Tag Archives: Judaism

Ep98 Listening Is Loving

February 8, 2024UncategorizedAmerican Spirituality, Attention, Attentiveness, Bible, Biblical Spirituality, Book of Deuteronomy, Catholic Church, Community, Emily Dickinson, Hearing, Iris Murdoch, Jesus, Johann Hari, Judaism, Listening, Marriage, Old Testament, Shema Prayer, Stephen R Coveywrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 23:13 — 21.3MB)

Father Len helps us grapple with what it means to truly listen and why God calls us to be professional listeners.

Support Wrestling with God Productions: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Shema Prayer: “Listen O Israel, the LORD your God is one. You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your mind and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.”
Shema means listen, but it really means pay attention.
The Shema is the central prayer of Judaism and Catholicism.
The Bible says, ears that Shema will discover God and what God has made known.
Our society is not trained to listen, but to overpower each other with counter accusations.
God meant us to become professional listeners, listening to the word of God and the voice of God in other people.
Listening forms community.
Not listening or paying full attention destroys community.
Marriage is a type of community.
The gift of hospitality is your full attention.
We can become what we listen to so we must be careful what not to listen to.
“First seek to understand, then to be understood.” – Stephen Covey
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” by Stephen R Covey
“The only commandment I ever obeyed – ‘Consider the lilies.’” – Emily Dickinson
“The number one sin that people are confessing these days is anger.” – Father Len
“All morality comes down to attentiveness, attentiveness to God, attentiveness to other people. The essence of immorality is not to be attentive to others or God, not to see or hear other people.” – Iris Murdoch, Irish philosopher
“Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again” by Johann Hari

We welcome your questions and comments:

Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Links to More Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions

Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/

Ep90 Encore: Imagine a World without Jesus

December 26, 2022UncategorizedAnger, Buddhism, Catholic Church, Christ, Education, Freedom, Gentiles, Gospel of Luke, Greeks, HG Wells, Hospitality, Human Rights, Jesus, Judaism, Mel Gibson, Pettiness, Romans, Science, Selfishness, slavery, social justice, The Passion of the Christ, The Torah, Theology of the Cross, Women, Women’s Rightswrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 32:34 — 29.8MB)

Father Len explains how the radical ideas Jesus introduced 2000 years ago and the church he established to spread those ideas have changed the world forever.

Make a financial donation here: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

“You’re talking about the single event that probably influenced civilization as we know it now. It’s created our laws and behavior. The knowledge of good and evil. It’s influenced art and literature. It’s affected every possible aspect of anyone’s life, whether they know it or not. It’s absolutely everything. If it wasn’t, what would there be? – Mel Gibson, producer/director, The Passion of the Christ
The Gospel of Luke describes how Jesus changed morality and remapped society around meals.
In Jesus’s time there were meal codes about how you eat and who you eat with. Jews ate with Jews, never with Gentiles. Jews ate as a family. Men, women, and children together. Gentiles, the Romans and the Greeks, ate with people of their own class and caste system. Rich and poor never ate together. Men and women didn’t eat together. Men ate first and then women because men were considered superior to women.
Jesus broke all the meal codes of his time drawing people together by a much different morality. He offered radical hospitality to everyone. He welcomed men and women, rich and poor to sit at table with him.
The one person who changed the world the most was not a king or an inventor. The greatest mark on history was made by a traveling preacher named Jesus who established a church community and gave it the responsibility to redraw the world according to hospitality.

