The Way of the Source

Tag: god

  • The First Coming of the Second Jesus

    a bit about names…

    In the beginning of my 6th grade year, the same year the world completely changed on that September Tuesday morning, my biggest problem was that there were too many Johns.

    John. Jonathan. The other Jonathan. Jon. Johnny. Juan.

    Taking attendance felt like a Temu identity crisis. Every time Ms. Kessler called that name, we would all look up at once, each of us trying to determine if we were the one being addressed or if we were just collateral attention. It sounds small, almost even forgettable, but when you’re eleven, names are one of the only things that feel like they truly belong to you.
    And when that gets blurred, something subtle but very real starts to slip.

    So I made a decision.
    I changed my name.

    Not legally. Not dramatically. Just enough to create a boundary between me and everyone else answering to the same sound.

    JD.

    Short. Clear. Distinct.

    Mine.

    It wasn’t about rejecting who I was. It was about refusing to be confused with something that I wasn’t. Because names carry weight. They carry identity, meaning, expectation. They don’t just tell people what to call you… they shape how you’re seen, how you’re remembered, and how you’re understood.

    When multiple people carry the same name in the same space, things can get a bit disorienting. You can respond to something that wasn’t meant for you, or miss something that absolutely was. You can begin to feel interchangeable, identity is just a label that can be swapped depending on who’s speaking.

    That feeling… of blurred identity, of mistaken recognition… it’s easy to dismiss in a classroom.

    But it’s much harder to ignore in a crowd.

    Photo by Mohamed hamdi on Pexels.com

    give us barabbas

    Now imagine a city under occupation.

    The tension isn’t hypothetical. It’s lived-in. Political, religious, cultural… all of it layered together under the watchful eye of an empire that doesn’t care about your traditions but is more than willing to weaponize them if it keeps the peace.

    There’s a crowd gathered. Not a peaceful one. This is a crowd that has been shaped by pressure, by hope withdrawn, by a long memory of who they used to be and a present reality that reminds them, constantly, of what they’re losing and what’s already lost.

    And standing in front of them is a Roman governor with… two prisoners.

    He offers them a choice.
    One will go free.
    One will be executed.

    Even before you examine the details, this entire setup feels unstable. When truth is decided by the loudest voices, justice becomes merely theater. A system so confident in its own authority that it can outsource its moral responsibility to a crowd and still maintain control.

    But then there’s this detail that rarely gets mentioned.

    The one that quietly reshapes everything.

    In some of the earliest manuscripts of the Gospel of Matthew, both of the men standing before that crowd share the same name.

    Not similar.
    The same.

    Jesus.

    Or, more accurately: Yeshua.

    Photo by Angela Chacu00f3n on Pexels.com

    Most of us were given a simplified version of this story:
    There’s Jesus.
    And then there’s Barabbas.

    Two completely different figures. Easy to separate. Easy to judge. One is clearly good, the other is clearly not.

    But some of those early manuscripts preserve a name that complicates that clarity: There is a second “Jesus”. Yeshua Bar-Abba.

    In Aramaic, that means “Yeshua, Son of the Father.”
    Which means the crowd isn’t choosing between Jesus and someone else.
    They’re choosing between:

    Yeshua, Son of the Father
    and
    Yeshua, called the Messiah.

    Two men.
    Same name.
    Same moment.
    Same system holding them both.

    One is released.
    One is condemned.

    Photo by nyashaexplores_ on Pexels.com

    It’s also worth naming who Barabbas actually was (according to the gospels since there is no other record of this event)

    He wasn’t just a random criminal. He wasn’t a petty thief or someone in the wrong place at the wrong time.

    The Gospels describe him as an insurrectionist… someone involved in violent uprising against Rome. It’s alluded that he may have even been affiliated with the other men that ended up crucified next to Jesus Christ. (I’ll write about the word that is translated as thief or robber another time, but there’s more going on there, too. I know, please try to contain your surprise.)


    Barabbas is the kind of person many in that crowd may have quietly admired. The kind of man who embodied the hope that one day, someone would finally fight back hard enough to win.

    Which means the choice in front of that crowd that day wasn’t abstract.
    It was painfully concrete.

    Do you want the Yeshua who resists empire with violence…
    or the Yeshua who refuses to mirror it at all?

    Do you want the one who takes power back…
    or the one who redefines power entirely?

    One promises victory that you can see.
    The other invites transformation that you can’t control.
    And suddenly the choice makes more sense.
    Not better. But more understandable.
    Because Barabbas didn’t look like the wrong choice.
    He looked like the obvious one.

    And suddenly this story isn’t a clean moral contrast. It becomes something far more unsettling… a confrontation between two visions that look similar on the surface but lead in entirely different directions.

    I wrote recently about the name “Jesus,” about how “Yeshua” isn’t just a label but a meaning… rescue, deliverance, salvation. Not as a doctrinal statement, but as a lived hope. It’s the kind of name parents would give a child because they believed something in the world needed to be made right.

