Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ep26 Judging and Being Judged

Uncategorized, , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 12:09 — 11.1MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

Father Len and Irish explore the frequently damaging temptation and tendency for humans to judge each other.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len responds to a listener’s perception that religious people are often judgmental and see themselves as better than others.
  • Father Len explains the difference between damaging judgment of behavior and attitudes and needed, useful and inspiring criticism.
  • The ability to honestly and critically assess our own behaviors and attitudes is healthy and important to personal growth and maturity.
  • Judging often has a damaging moral quality of shaming and denigrating.
  • For some people, judging others is a big smokescreen to hide the garbage in their own lives.
  • Presented with necessary criticism and helpful suggestions about their attitudes, decisions and behavior, insecure people tend to get angry, defensive, feel judged and dismiss it all.
  • Father Len offers some sage advice to fathers of daughters about the relationship between mothers and daughters.
  • Recognizing the difference between judgmental and critical thinking requires a lot of personal reflection and humility.

Ep25 Tour of Hell

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:27 — 23.3MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

Father Len takes us on a tour of hell exploring its origin and history providing glimpses of heaven along the way.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Hell can be hot and cold.
  • Hell is complete separation from God.
  • Heaven is complete union with God.
  • God is the source of life, love, community, justice, and compassion.
  • Hell is being separated from life, love, and community.
  • God offers life and love to all people as a free gift, but that doesn’t mean all people accept the gift.
  • Hell is often associated with fire, but in the Bible it is also depicted as a cold and lonely place.
  • The image of fire is also connected to heaven in the Bible.
  • Could it be that the fire of heaven and hell is the same, the fire of God’s love?
  • Life is a matter of preparing to live in the fire of God’s love or forever rejecting it.
  • If you live your life with hatred and selfishness, maybe pure love is something that you can’t stand.
  • People can create their own hell right here on earth. It’s not just an imaginary place where we might end up.
  • You separate yourself from God when you fail to live a life of love.
  • God wants everybody united in heaven, but that doesn’t mean everybody will be in heaven.
  • “The gates of hell are locked from the inside” – CS Lewis
  • Hell is something we create by our own choices, not something created by God.
  • God permits those who reject community, justice, compassion, and love, which is God, to live in the hell they create.
  • The images of heaven and hell help point our lives in the right direction.
  • Hell is a choice of selfishness and cruelty over love.
  • The gates of heaven are always open for those who love.

Ep24 Hell is a choice

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:08 — 15.7MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

Father Len explains why God doesn’t send anybody to hell.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Father Len answers the question why a loving God creates human beings he knows will go to hell.
  • Free will is one of God’s greatest gifts to each of us.
  • Free will defines human beings.
  • We are free to choose heaven or hell.
  • Heaven’s gate is always open for us to walk in.
  • “The Great Divorce” by CS Lewis tells the story of people in hell who have the opportunity to look into heaven and choose not to walk in.
  • Father Len shares the Bible story of the rich man and Lazarus to illustrate how and why some people surprisingly choose hell over the love, unity, and community that is heaven.
  • Heaven is a place where everybody loves everybody else. Even Minnesota Vikings fans love Green Bay Packers fans.
  • God’s not going to force anybody into heaven. He’ll beg, he’ll plead, but if you want hell, you can choose it. God will respect your choice.
  • Father Len explains the big difference between God knowing someone will go to hell and causing someone to go to hell.

Ep23 Freedom is a Virtue

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:53 — 18.2MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

Father Len explains why freedom is a virtue and what it takes to achieve real freedom.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

  • Real freedom is achieved when we become free to live a life of love and community, free from selfishness, ego, anger, hatred, and revenge.
  • Father Len tells the story of how Congressman John Lewis’s faith gave him the freedom to love his enemies.
  • Father Len illustrates the opposite of freedom with the story of a very wealthy and brilliant Englishman. He had all the money and time to do whatever he wanted to do in this world, but became imprisoned by his ego, selfishness, anger, and insecurity.
  • We all wear some sort of psychological mask at times to make us appear to be shiny and happy people able to do whatever we want.
  • Religion can free us from our psychological masks.
  • Father Len shares the story of a millionaire Hollywood producer who traded his huge mansion, fancy cars, and extremely unhappy life for a tiny house, a bike to ride to work, and a happy life.
  • The constant need to get whatever we want in this world is a type of slavery or idolatry.
  • An Idol is something that promises fulfillment, but leaves us empty.
  • Religion doesn’t satisfy all our wants. It frees us from them.
  • Real freedom requires sacrifice.
  • “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Chocolat – The movie
  • WALL-E – The movie

Ep22 Are the Bible and religion outdated?

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 25:11 — 23.1MB)

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

Father Len explains why the wisdom contained in the Bible about what makes for a good life is timeless.

Highlights, Ideas and Wisdom

  • “There is nothing new under the sun” – Qoheleth, Ecclesiastes 1:9
  • People have forever struggled with the same problems, made the same mistakes, and needed the same solutions to solve their problems and the same remedies for their mistakes.
  • The Bible stories are always challenging our tribalism, addictions, use of money, our sense of justice, our compassion, and even our sense of religion.
  • “Faith and evidence are inseparable. Indeed, faith is a response to evidence, not a rejoicing in the absence of evidence.” – John C Lennox
  • Technology does not make us evolve. It adds conveniences to our lives. What really makes us evolve is religion.
  • We are hardwired for religion.
  • “Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief” by Andrew Newberg, Eugene D’Aquili, and Vince Rause
  • Every experiment in atheism has led to massive slaughter.
  • If we get rid of religion, we just replace it with something else. We always end up worshiping something.
  • “In the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff. It’s the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on.” – David Foster Wallace
  • Religion is only outdated for those who are unconscious that they’re worshiping something.
  • Whatever controls your life is what you’re worshiping.
  • What people resist when they say the Bible is outdated, is not the Bible. It’s their interpretation of the Bible.
  • “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley
  • “Great Expectations” a movie about “gods” that control us.

Ep21 “Crazy” and “Annoying” People

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

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

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

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

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

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?

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

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”

Uncategorized, , , , , , , ,

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

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

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

Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , , , ,

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

Subscribe: Spotify | iHeartRadio | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSS | More

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.