and simplicity of the spiritual-religious concept of sufficiency.

She is right. Every day, we receive a barrage that encourages us to envision our lives as better if only we had more things.

But we don't need more. Really. We don't.

I'm not advocating that we don't need things; of course we do. I'm not arguing that the goal of a spiritually fulfilled life is that of an ascetic – characterized by abstinence from worldly pleasures.

What I want you to do is to take a moment to contemplate sufficiency. Sufficiency is the idea that something is enough just how it is. Sufficiency is the notion that nothing else is needed. Sufficiency is a beautiful concept.

Contemplate, just for this moment, that you have exactly what you need. Let your mind dwell on the idea that there isn't anything additional that you require. Contemplate enoughness. Feel filled and full.

While we know, at least right in this moment, that we have enough, most of us aren't really comfortable staying in this feeling for long. The sensation of wholeness is foreign, and we find ourselves wandering from the sufficiency of the now to worrying about the future and fretting about the past. We go back to thinking about how we would feel complete if only we only had this or did that.

Here is a poem that touches on this:

• I am so blessed
• That I often
• Don’t know what to do.
• (The answer, of course, is getting quiet, letting life happen around me, enjoying life, giving thanks, and praising God. Most often, I would rather find something else to do.)

Our nationalized day to be grateful is coming up. How wonderful is that? Our society has said, “Hey, let’s have the last Thursday in November be a day of gratitude.” We have this opportunity to, as a culture, think about appreciation and sufficiency.

Let me tell you what changes the glass we see from seeming half-full to appearing half-empty: our attitude. While it might seem like a platitude, our gratitude depends on our attitude. Judaism, the tradition in which I was ordained as a rabbi, suggests that people say 100 blessings a day – it's not a bad idea. Scientists have incontrovertibly proven that the simple act of listing what we are grateful for improves the quality of one's life.

Ask yourself: What are you joyful that you can do? What are you glad that you have? What are you thankful for? Once you answer these questions, your senses of appreciation and calm should rise. (If you want, listing more things for which you are thankful.)

Making a gratitude list is a wonderful thing to do – it reminds you of what (and who) you have, as opposed to what (and who) you lack. Moreover, the attitude of gratitude is contagious and said to attract good things.

When we have gratitude for what we have, we start to see glimpses of sufficiency. When we experience feelings of sufficiency, we feel like we belong in this world exactly as we are. Gratitude is, in effect, saying "Thank you, world." And, when you express your thanks to the universe, you give God and the universe the opportunity to say to you, "You are welcome."

How beautiful! We are welcome in this world. We belong – exactly as we are.

I pray that each of us, especially during this season of holy days, remembers to express gratitude. I pray that we realize that we don't need to compulsively fill ourselves with more. I pray that we realize that we are welcome, that we belong, that we are sufficient.

With love,


Rabbi Brian

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(32/40) Doing vs. Having Done.

Doing vs. Having Done.

On the web I have seen Dorothy Parker and Gloria Steinem and William Zinsser and Oscar Madison and Ernest Hemingway all attributed as having said, "I don't like writing, I like having written." (I couldn't figure out the "real" author...)

What I want us to do is to play a sort of Mad Libs-type game of "switch the verb."

There are many activities that we like having done, but don't particularly like doing.

• I don't like __________, I like having _________.

Here's a list of some of mine:

• I don't like exercising, I like having exercised.
• I don't like cleaning the house, I like having cleaned.
• I don't like paying my bills, I like having paid bills.
• I don't like doing emotional growth work, I like having done emotional growth work.

This is a problem we all face in our lives . . . not wanting to have to do the tough stuff.

What are the things in your life you would rather be done with?

Chances are, one or two of them are things you know you ought to be doing . . .

For encouragement, I would like to quote Robert Frost,

The best way out is always through.

I pray that we each have the courage to persevere until we reach the place where the tasks we need to do are no longer looming in front of us, and we can be proud in having done them.

Amen.

With love,


Rabbi Brian

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(31/40) Apocalypse far!

Apocalypse far!
The end isn't happening, yet.