    And here, in this moment, that hope is embodied twice.
    Two versions of salvation.
    Two interpretations of what it means to be free.
    One that aligns with instinct.
    One that disrupts it.

    One Yeshua represents something familiar. Tangible. Immediate. A form of deliverance that makes sense in a world governed by power. Resistance. Control. The kind of savior that fights back, that meets force with force, that promises to restore what was lost by taking it back.

    The other Yeshua represents something far more difficult to grasp. A way that refuses to mirror the violence it confronts. A kingdom that doesn’t rise through domination but undermines it from within. It doesn’t offer control. It invites transformation… something slower, less visible, and far more demanding.

    One fits the expectations of the crowd.

    The other challenges the framework entirely.

    And the crowd chooses.

    They release one Yeshua.

    And they crucify the other.

    The longer you sit with that, the harder it is to keep the story at a safe distance. It stops being history and starts becoming a diagnosis.

    Because this isn’t the first time a community has stood in front of two identical figures and made a choice about what to do with them.

    two goats

    Photo by Lefterer on Pexels.com

    Long before Rome and Pontius Pilate, there was a ritual described in Leviticus.
    Once a year, on the Day of Atonement (aka Yom Kippur), two goats were brought forward.
    They were chosen to be as identical as possible. No distinction in strength, appearance, or value. Just two living representations standing in the same place at the same time.
    Lots were cast.
    One goat would be sacrificed.
    The other would be sent away into the wilderness, carrying with it the weight of the people’s failures, their misalignments, their accumulated harm.

    Not punished. Not tortured.
    Removed.
    Taken outside the camp.


    One dies.
    One is released.

    The ritual isn’t just about the goats. It’s about the people watching the ritual. It’s about what they project, what they transfer, what they need to externalize in order to feel whole again.

    Something in them needs to be dealt with.
    Something in them needs to be carried away.

    Now let’s return to the scene before Pilate.

    Two figures.
    One condemned.
    One released.

    A crowd watching.
    A choice being made.

    This isn’t just a political moment. It’s a reenactment. A living symbol of something much older, something embedded in the way humans deal with fear, guilt, and the need for resolution.
    And here’s where it gets uncomfortable.
    In that ancient ritual, the one who carries the weight is sent outside the camp…removed from the center, from the place of belonging, from the system that defines what is acceptable and what is not.
    And in the story of Jesus, the story of Yeshua, the same pattern unfolds.

    He is taken outside the city.
    Rejected.
    Cast out.
    Labeled as the problem.

    Not because an angry God needs blood.
    But because we seem to need somewhere to put our blame.

    Our fear has to go somewhere. Our anger has to go somewhere. Our violence has to be justified, redirected, sanctified. So we create systems that allow us to externalize it, to project it onto someone else, to call it necessary, righteous, even holy.

    And then we choose.
    Not just once.

    But again.

    And again.

    And again.

    We choose the version of salvation that lets us stay in control. We choose the version of power that reassures us we’re on the right side. We choose the narrative that allows us to preserve our identity without requiring transformation. And then we baptize it and call it faith.

    this is ancient history, right?

    Photo by Mark Stebnicki on Pexels.com

    Look around.
    Not in theory. Not in abstraction.
    Right here.
    Especially for us in America.

    In a country where power is constantly baptized in the language of God (or maybe Pulp Fiction). Where violence is justified as protection. Where systems that harm are defended because they feel familiar. Where entire groups of people are reduced, labeled, dismissed… sent outside the camp so the rest of us can feel clean.

    Where wars are waged in our name, funded by our dollars, and explained to us as necessary.

    We are still standing in that crowd.
    Still being offered a choice.
    Still deciding which version of Yeshua we want.

    One that reflects our fear.
    Or one that transforms it.

    And maybe the most unsettling part of the story isn’t that they chose the wrong one.

    It’s how often we still would.

    Not because we’re evil. But because the other way, the way of the crucified Yeshua, doesn’t give us what we think we need.

    It takes something from us.
    Our certainty. Our control.
    Our ability to draw clean lines between “us” and “them.”

    And it replaces it with something harder.
    Something less flashy.
    Something that doesn’t win the way we’ve been taught winning looks.

    Love that absorbs violence without returning it.
    Truth that exposes systems without becoming one.
    A Kingdom that doesn’t come with force
    but grows quietly
    subversively
    within and among us.

    That kind of salvation doesn’t look like power.
    At least not at first.
    Which is why the crowd chose Barabbas, the other Yeshua.

    And why, if we’re honest…
    we still feel the pull to do the same.

  • Choose Life – Reflections on Charlie Kirk

    Today has been heavy.

    News broke that Charlie Kirk has been shot and killed, and like wildfire the story spread across social media. Within minutes, I watched people retreat into their familiar trenches… some shocked, some celebrating, some mocking, some grieving, some raging. And on top of all of this, there was also a school shooting in Colorado and that story barely even cuts through the violent noise.

