theeffect church @theeffectorg

We say sin leads to separation, but sin is separation itself. Any act that leads to separation is sinful, but to focus on behavior, on symptom, is to lose sight of the cause—our separation anxiety. The Good News is any sense of separation is illusion. youtu.be/HoSWgIh_qKo

In Aramaic, taba and bisha, good and evil, are not legal terms, they are relational--literally, ripe and unripe. To see good/evil as a continuum of functionality is a first step into the flow of life, away from constant judging, objectifying, separating. youtu.be/uHXNaQ_YvZA

Jesus never told his friends to worship him. He told them to follow him…his Way of living and seeing. To follow Jesus is to actively emulate his Way of becoming attuned to an experience of God’s presence directly, from inside out. youtu.be/QfVQhg086g0

The Hebrew mind couldn’t conceive of father without mother. Both necessary, complementary, a paradox that must never be resolved. God is the eternal oscillation between father and mother, and only in the oscillation do we find the perfect parent. youtu.be/ALo-VsAAtN8

Jesus’ sayings are always code switching between micro and macro, mercy and justice, bringing what love requires to each moment in whatever context. God’s love is not just. Its mercy unbalances the scales of justice in favor of each of us. youtu.be/bjzP0qU5fvA

Kingdom-heaven-God, is herenow, embedded in the field through which we walk. If we’re waiting for something, we won’t see it. Jesus is trying to show us it’s not what you think it is. It’s not what you think at all. youtu.be/z9NT4TZHvww

We think of salvation as an event, a moment when God bestows acceptance, but scriptures show the experience of Jesus’ followers as gradually becoming ready to see that salvation is not given at all. It is experienced, realized, remembered... youtu.be/uaqt3BKZnKU

Christians agree that Jesus lives, but not how…physically, spiritually, collectively, some way we can’t imagine? Ultimately, it’s a matter of faith, but where can we go for guidance to meaning? Of course, the gospels show us just where to look. youtu.be/u4KXjWH8Hbw

Begging Jesus to save us misses the whole point of salvation. Salvation isn’t given or bestowed. It is experienced…or not. Jesus’ person and message is an invitation to follow the Way of experiencing the truth, the liberation that salvation is. youtu.be/lON3pq2MfQ8

Until we can poke our heads above the waterline of our egoic selves, we’re only ever seeing the inside of our eyelids, nothing of the real. We can’t see the air; fish can’t see the water. Hopefully our odds are better than theirs. youtu.be/P0JDSI_1VC4

Early followers of Jesus understood that his Way of spiritual formation was about subtraction not addition—that there is nothing to acquire, no kingdom out there to make us whole. Everything is already within. Our minds are all that block this truth. youtu.be/hfpeN2sZxYI

Within every physical task is an eternal task always pointing to connection. True meaning is found in that connection and nowhere else, and addressing that connection is to never let the hard work of change eclipse the radical acceptance of right now. youtu.be/Vj5Tk3-o9yw

We take nature for granted—dimly aware of it turning in the background. But when nature becomes intense enough, it calls attention to itself. Should we have to be called with circumstance intense enough to break us open like desert seeds waiting for rain? youtu.be/T4fyOmAi-Oc

Lent is about deprivation, yes, but not as penance in search of reward…as the only means by which we can realize agendaless love. We don’t ascend to this love, perform for it or suffer for it. As William Butler Yeats wrote, we wither into the truth. youtu.be/wUkhjPShj5M

Sixty years ago, a famous theologian said that the Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all. Rational belief will not sustain us. Only the personal experience of the enchanted reality of God’s presence can do that. youtu.be/vnpm3Ne3XD4

Kingdom is never closed, never withheld—always now, always available. God doesn’t admit us or not. God is eternally open. God’s presence is kingdom itself. We admit ourselves whenever we’re ready to experience it. youtu.be/Qgqf7Xdhq0E

For five hundred years, we’ve been equating accuracy and truth. For us, something is true if it’s accurate and accurate if it’s true, but to ancient writers of scripture, truth and accuracy were not the same. Something could be true even if not accurate. youtu.be/fFkB37-VL4A

Jesus is the word we give to a man who was named Yehoshua, shortened to Yeshua in Hebrew. But to his friends, in Aramaic, the language of the street, he was Eesho. Eesho. Just the sound of it shatters our familiarity. youtu.be/sMXTBe3IqNI

The infinite has no edges, nothing to hold on to. As soon as we put the infinite in words, it’s no longer infinite. Words have edges, defined limits, so the best we can do in words is poetry, which points to meaning without creating edges that limit. youtu.be/iwmQgphftCk

We’re not here to do the things we do. We’re here to be so connected that we are indistinguishable from, one with, God and all that is. Jesus is trying to rewire the way we look at the world, give us back our priorities. youtu.be/MbAhXEshibQ