Tag Archives: God

Ep65 God’s Intention for Church

June 17, 2021UncategorizedCatholic Church, Christ, Godwrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:51 — 20.9MB)

Father Len explains why God wants one universal church that accepts everybody and why the church established by Christ has split into over 400,000 denominations.

Ep64 Toxic Religion

June 10, 2021UncategorizedButte Montana, Catholic Church, Christ, Fear of God, God, Marie Kondo, PTSD, PTSG, Richard Rohr, Samoa, St Paul, Toxic Religionwrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 43:35 — 39.9MB)

Father Len introduces the process of deconstruction to help a listener detox her religious upbringing and purify her religious values, beliefs, and practices.

Ep63 Bible Symbols Revealed and Explained-Part 3 Oils

May 29, 2021UncategorizedAnointing, Carnal, Catholic Church, Christ, God, Holy Oils, Holy Spirit, Israel, Noah, Religion, Sacraments, Sense of Smell, Sensuous, St Paul, The Bible, worshipwrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 17:39 — 16.2MB)

Father Len reveals how oils and their fragrances help fulfill God’s intention for religion and worship to be carnal and sensuous experiences.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Previous Bible symbols episodes: Ep45 Water, Ep56 Trees

Ep61 True Friendship

May 13, 2021UncategorizedBook of Proverbs, Catholic Church, Cultural Friendship, Family Love, Friendship, Friendship Love, God, Romantic Love, Unconditional Lovewrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 36:46 — 33.7MB)

Father Len takes a deep and challenging dive into the nature of true friendship and its profound effects on us throughout our lives.

Highlights, Ideas and Wisdom

In Greek, the word friend or friendship is another word for love.
The word love in English is just another word for sex, not friendship.
Greeks believe there are four types of love. Love of one’s family, love of one’s friends, romantic love, and unconditional love.
Catholics believe friendship love prepares us for heaven.
Catholics believe all types of love speak about the great mystery of God.
Father Len explains why he believes the United States has a crisis of friendship.
Father Len describes much of the friendship present in the United States as what he calls cultural friendship. Relationships based not on reciprocal love, but on getting some sort of advantage, either economically or socially.
“Amen with many companions comes to ruin, but there’s a friend who sticks closer to you than a brother.” – Book of Proverbs
Today the word friend has been turned into a verb. We “friend” people we don’t really know on social media.
Friendship brings something into your life that family and romance can’t.
True friendship helps form us.
We are formed by God and the community of our family and friends.
“One can perish for lack of true friends or for making the wrong friends.” – Book of Proverbs
True friendship has a foundation that you discover. Some common interest, love, passion, vision, or truth.
Father Len explains the difference between friendship love and romantic love.

Ep60 The History of Marriage and What Makes It Work

May 5, 2021UncategorizedAdam and Eve, Book of Sirach, Catholic Church, Christ, Commitment, Covenant, Dante Alighieri, God, Heaven, Judaism, Marriage, Martin Luther, Protestants, Religion, Self-Sacrificing Love, Song of Songs, The Bible, The Old Testament, Theology of Marriagewrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 46:36 — 42.7MB)

Father Len explores the history of marriage, our changing attitudes and expectations about it, God’s expectations for marriage, and what makes marriage so difficult yet so worthwhile.

Highlights, Ideas and Wisdom

Ancient marriages were rarely about love and had little to do with religion. Marriages were pragmatic contracts between families about such things as wealth, political alliances, childbearing, and, for poor and working-class families, acquiring a work partner.
Christ revolutionized expectations for marriage. Declaring it to be about unity, love, and becoming a true human being, having nothing to do with legal rights.
Modern expectations for marriage revolve around happiness. Finding the one person that’s going to make me happy until they don’t. Then, it’s time to find a new partner.
Marriage is a pathway to becoming the image of God, the image of love.
Marriage involves a death, dying to ego and selfishness.
“True love doesn’t make up for all your faults. True love exposes all your faults.” – Dante Alighieri
You can’t work on your faults until they’re exposed.
True love demands constant sacrifice.
Marriage is about sacrificing your ego and learning to think as two rather than one.
Unmarried people often have difficulty thinking about other people because they don’t have to.
Marriage is a way to holiness because it is about the way of self-sacrificing love.
God can save you, but your spouse gets you in the best shape to be saved.
Marriage gets you ready for heaven.
Marriage is about sacrificing everything for the sake of love.