We human beings are curious to know how things will wind up. I understand that. Eschatology is about just that. Eschatology, a subdivision of the intersection of theology and philosophy, deals with the final events of history — the apocalypse or end of days!

Some folk, like Sir Isaac Newton believed the world would end pretty soon. (According to his calculations, it would be in the year 2060.)

Others maintain that the Earth will end when it is 6,000 years old. (FYI: according to the Hebrew calendar, the earth just turned 5768 years old.)

According to either of these calculations, the end of the world isn't going to happen for years!

You and I will probably die before it happens.

That might just put things into perspective, no?

Remember the y2k fears that were widespread toward the end of the year 1999 and how so many were convinced life as we know it was about to end?

The world is not ending tomorrow or next week. Or even next month.

And it's definitely not going to end if you don't finish that project you’ve been stressed out about working on.

Really.

I promise.

The Halloween after September 11, 2000 I decided to wear a sandwich board costume that read, “The end isn’t near, learn to live with it.”

That's my mini-moral here...

Get through life. Do your best.
Live your life as fully as you can, for as long as you can.

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(30/40) Peace.

Peace is not the absence of strife
. . .

Peace is not the absence of strife, it is more than that.

In Judaism, there is classic prayer asking God to give us the type of peace that exists in the heavens. This definition of peace is not the bucolic, pastoral, Thomas Kinkade image of peace that many folks are running around hoping for. The peace of the heavens is the harmony of the planets, each with their own tremendous amount of force, co-existing. That's real peace.

Real peace is the harmony of the apparently disharmonious.

And, I wish that for you . . .

I pray that you achieve a sense of peace with the conflicting aspects of your life . . . I pray that we all find a place of harmony within the apparent disharmony of this world.

Amen.

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(29/40) Mangos.

If you plant a mango seed,
don't expect an orange tree.

As simple as this concept seems, we all manage to forget it from time to time.

We all occasionally plant mango trees and expect oranges.

(This is a metaphor . . . you knew that, right? We're not really talking about fruit trees here.)

• The person who hasn't done us a good turn in years probably will not all of a sudden go out of their way for us.
• If being honest with loved ones has been difficult for us in the past, it isn't miraculously going to get easier.
• The doctor won't have the best report for us if we have failed to take care of our health.

Folks, it's pretty simple: if you plant a mango seed, don't expect an orange tree, expect mangos.

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(28/40) Can't Do Attitude.

God, I'm tired.

I'm just tired.

I'm tired of working so hard, being a harsh task master in my own life, expecting so much of myself.

God, please help me adopt a bit of a "Can't Do" Attitude.

Help me to feel less competent.
Help me to not expect so much.
Help me to have compassion, kindness and gentleness with myself.

God, help me really get in touch with the attitude of surrender I wrote about a few weeks ago.

I can't do this alone.

I just can't.

And, I thank you for your help.


With love,


Rabbi Brian

---

A related morality tale.

There is a story that I remember hearing about a little boy who asks his mother, "Do you think I can lift that large rock over there."

"Yes," says the mother, "I am certain you can lift it if you use all of your strength."

The boy saunters over to the rock, attempts to lift it, but is unable.

"I couldn't do it," he reports to his mother.

"But you didn't use all your strength," the wise woman remarks.

He leans down, grunts, and still is unsuccessful.

"I used all my strength that time, but I still couldn't," he says.

"To use all your strength," the mother says while leaning down to pick up the rock with him, "sometimes means asking for help."

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(27/40) Suffering.

Is your suffering dear to you?

A question popped into my head a few weeks ago.

Every time I heard myself complain, or someone else utter a grievance, it would come to mind: "Is your suffering dear to you?"

As crazy as it might seem, I am attached to certain aspects of my misery. For example, I hold fast to, and even enjoy, the idea that I'm terminally unique — that I don't fit in well with groups. And honestly, this is a misery I don’t feel like giving up. This suffering is dear to me. I get mileage out of it!

So, I want to ask the same question of you: "Is your suffering dear to you?"

Let's face it, our problems often define us and anything that defines us — while spiritually it’s perhaps not the best idea to hold onto these things — makes us feel like we exist.

Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff, a 19th & 20th century Armenian-Greek mystic, wrote:

"Another thing that people must sacrifice is their suffering. It is very difficult also to sacrifice one's suffering. A man will renounce any pleasures you like but he will not give up his suffering. Man is made in such a way that he is never so much attached to anything as he is to his suffering. And it is necessary to be free from suffering. No one who is not free from suffering, who has not sacrificed his suffering, can work. Later on a great deal must be said about suffering. Nothing can be attained without suffering but at the same time one must begin by sacrificing suffering. Now, decipher what this means." (Emphasis added.)

About a week after the phrase "Is your suffering dear to you?" surfaced in my consciousness, I realized where it came from. I knew this phrase from a passage of Talmud I had studied 15 years ago in which two holy men were interacting and one asks the other, "Is your suffering dear to you?"

I looked up the Hebrew-Aramaic tale in Brachot 5b and saw the response given: "Neither it nor its reward."

What does that mean? The explanation is this: in the ancient world it was commonly believed that God compensated people in the-world-to-come for their suffering in this world. That is, the more your suffered in this world and the more nobly you endured your suffering, the greater reward you could expect in heaven!

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(26/40) Surrender.

Surrender.

Surrender, a religious-spiritual counterpart to the notion of fate, seems very un-American.

Nonetheless, of the practice of regularly taking some time off from controlling our world in order to surrender to life and to live it on life's terms is the basis of almost every religious-spiritual tradition.

Surrender is something we all know deep in our hearts we ought to do more often . . .

Here are my two favorite quotes about surrendering:

• True religion is surrender. (Muhammad)
• Doubts arise because of an absence of surrender. (Ramana Maharshi)

As a little exercise, I'm going to suggest that we take a moment to explore the notion that we could be more fated than our egos would like to believe.

Just for fun, let's dive in.

An Exercise in Surrender
Consider for a moment that you don't have freedom of will and allow yourself to surrender to life.

(I promise you don't have to do this for longer than the 117 words in this exercise.)

Think about the following:

• Maybe some of the things you thought were in your control weren't.
• Maybe nature and nurture have conspired to make you exactly who you are at this moment.
• Maybe I was fated to become a rabbi, write my thesis on freedom of will, write this exercise, and you were fated to read it.
• Maybe you are supposed to be exactly where you are at this very moment reading these words.
• Maybe you are supposed to be wearing exactly what you are wearing.
• Maybe you are breathing exactly as you are supposed to be breathing.
• Maybe you are doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing.

How does that feel? How does it feel to entertain the notion that you don't have complete freedom of choice — that you are doing exactly that which you are supposed to be doing?

Now, let me ask you one more very important question:

If everything were happening according to some giant plan — and not one over which you had any control — do you think you would be more or less relaxed?

A Charge & Conclusion
What I've started to do on Friday nights is to prepare myself mentally for what I refer to as "Surrender Saturday." I try each Saturday to see how well I can just "let go and let God."

It's not so easy. But it's also not that hard, as long as I remember that it’s a practice — the word practice by definition means it isn't something I ought to have mastery over.

I would like to conclude by reiterating the notion that we live somewhere between strict determinism and absolute freedom, in a beautiful balance like the one suggested by the Serenity Prayer:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

Amen.

With love,


Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(25/40) Spiritual Escapism

Spiritual Escapism.

There is serious, rampant religious-spiritual problem that I want to address: SPIRITUAL ESCAPISM.

Spiritual escapism is a notion advocated by the famous Bing Crosby song Mister In-Between.

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene

But, is this true? Should we force ourselves to find silver linings in every dark cloud?

As you have noticed, I'm a big proponent of the importance of attitude. After all, we don't need to let a parking ticket ruin our day, but I do think there are limits and restrictions to how much "magic" we should expect our minds to perform in "turning that frown upside down."

Let me give an example: recently, I was driving and traffic was backed up. (I know, big surprise since I live in LA.) I got off the freeway and took surface streets, which turned out to be much worse. I was stuck. Sitting there, starting to get anxious that I would be late, I told myself to "turn it around." So I looked out my window at the big old tree I was now parked next to. Regarding its beauty, I told myself to be grateful that I was able to see that which on any other day I would have sailed past.