“I am an historian. I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all of history. Is it any wonder that to this day, this Galilean is too much for our small hearts?” – HG Wells
Jesus broke all the rules on how to treat women. Prior to Jesus women were treated inhumanely. They were viewed as inferior to men and nothing more than property. In Jesus’s eyes, women and men are equally valuable. Jesus was friends and ministry partners with women. He treated them with dignity and respect.
The idea that all humans – men and women, rich and poor, rulers and peasants – are equally valuable and should be treated with dignity and respect was extremely rare before Christianity.
The church Jesus founded, the Catholic Church, started hospitals, universities, and food banks.
Jesus started an organized movement to care for the poor and the needy. Religion before Christianity, except for Judaism, wasn’t really concerned with morality or taking care of the poor.
The origins of science are rooted in Christian belief. All the early scientists were religious. They were inspired by their faith in Christ to do science. They all viewed science as a means of uncovering the traces of Christ’s handiwork in the universe.
The concepts of social justice, education, human rights, women’s rights, and freedom all fit into the idea of radical hospitality that Jesus introduced to the world.
Jesus has changed the personal lives of billions of people throughout the world by introducing the theology of the cross. Dying to yourself, dying to your ego, becoming a whole new person by living a life of sacrificial love.
Wisdom is path, not a door. The path of daily choices you make on how to live your life.
Wisdom is gained through daily small activities. Small choices that become the whole direction of your life.
The way of the cross is daily making moral choices, making small choices of virtue. Dying to your pettiness, anger, and selfishness.

We welcome your questions and comments:

Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Links to Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions

Wrestling with God Show: http://WWGShow.com
Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/

Ep88 Sadness is a Blessing and Superpower

October 24, 2022UncategorizedAleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Amplification, Bitterness, Catholicism, Christ, CS Lewis, Depression, Franz Kafka, Heaven, Homesickness, Judaism, Leonard Cohen, Longing, Love, Malcolm Gladwell, Repression, Robert Schuller, Sadness, St. Maria of Paris, Suffering, The Biblewrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 39:31 — 36.2MB)

Father Len explains that sadness is our lot in life and how embracing it will bring us wisdom, love, a sense of purpose, and help guide our path to heaven.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

The pain of sadness wakes you up to be more tender and compassionate.
Sadness is a superpower that can transform you into being more creative.
Depression sucks all the life out of you.
Denying sadness can lead to self-absorption and a toxic life.
Father Len shares the story of how the sadness of prison life became a university for growth for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
Depression makes you listless and less concerned for action and the suffering of other people.
Depression is when you’re alone. Sadness is when you’re with other people.
Those who embrace sadness have a greater sense of purpose in their lives.
American society is obsessed with positivity and always being happy, happy, happy.
Studies have found Americans smile more than any other country, but test out to be more depressed.
Obsession with positive thinking is just a form of denial of sadness.
The more you repress something, the more likely you are to act on it.
America’s obsession with positivity and always having a positive attitude is a form of repression.
Sadness is hard, but it also gives birth to love.
Links to Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions
- Wrestling with God Show: http://WWGShow.com
- Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
- A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/
Make a financial donation here: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions
We welcome your questions and comments:
- Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
- Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Ep82 Encore: Can Freedom Destroy Our Country?

May 13, 2022UncategorizedAngel of Death, Ben Hur, Catholicism, Community, Egypt, Emile Durkheim, Freedom, God, Hebrews, Judaism, Meditation, Narcissism, Passover Meal, Pharaoh, Religion, Selfishness, slavery, Sohrab Ahmari, St Paul, Suicide, The Bible, Tyranny, United Stateswrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:21 — 22.3MB)

The effect of freedom depends on how you define it. Father Len reveals how God defines freedom and how other definitions can produce destructive consequences.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Freedom involves being free from something in order to be free to become something.
The American Revolution was about becoming free from the tyranny of a king and the injustices and oppression of a political system.
70% of Americans say they are free or mostly free.
Two thirds of Americans define freedom as being “free to do whatever I want.”
Being “free to do whatever I want” is an immature definition of freedom and the least likely to lead to happiness.
Being “free to do whatever I want” is a form of tyranny that allows you to intrude on the life and liberty of others.
“The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos” by Sohrab Ahmari
We create laws to set the parameters for a working society.
To be free theologically means that we are always working on freedom. Working to become free from the tyranny of selfishness, oppression, and injustice.
When the people of a country define freedom as selfishness, it will always be divided and destroyed.
People who report the highest level of happiness tend to be religious and meditate regularly.
People who report the most freedom from moral constraints tend to be the least happy.
“Suicide, A Study in Sociology” by Emile Durkheim
The really hard part of becoming freer is wrestling with our own egos and recognizing when we’re being selfish.
“If your definition of freedom is, I get to do whatever I want, just historically, it ends terribly. If our country just believes, I’m free to just think about myself, that’s a loss of freedom. I think it destroys our country.” – Father Len
Christians who believe giving up liberties for the sake of others makes them less free don’t understand the freedom of the cross of Christ.
Support the work of Wrestling with God Productions by making a financial donation here: https://www.givesendgo.com/wwgproductions

