About the Author: Rabbi Brian

My work is to help adults maintain a healthy, adult relationship with God. I can help you de-tangle your baggage with regard to surrender, society, religion, and God. I won’t tell you want to think, but will help you unlearn, learn, and flesh out for your beliefs for yourself. I work for God in a “Blues Brothers” meets “John Lennon as an ordained rabbi” kind of way. My long term goal is to spread love.
  • By Published On: August 3, 2018

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

  • By Published On: July 12, 2018

    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?

  • By Published On: June 7, 2018

    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

  • By Published On: May 17, 2018

    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.

  • By Published On: May 5, 2018

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

  • By Published On: April 12, 2018

    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.

  • By Published On: April 1, 2018

    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.

  • By Published On: March 8, 2018

    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.

  • By Published On: February 17, 2018

    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.

  • By Published On: January 19, 2018

    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).

  • By Published On: January 5, 2018

      Acceptance is saying "what is is." Acceptance The more we fight with reality, the less smoothly our lives go. The spiritual word

  • By Published On: December 15, 2017

    The only one who can make your holidays feel wonderful – holy – is you. You can bring holiness to this time of year.

  • By Published On: November 18, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: November 3, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: October 27, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: October 6, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: September 23, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: September 1, 2017

    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

  • By Published On: August 17, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: August 15, 2017

    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.

  • A talk given by Rabbi Brian at the Embrace Festival produced by Progressive Christianity. Portland, Oregon. May 5, 2017.

    By Published On: August 5, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: July 21, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: June 1, 2017

    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.

  • By Published On: May 20, 2017

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