Ep59 Understanding the Language of God

April 26, 2021UncategorizedBook of Leviticus, Christ, Compassion, CS Lewis, Cupid, Dan Savage, Ego, God, Jesus, Jews, Justice, Love, Moral Relativism, Morality, Pharisees, slavery, St Paul, St. Faustina, The Biblewrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 22:03 — 20.2MB)

Responding to a listener’s question about whether God’s teachings are black and white, Father Len explains why it’s difficult for us to fully understand the language of God’s love.

Highlights, Ideas and Wisdom

God’s morality and teachings are black and white and pure because God is love, without ego and without corruption.
Our interpretation of God’s morality and teachings is often wrong because it is viewed through the prisms of our egos and agendas.
Father Len illustrates the dangers of interpreting God’s word through ego by pointing out how wrong the Jews were in their interpretations of the Bible’s prophecies about Christ’s purpose on earth.
Jesus interprets morality and laws from the perspective of love.
Father Len points out that Jesus welcomed prostitutes and adulterers in his life knowing that prostitution and adultery are wrong because that’s what love does.
Love perfects us.
The Bible tells us that anyone who does not love and proclaims that they know God is a liar.
Our black and white view of morality often errs on the side of being harsh and judgmental, void of love.
Black and white morality can be very seductive because we can proclaim it to be justice, but without compassion it can be very wrong.
There are two kinds of moral extremes: black and white and relativism. Both are based a lot on ego.
Moral relativism is morality based solely on personal feelings and choice usually driven by ego or agenda.
Reacting to immoral behavior with love forces us to have empathy and compassion.
Father Len uses the Bible’s various perspectives on slavery to illustrate how God is constantly trying to help us evolve in our morality understanding we can’t always accept the whole truth all at once.
Fully understanding God’s language of love and morality is a lifelong process.

Ep56 Bible Symbols Revealed and Explained-Part 2 Trees

April 2, 2021UncategorizedAbraham, Adam and Eve, Bible Symbols, Book of Genesis, Bread of Life, Catholic Architecture, Catholic Church, Christ, Christianity, CS Lewis, David, God, Human Beings, Idols, Jesus, JRR Tolkien, Noah, Old Testament, Pharaoh, Tree of Life, Trees, Zachariahwrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:42 — 30.8MB)

Father Len reveals that trees are symbols for God and human beings and trees represent the most important choices we make in life.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Trees are the third most common thing mentioned in the Bible.
God loves trees and gives them a ring every year on their birthdays.
Trees are places where human beings choose to worship or reject God.
There is a tree present at every major event in the Bible.
Every major character in the Bible is associated with a type of tree.
The only thing Jesus ever harmed was a tree that produced no fruit.
The Bible begins and ends with the “tree of life” and trees are present throughout the Bible.
The story of human history is choosing between two trees: the tree of life and the tree of good and selfishness.
There are two types of food. One gives us physical life. The other gives us spiritual life.
If we eat the fruit of the tree of good and selfishness we are cut off from the covenant with God and disconnected from the source of life.
The temptation to eat the fruit of the tree of good and selfishness is the promise of the power to define what is good and evil for ourselves rather than God.
We don’t have to earn the fruit from the tree of life. God gives it freely to us.
When anybody makes a commitment to God in the Bible there’s always a tree, an altar, and water present.
The tree of good and selfishness often appears in the form of an Idol in the Bible. The Idol is a false tree we create to define our own version of morality.
The Hebrews called idols “luxuriant trees” representing the pursuit of power, sex, and money for happiness. The Hebrew letters for “luxuriant tree” cleverly spell Garden of Eden backwards.
Addictions always promise happiness, but in the end leave us destroyed.
Trees in the Bible symbolize commitments and altars represent the rituals around the commitments.
The spiritual life in the Bible is pictured as a tree that must push its roots down deep to find the water of life necessary to produce good fruit in all seasons of life.
Jesus’ cross is called a tree in the Bible representing the tree of life. That’s why there is one cross next to or above the altar in every Catholic Church. It’s a reminder of the tree we should be eating from each day for eternal life.