Great, right? Unfortunately, all I did was tuck my frustration away. I didn't get rid of it, I just bottled it up for another occasion. I can’t say if it directly caused the snippy attitude I had with a customer service representative later in the day or the pain in my lower back that night; but I do know that frustration not expressed has to go somewhere, it’s as unavoidable as Newton's first law of thermodynamics.

What I'm advocating is much simpler (albeit more difficult) than manipulating our experiences through spiritual escapism . . . I'm suggesting the religious-spiritual notion of living and being present to reality as it happens. In other words, being frustrated when we are frustrated, angry when we are angry, happy when we are happy, sad when we are sad. Just to experience our lives as they happen, not to judge them.

Of course, this is simpler to say than to do. The point is that in our daily lives, emotions inevitably come up that we don't like. But we have the choice to live them or deny them.

Don't succumb to spiritual escapism. A healthy spiritual life is not a way of avoiding human suffering or other "negative" emotions.

Be where you are, as you are.

With love,



Rabbi Brian


And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(24/40) Have 2, Get 2.

A Simple Spiritual Exercise:

Here is a simple, easy-to-do spiritual exercise:

See if, for the rest of the day, you can substitute the verb "get" for "have."

For example, if you were going to say, "I have to check my e-mail," say instead, "I get to check my e-mail."

It's amazing how the little change of one word can affect our attitude.

With love,


Rabbi Brian

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(23/40) Really Judging Ourselves.

On really judging ourselves.

I’m lucky enough to be a staff member at a summer magic camp every year. During the week-long session, the young prestidigitators strut their stuff and compete in a contest judged by the staff.

I asked a number of the participants if they could name the categories the judges used in determining their scores. What I found fascinating was that most could not even name half of the categories!

Isn't this also true in our day-to-day lives? We're constantly judging and determining our grade. But, do we really know the criteria we use to judge ourselves?

I decided to try to figure this out for myself. So, over a few days time, I compiled a list of categories upon which I found myself judging my self.

Here was my list:

• Listening (& not interrupting).
• Empathy for and kindness towards others.
• Seeming smart — including cleverness, wittiness and breadth of knowledge.
• Multitask-ability.
• Self-sufficiency.

By Friday I had learned a number of things:

• While I do judge myself on both how clever and self-sufficient I am, neither is a category upon which I want to base my self-worth.
• I often feel like I'm about to receive a bad grade and so I find myself frantically "performing" to improve my grade.
• I interrupt, a lot.

If you were to take an inventory of the qualities you judge yourself on, what would be on your list?
Should you choose to do this exercise, feel free to e-mail me and let me know what you learned after you graded yourself.

What I pray for every one of us is that we realize that we were passing before we even took the exam.

With love,


Rabbi Brian

(22/40) Discernment

Discernment vs. Judgment

Being a sentient creature, I notice and am aware of what is happening in the world around me. Outside of poking out my eyes or stuffing my ears with cotton, this attention and discernment of the world is not something that I can control.

Similarly, my internal condition — my moods, the running dialogue in my mind, as well as the feelings I experience: like anger, joy, frustration and loneliness — is simply an observable state of mind. It's not really in my control if I perceive these things.

Our discernment of our external and internal worlds is not something that we actively control. On the other hand, I believe that we can manage to control (at least to some extent) our judgment of our experiences.

Let's say a fly has entered my office. I notice it. This is discernment.

If I criticize myself for having created the situation by leaving the window open that allowed the fly in, I have entered into judgment.

Discernment is a natural act that we engage in without planning or conscious thought.

Judgment is optional.

Somewhat.

Because our behavior is influenced not only by our conscious will but also by our habits, our judgment is only somewhat controllable. In much the same way it requires effort to not look up when someone says my name, if I am accustomed to cursing like a maniac when I see a fly, changing this pattern of behavior will be difficult. That said, the first step of changing a habit is, of course, discernment — noticing that I am doing it. (F.Y.I., this is the basis of cognitive behavioral therapy.)