Ep72 Imagine a World without Jesus

November 9, 2021UncategorizedAnger, Buddhism, Catholic Church, Christ, Education, Freedom, Gentiles, Gospel of Luke, Greeks, HG Wells, Hospitality, Human Rights, Jesus, Judaism, Mel Gibson, Pettiness, Romans, Science, Selfishness, slavery, social justice, The Passion of the Christ, The Torah, Theology of the Cross, Women, Women’s Rightswrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:33 — 28.0MB)

Father Len explains how the radical ideas Jesus introduced 2000 years ago and the church he established to spread those ideas have changed the world forever.

Make a financial donation here: https://www.GiveSendGo.com/WWGProductions

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

“You’re talking about the single event that probably influenced civilization as we know it now. It’s created our laws and behavior. The knowledge of good and evil. It’s influenced art and literature. It’s affected every possible aspect of anyone’s life, whether they know it or not. It’s absolutely everything. If it wasn’t, what would there be? – Mel Gibson, producer/director, The Passion of the Christ
The Gospel of Luke describes how Jesus changed morality and remapped society around meals.
In Jesus’s time there were meal codes about how you eat and who you eat with. Jews ate with Jews, never with Gentiles. Jews ate as a family. Men, women, and children together. Gentiles, the Romans and the Greeks, ate with people of their own class and caste system. Rich and poor never ate together. Men and women didn’t eat together. Men ate first and then women because men were considered superior to women.
Jesus broke all the meal codes of his time drawing people together by a much different morality. He offered radical hospitality to everyone. He welcomed men and women, rich and poor to sit at table with him.
The one person who changed the world the most was not a king or an inventor. The greatest mark on history was made by a traveling preacher named Jesus who established a church community and gave it the responsibility to redraw the world according to hospitality.

“I am an historian. I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very center of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all of history. Is it any wonder that to this day, this Galilean is too much for our small hearts?” – HG Wells
Jesus broke all the rules on how to treat women. Prior to Jesus women were treated inhumanely. They were viewed as inferior to men and nothing more than property. In Jesus’s eyes, women and men are equally valuable. Jesus was friends and ministry partners with women. He treated them with dignity and respect.
The idea that all humans – men and women, rich and poor, rulers and peasants – are equally valuable and should be treated with dignity and respect was extremely rare before Christianity.
The church Jesus founded, the Catholic Church, started hospitals, universities, and food banks.
Jesus started an organized movement to care for the poor and the needy. Religion before Christianity, except for Judaism, wasn’t really concerned with morality or taking care of the poor.
The origins of science are rooted in Christian belief. All the early scientists were religious. They were inspired by their faith in Christ to do science. They all viewed science as a means of uncovering the traces of Christ’s handiwork in the universe.
The concepts of social justice, education, human rights, women’s rights, and freedom all fit into the idea of radical hospitality that Jesus introduced to the world.
Jesus has changed the personal lives of billions of people throughout the world by introducing the theology of the cross. Dying to yourself, dying to your ego, becoming a whole new person by living a life of sacrificial love.
Wisdom is path, not a door. The path of daily choices you make on how to live your life.
Wisdom is gained through daily small activities. Small choices that become the whole direction of your life.
The way of the cross is daily making moral choices, making small choices of virtue. Dying to your pettiness, anger, and selfishness.