Ep55 What Is Salvation?

March 26, 2021UncategorizedBaptism, Catholic Church, Christ, Egypt, Erich Fromm, Faith, Freedom, God, Hebrews, Idols Heaven, Jesus, Judaism, Moses, Repentance, Richard Dawkins, Salvation, St Ignatius, St Patrick, The Bible, The Eucharist, The Golden Calf, The Red Sea, Totalitarianismwrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 26:06 — 23.9MB)

Father Len reveals the meaning of the salvation God seeks for all of us.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Salvation is about freedom and belonging and being saved from harm.
Freedom doesn’t mean doing whatever selfish thing you want to do. That’s merely a form of slavery to the ego.
Salvation is freedom to be with and for others. It’s a whole lot of dying to your ego.
Salvation is not just about me being free. It’s about me and everybody else becoming free. I’m not free unless you’re free.
There is an unease in human beings, an innate desire to escape from freedom. Sometimes being confined is less fearful than being loosed. Being restricted can feel better than being free because freedom means choices and choices and choices. And, choices can be difficult.
Human beings really want freedom and structure. Structure that makes it possible for us to be free and at the same time feel safe.
“The Fear of Freedom” by Erich Fromm
Freedom without structure is just chaos. It’s emptiness.
The Catholic Mass is a prayer for the order in the kingdom of God, not the order created by human structures or capricious living.
There’s always this tug-of-war in the human heart between freedom and safety, between freedom and structure, between chaos and order.
Salvation is just another word for freedom, but it’s freedom with structure.
Totalitarian lifestyles and their appeal are created by the fear of freedom without structure.
God gives us the law to grant us freedom with structure that liberates our spirit for the service of love and community.
The ultimate place of freedom and order is heaven where everyone is completely free, but not self-absorbed.
Jesus came to show us the way to salvation; freedom from our ultimate enemies of hate, injustice, selfishness, and ego.
There is no such thing as personal salvation. Salvation is always tied to belonging to a family and community and everyone in the family and community being free.
Salvation is a mix of freedom, structure, responsibility, and belonging.
Catholics believe three things are needed for salvation.
- Repentance: leaving our old life and slavery to our sins behind.
- Trust and faith in God.
- Baptism and the new life it brings.
Nowhere in the Bible does God save an individual. God always saves a community.

Ep51 Why Did God Create Us?

February 25, 2021UncategorizedAdam and Eve, Angels, Baltimore Catechism, Christ, Christianity, Earthling, Exodus, Freedom, Genesis, God, Heaven, Hebrews, Hell, Human Beings, Pagans, Pantheism, Relationships, Seraphim, St. Blaise, St. Francis, Tetramorph, The Bible, Unconditional Love, worshipwrestlingwithgodshow

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

Father Len reveals three reasons God created us with some illustrative and inspiring stories and a funny Twinkies analogy.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Father Len reviews the two creation stories in the Bible.
Everyone is born an Earthling and we only become true human beings when we can love to the point of death.
We are meant to evolve into a relationship of unconditional love with God, other people, and creation itself.
Pagan myths trace their creation to something grand and declare their superiority to other people and their origin.
In Christianity, we have this idea of a Trinity. God is a Trinity: lover, beloved, and love itself. We are created by perfect loving relationship, a Trinity for relationship.
God is pure unconditional, self-sacrificing, and self-giving love.
Baltimore Catechism question: “Why did God make you?” Answer: “God made me to know him, to love him, to serve him in this world and be happy with him forever in heaven.”
Heaven is a place of ultimate community and unconditional love. Where we’re all completely different, but united together. Hell is the opposite, to live by and for only one’s self.
In Heaven, we’ll be together as one as grapes in wine. Shedding our selfishness like grapes shedding their skins. We’ll become one without losing our uniqueness, totally united, just as grapes in wine.
Christ sums up all of his teachings this way: “love God with all your heart, mind, and soul and your neighbor as yourself.”
God is not a rule keeper handing out punishment for misbehaving. We inflict our own punishment when we choose only to think of ourselves.
We’re created for relationship and love, work and responsibility, worship and freedom.
Our sin or our holiness affects creation and how we relate to each other.
People who live in long and loving relationships live longer, are happier and healthier.
It is better for your health to eat a Twinkie with friends than a salad by yourself.
People who live life having a purpose beyond themselves live longer, happier and more satisfying lives.