Discernment — what I notice — is not in my control.
Judgment — what I do with what I notice — is in my control.

To discern the world as it is — with me, my emotions, and my mood as a part of that world — this is something I do automatically and will probably continue to do until the day I die.

On the other hand, judgment — something that I do frequently, something that I occasionally get a little rush from doing, and something that I can sometimes discern that I am doing while I'm doing it — is optional.

I pray we all ease up on ourselves and the world, and judge less.

Amen.

With love,

Rabbi Brian

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(21/40) Be here now!

A Religion-Outside-The-Box Event.

You are invited!

• Who's invited: You.
• Where: Here.
• When: Now, right now!

Be right where you are, right now.

• You don't need to bring anything.
• Just be with reality as it is.

With love,


Rabbi Brian

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(20/40) Same Sex Cheeseburgers

Same Sex Marriage as a Bacon-Double Cheeseburger.

Many Americans will not eat pork. Many Americans site biblical injunctions as their reasoning for not eating pork. And, many Americans will not eat pork for other religious or health reasons as well.

Nonetheless, in America the sale of bacon is still legal.

Similarly, there are Americans who interpret the biblical prohibition against boiling a kid in its mother's milk as meaning that they should not consume milk and meat in the same meal. But it is still legal for Americans who enjoy milkshakes with their cheeseburgers to do so.

The Bible is not and must not be the basis upon which laws of this country are made. The basis of the laws of this country are to be found in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, as well as the hearts of our elected and appointed representatives.

Why shouldn't we use the Bible as a basis for our laws? Because our society is thousands of years more complex than that of Biblical days. Because the Bible tolerates slavery, the slaying of disobedient children, and ownership of women. Moreover, countries in which religious doctrine is used as the basis of law have been governments that the United States of America has historically opposed.

Consequently, any citation of the Bible with regard to the civil law of marriage especially with regard to same-sex marriage, is moot.

Simply put: much like those who believe that God doesn't want them to eat dairy and meat simultaneously abstain from eating bacon-double cheeseburgers, if you disapprove of homosexual unions, don't enter into one.

With love,



Rabbi Brian

I am very proud to tell you that I am a featured theologian in the soon to be released documentary For The Bible Tells Me So which explains how the Bible has been misinterpreted by the religious right with regard to homosexuality.

(It will be screening at Outfest in Los Angeles on Tuesday night, July 17 and will open nationwide in October. Get tickets quickly, it's selling out.)

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(19/40) (Happiness,) Acceptance & Being Here

On acceptance and being here.
(Actually, an except from Rabbi Brian's upcoming book: Personalized Religion.)

Late 13th and early 14th century mystic Meister Eckhart said, "God wants nothing of you but the gift of a peace-filled heart."

This is true. God wants my heart to be peace-filled.

This, I have learned, is not the same as happiness.

There is a notion on the street that God wants you to be happy all the time. That's simply not right. (You might, after taking your religious life into your own hands, feel more peace-filled, but that’s not the same as happy.) God wants me to have a peace-filled heart, to experience all the emotions of a filled life, not for me to be constantly strung out on or looking for a hit of the drug "happiness."

(Happy is a dangerous goal. “Happy” is a relative term, and therefore it both has limits and ends. The pursuit of constant happiness and its inevitable failure, however, does drive much of the U.S. economy.)

Peace isn't just the absence of strife — it's the harmony of the apparently disharmonious. A peace-filled heart is one that can contain in harmony the apparently disharmonious — happy and sad, love and hate, good and bad.

As a child, I used to fervently strive to see only the happy, to the point of denying "negative" emotions and imagining a "happy island" that someday I would reach. I'm wiser now to know that within each joy there is sadness — for example, at every wedding there is a cause for celebration that the couple found each other and there is also, while hardly ever acknowledged, a sadness that they will one day have to lose each other. I know now that there is a shadow side to every emotion and that God wants my heart to be filled, not delusional.

God wants me to be present to reality, accepting and experiencing reality as it is. To accept the things I cannot change, even if I don’t like them.

