Monthly Archives: July 2020

Ep21 “Crazy” and “Annoying” People

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:22 — 13.2MB)

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Father Len reveals how distancing yourself from “crazy” and “annoying” people in your life can separate you from parts of yourself that need attention.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • There are multiple stories in the Bible that reveal how distancing yourself from people in your life causes you to lose part of yourself.
  • Father Len explains the “sin of distancing” and how it affects us.
  • The problems we have with people in our lives often reveal problems we have within ourselves.
  • When we build walls around ourselves to avoid problems, we pay a price.
  • It’s easy to hate people from a distance.
  • Arguments and disagreements with people in our lives can be incredibly healthy because they can help us recognize and force us to deal with our own issues.
  • Life is supposed to break our hearts at times. When we experience pain and frustration we develop humility and the ability to love.
  • A whole heart is a broken heart. Distancing ourselves from “crazy” and “annoying” people will keep us safe, but we won’t have whole hearts.

Ep20 Good and Evil Are Hard to Define and Fully Understand

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:48 — 21.8MB)

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Father Len explains why defining and fully understanding good and evil is pretty much beyond our ability as humans.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The only wise reaction to evil is faith in God.
  • The mystery of what seems like evil to us may actually be something used by God for our good.
  • Father Len explains why we shouldn’t settle for cheap and easy answers for why evil and suffering exist in the world and instead humbly ask questions and more questions.
  • We will not understand evil until we can have the same perspective as God.
  • There might not be answers about good and evil that we can see and understand until we get to heaven and can look back in time.
  • Real wisdom is acquired through intimate experience with suffering.
  • What we proclaim as good may actually be bad for us.
  • What we proclaim as evil may actually be good for us.

Ep19 Why does God create us fragile and flawed?

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 14:22 — 13.1MB)

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Father Len explains that we’re all born in the image and likeness of God with gifts, defects, and work to do to become mature human beings and find our way to Christ and each other.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • The Hebrew word for image is the same word as Idol.
  • There was a time when a King was perceived to be the image of God.
  • We’re all made in the image of God regardless of the color of our skin.
  • God is pure loving community so the image of God is all of humanity not a singular human being.
  • Jews and Catholics believe we storm the Gates of heaven together, not alone.
  • Father Len explains the difference between the image of God and the likeness of God.
  • Every human is given gifts to make the world a better place.
  • God created us pure with work to do to become mature.
  • Father Len explains how and why God created man and woman.
  • Once we know self-sacrificing love, we become true human beings.
  • God creates every human being with a fault that is not a defect in the eyes of God. The defect helps us find our way to Christ and each other.
  • If we were all created perfect, we’d all be the same. We’d be just like every other human.
  • “Revelations of Divine Love” by Julian of Norwich

Ep18 Politics, Religion and the Slogan “Black Lives Matter”

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:37 — 18.0MB)

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Father Len and Irish grapple with the difficulty of having a spiritual, moral, and meaningful conversation about the slogan “black lives matter.”

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len explains why he is reticent to make statements about political slogans.
  • It’s cowardice for religious leaders not to lead and speak out about spiritual and moral issues.
  • People have to come to the truth by themselves, but religious leaders can and should help lead them there.
  • “We are generally the better persuaded by the reasons we discover ourselves than by those given to us by others.” – Blaise Pascal
  • We have become so politically rigid, polarized, and hell-bent on winning in the United States that the search for truth gets lost.
  • There are good people and evil people. The line between good and evil cuts through every human heart.
  • Father Len is reading “Black like Me” by John Howard Griffin to become more compassionate and feel the pain and suffering that can come from discrimination and being a minority.

Ep17 Race, Culture, and Jesus

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:22 — 15.9MB)

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Father Len reveals why Jesus came into the world as a Jew and why God created multiple races and cultures.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • God chose an enslaved, weak, and hated people to show God’s strength and bring love into the world.
  • Father Len reveals his joke about every Jewish feast.
  • The Bible constantly wrestles with racism.
  • There is just one race in the Bible. That’s humanity. There are many different nations, but they’re all part of one family.
  • Humanity is united by the language of love not rules, regulations, politics and technology.
  • Father Len tells his favorite racism story where God’s punishment for a Middle Eastern woman’s racism is to make her skin white as snow.
  • The Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, has made dozens of appearances around the world over time. Always appearing as a person of the nation in which she appears. This to signify that Christ is present in all of us no matter what the color of our skin or our country of origin.
  • If Jesus came into the world today he might well have black skin and be of African descent.