Ep49 Howard Stern’s Religion Dilemma

February 15, 2021UncategorizedAngels, Charles Darwin, Confucius, Curiosity, Dunning-Kruger Effect, Faith, God, Heaven, Howard Stern, Hypocrisy, Logic, Prophet Abraham, Religion, Scripture, spirituality, The Bible, William Shakespearewrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:45 — 30.9MB)

Father Len responds to Howard’s conflicted thoughts and feelings about faith and religion and his strong desire to figure out what he believes about the existence of God.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

“Howard Stern Comes Again” by Howard Stern
Exploring the mysteries of life puts us on the road to wisdom.
Curiosity is one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Humanity tends to pervert most things like politics, nature, marriage, and religion.
Religion is mandated to try to clean up the corrupting impulses of human beings.
Spirituality is not an alternative to hypocrisy in religion. Spiritual integrity is dependent on what each individual declares it to be. Spirituality is accountable only to the individual. Religion is accountable to God. Spirituality is not a meaningful alternative to religion.
Our brains are hardwired to seek meaning and connection with God.
“Why God Won’t Go Away: Brain Science And the Biology of Belief” by Andrew Newberg, Eugene D’Aquili, Vince Rause
The fact that there are sociopaths in religion and business and schools doesn’t invalidate religion any more than it does business and education.
You don’t enter religion because you’re perfect. You enter religion as a way to become a better person.
Howard wonders if all the hours he spent studying Scripture as a kid were a waste of time and why his parents, who weren’t living a spiritual life, would make him do that.
Parents who preach religion to their kids, but don’t practice it, introduce their children to a life of hypocrisy.
Howard struggles to understand the meaning of the Bible story of Abraham, Sarah and their “miracle” son Isaac.
Mothers tend to be the teachers of faith to their children, but if they see their fathers not practicing religion, they probably won’t either.
Wrestling with difficult to understand passages in the Bible helps develop the skill of looking at things differently and discovering their true meaning.
Real faith and religion are often best demonstrated by the elderly.
Howard wonders if logic will help him decide whether to believe in God.
Human beings seldom make decisions based on logic.
The Dunning-Kruger Effect states that “dumb” people think they are smarter than they are and truly smart people are awed by how much they need to learn.
“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” – Confucius
“Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.” – Charles Darwin
“A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.” – William Shakespeare
The greatest scientists in history used logic and faith to come to their belief in God.
The greatest mystery of all is God. Even the Angels in the Bible, when seeing God, kept repeating, you are different, you are different, you are different. There is no way to adequately define God.
Heaven is this community of unconditional love that narcissists are unlikely to understand because in their world everything is about them.

Wrestling with God Show

Two fun-loving and God-fearing Irishmen, a Catholic priest and his good friend, grapple with the big questions about faith, religion, and life.

Tag Archives: God

Ep65 God’s Intention for Church

Ep64 Toxic Religion

Ep63 Bible Symbols Revealed and Explained-Part 3 Oils

Ep61 True Friendship

Ep60 The History of Marriage and What Makes It Work

Ep59 Understanding the Language of God

Ep56 Bible Symbols Revealed and Explained-Part 2 Trees

Ep55 What Is Salvation?

Ep51 Why Did God Create Us?

Ep49 Howard Stern’s Religion Dilemma