We welcome your questions and comments:

Email: irish@wwgproductions.org
Text or voicemail: 208-391-3738

Links to Podcasts from Wrestling with God Productions

Wrestling with God Show: http://WWGShow.com
Life Lessons from Jesus and the Church He Founded: http://LifeLessonsfromJesus.org
A Priest’s Life: https://idahovocations.com/resources/video-podcasts/

Ep69 Becoming Truly Free

September 18, 2021UncategorizedAngel of Death, Ben Hur, Catholicism, Community, Egypt, Emile Durkheim, Freedom, God, Hebrews, Judaism, Meditation, Narcissism, Passover Meal, Pharaoh, Religion, Selfishness, slavery, Sohrab Ahmari, St Paul, Suicide, The Bible, Tyranny, United Stateswrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (0.0KB)

Father Len explains what it takes to become truly free and how the common American understanding of freedom leads to selfishness and narcissism.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Freedom involves being free from something in order to be free to become something.
The American Revolution was about becoming free from the tyranny of a king and the injustices and oppression of a political system.
70% of Americans say they are free or mostly free.
Two thirds of Americans define freedom as being “free to do whatever I want.”
Being “free to do whatever I want” is an immature definition of freedom and the least likely to lead to happiness.
Being “free to do whatever I want” is a form of tyranny that allows you to intrude on the life and liberty of others.
“The Unbroken Thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos” by Sohrab Ahmari
We create laws to set the parameters for a working society.
To be free theologically means that we are always working on freedom. Working to become more free from the tyranny of selfishness, oppression, and injustice.
When the people of a country define freedom as selfishness, it will always be divided and destroyed.
People who report the highest level of happiness tend to be religious and meditate regularly.
People who report the most freedom from moral constraints tend to be the least happy.
“Suicide, A Study in Sociology” by Emile Durkheim
The really hard part of becoming more free is wrestling with our own egos and recognizing when we’re being selfish.
Christians who believe giving up liberties for the sake of others makes them less free don’t understand the freedom of the cross of Christ.

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.

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.

Ep21 “Crazy” and “Annoying” People

July 31, 2020UncategorizedCatholic Church, Hate, Judaism, Love, Sin of Distancing, Teambuilding, The Biblewrestlingwithgodshow

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

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.

Ep10 What is religion?

May 21, 2020UncategorizedAtheism, Catholicism, God, Judaism, Love, Neolithic Times, Paleolithic Times, Religion, Scripture, Soviet Russia, The Biblewrestlingwithgodshow

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:02 — 24.8MB)

Religion has been with us since the beginning of human history. Father Len explains what it is and what it always has been.

Highlights, Ideas, and Wisdom

Religion is a binding of a relationship and commitment to God and other people.
Religion can be traced all the way back to the Stone Age, Paleolithic and Neolithic times.
Early religion was a mix of storytelling, music, art, architecture, astrology, and ritual that brought people together, unified them and tied them to a common purpose.
Stone Age caves were like churches often containing the same 32 symbols that are believed to be a hieroglyphic response to God.
Religion is not a monologue from God. Religion is a dialogue between us and God with us responding to God.
There’s good religion and bad religion. Good religion is one that binds us together and to God. Bad religion is just a structural form for coercion that often divides us.
Good religion is both educational and unifying. It helps us discover the presence of God in our daily lives.
Human beings have forever been trying to answer this call from a mysterious thing we call God that binds us together and directs our lives.
There have been cultural experiments without God in countries like Soviet Russia and Communist China. These experiments in atheism haven’t gone so well and led to lots of bloodshed and millions of deaths.
Atheism’s failures can be traced to the lack of a higher moral code beyond human reasoning.
We like to proclaim ourselves as rational, but we’re not. We’re really good at coming up with excuses to justify our behavior.
Atheism says there is no source of justice beyond “how I view things.” In religion, we say God is the source of justice and our behavior will be judged by God.
Atheism is a type of religion. It may take more faith to believe that “I am the measure of morality” than the faith it takes to believe in God.
Taking the Lord’s name in vain is to misuse religion for power, wealth, or violence. To commit evil in the name of God.
There’s good Scripture and bad Scripture. When you think God is telling you to do something that is not in the Bible, that’s bad Scripture.
Father Len explains how to choose a religion and why not to choose a religion.
Love is not just an emotion. Love is also a type of reasoning.
Father Len shares a fun MacMillan family dinner table conversation to answer the question, “should you choose a religion for your child?”
Religion is incredibly human because it’s constantly seeking the deep connections we all crave and need in this life.