(Acceptance is not abetting, advocating, agreeing, aiding, approving, assisting, authenticating, authorizing, backing, complying, concurring, confirming, consenting, cultivating, encouraging, endorsing, furthering, liking, maintaining, permitting, promoting, ratifying, reinforcing, sanctifying, supporting, or sympathizing. Acceptance is saying, "It is what it is, and what it is, is what is.")

To exist in the world, as it is, right now, wholly.

Jane once defined true happiness for a class I was teaching with the following:

Happiness is not things going or coming your way, but being in a relationship with reality.

That’s it. Taking reality as it is, accepting it. Exactly what Eckhart said, but in different words.

We can also sing it with the Beatles’s wording and melody, Let it be.

This truth is repackaged over and over and over again, in every language, and at least once a generation, one form of it becomes a hit. It’s the crux of the current-day bestsellers The Power of Now and Loving What Is. And, there’s reason to say it over and over again: it’s a truth, like a songbird or anything holy, that cannot be held in captivity and maintain its radiance.

It was said simply in three words by 1970s religious iconoclast Ram Dass, Be Here Now.

The truth is that this, right here, right now, is the only reality. Now. Here. Not hoping that anything will be different, but just being here with a peace-filled heart.

Lamenting, regretting, and living in the past is a denial of the splendor of the present. Fearing and overly preparing for the future does the same. We need to understand something that 17th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza said: "Reality and perfection are synonymous."

With a theological bent to it, Eckhart said the same:

You might ask, ‘How can I know if something is God’s will?’ My answer is, 'If it were not God’s will, it wouldn’t exist even for an instant; so if something happens, it must be God’s will.'

If we accept that reality is exactly as it is — then accepting that reality is exactly synonymous with God's will isn't a far leap at all.

Let me end with the rest of the above Eckhart quote:

If you truly enjoyed God’s will, you would feel exactly as though you were in the kingdom of heaven, whatever happened to you or didn’t happen to you.

With love,


Rabbi Brian

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(18/40) Change

A Spiritual Exercise About Change

If the only constant is change — as paradoxical as that might seem — it would behoove us all to learn how to deal gracefully with it.

Think about it, do you really want to go around with the mindset that change is bad?

To help us learn about our response to change, I have come up with a simple spiritual exercise.

For the rest of the day, change your cell phone ringtone or put your watch on the opposite wrist.

Now, each time your phone rings or you look at an empty patch of skin instead of finding out the time, notice of how you react. Your reaction to this change is going to inform you as to your natural, pre-wired response to change.

(For many people, their reaction to change is frustration and/or confusion.)

But, change is just change.
Change isn't inherently good or bad.
Change is just different.

See if over the course of the day you can learn from yourself and accept both change as well as your reactions to it.

With love,


Rabbi Brian

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.

(17/40) Upstream and Downstream

Upstream and Downstream
A religious parable.

There once was a town called Downstream. It was, as its name implies, downstream from another town. It was downstream from a town called Upstream.

A mighty river connected Upstream and Downstream.

One sunny day, a resident of Downstream saw a person in the river, drowning.

The Downstreamer called to a neighbor to come quick and together they fished a very wet Upstreamer out of the river.

About a month later, a few Downstreamers happened to be on the bridge when they saw another erstwhile Upstreamer in the river, drowning. They jumped in and managed to save that soul.

And so it continued.

About once a month a person from Upstream would be found in and saved from the river by the residents of Downstream.

For years, this happened with some regularity.

Then, the frequency increased. Twice a month there were Upstreamers in the river needing help.

The people of Downstream organized. They systematized and patrolled the river with a special boat. They saved more and more people.

Soon, it began occur every week.

Once a week there was a drowning Upstreamer in the river who needed rescuing.

A medical facility on the edge of the riverbank was built to accommodate the recovering Upstreamers.

Before long, there was someone drowning in the river every day.

The good people of Downstream added a second rescue boat so they could save more and more of the downing Upstreamers.

The people of Downstream never wondered, "What was happening in the town of Upstream?"

---

An interpretation.

We often apply band-aids to our wounds instead of learning about and addressing the cause of our maladies.

With love,

Rabbi Brian

And, if you care to, click here to see comments on the streetprophets site where this article also went up this week.