    Division metastasizes fast when death is involved.

    But can we step back for a moment?

    Can we breathe?

    Beyond Sides, Beyond Labels

    We’ve been trained to think in teams: Left vs. Right. Conservative vs. Progressive. Our side vs. their side. Us vs. Them. But the truth is, those categories are paper-thin compared to the deeper reality of what we are: human beings. Earthlings.  Dust and spirit intertwined.

    We are not the country on our birth certificate.

    We are not the paycheck we bring home, or the title associated with it.

    We are not our political allegiance, or the talking heads we retweet.

    We are fragile creatures, vulnerable to sickness, fear, propaganda, violence. And yet we are also capable of great love.

    To those who despised Charlie’s ideas: You may feel a sense of relief, or even a grim satisfaction seeing someone you consider harmful silenced. But violence doesn’t purify, it corrodes. It doesn’t make us free, it chains us deeper to fear and hatred. Death doesn’t prove a point, it only reminds us how broken we are. If we celebrate death, we’ve lost sight of the life we claim to defend.

    To those who followed Charlie Kirk’s Vision: You may feel attacked, grieving not just a man but what he represented for you. It’s tempting to point fingers and batten down the hatches with hardened defenses and declare this tragedy the fault of “the Left.” But pain is not a weapon. Grief isn’t a political tool. The way forward is not deeper division, but the recognition that life, every life, is sacred. Even if they’re from “Samaria.”

    ⸻

    Today Is a Day to Grieve

    Whether you loved or despised Charlie Kirk, a life was cut short. His family grieves. His friends grieve. His opponents, if they’re honest, should grieve too…

    Not for his politics, but for the reality of yet another life lost to violence for voicing his opinions.

    When death becomes a punchline, we have already chosen division over life.

    Photo by John-Mark Smith on Pexels.com

    Choose Life

    There’s a verse from Moses in Deuteronomy that won’t leave me alone today:

    “I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse.
    Therefore, choose life.”

    Deuteronomy 30:19 ESV

    To choose life doesn’t mean choosing a political party or defending your tribe. It means choosing compassion over cruelty, empathy over mockery, presence over propaganda. It means refusing to let violence (whether physical or rhetorical) become the currency of our culture.

    And Jesus came to show us this very Way. He said he came that we might have life, and have it more abundantly. Yet so often Christianity misses this, trading the way of love for the way of ideology, the way of division, the way of who’s inand who’s out. Jesus told us to love our enemies, to serve the least, to forgive seventy times seven—and somewhere along the way, many traded that radical way of life for defending sides and drawing lines.

    But the way of Jesus has always been the Way of Life. The way of abundant life. The way that pulls us back, again and again, to the Source.

    Lake Tahoe, Incline Village – shot on my iPhone 13 Pro Max

    An Invitation

    So here’s my invitation, as much to myself as to anyone else: Get off social media. Turn off the screen. Step outside. Look at the sky. Listen to the trees. Notice the sound of your own breath. Life is still here. It’s still beautiful, and It’s still worth choosing.

    Grieve, yes. But don’t weaponize grief.

    Mourn, yes. But don’t turn mourning into mockery.

    Life is sacred. And in times like these, remembering that might be the most radical act of all.

    Memento Mori.

    -JD

  • The Gospel of Rain

    Photo by Aleksandar Pasaric on Pexels.com

    It’s been raining here.
    A lot.

    Not the soft, wistful kind of rain that makes you want to stare out a window with a cup of tea and listen to Sigur Ros. We’ve had that too, but this has been the relentless kind. The kind of rain that soaks through boots and schedules and small talk. The kind that doesn’t ask permission before it starts washing things away.

    And yet… I’ve been paying close attention.
    Because something in me has started to wonder if the rain knows what it’s doing.
    I’ve been learning about soil. About herbs and healing and the ancient ways—those old paths that understood the body as part of the Earth, the Earth as part of the divine, and healing as a return to harmony and flow, not just the absence of pain.

    I’ve got garden beds waiting to be filled in the backyard. One will be for fruits and foods, the other for herbs and medicines. I’m making my herbalism dreams a reality. An aloe on the windowsill that was thriving until the repotting and still might make it, if grace holds. Grow bags lined up like little promises to my future self. And in the middle of it all, I’ve been watching how the rain seeps into everything—how it turns the compost, softens the crust, reminds the seeds they’re not forgotten down there.

    But this isn’t just a story about gardening.

    This past week, our friends lost everything in their basement. Three feet of rainwater swallowed their world. We spent the weekend cutting drywall, lifting soaked furniture, tossing years of life into a dumpster while their kids watched from the stairs. There’s a particular kind of silence that fills a house after the flood. And there’s a strange kind of holiness in carrying waterlogged pieces of someone’s story, shoulder to shoulder, soaked to the bone, laughing when you can, crying when you need to.

    I work with water for a living. Storm drains. Pipes. Septic tanks. Systems that most people only think about when they fail. I know firsthand what happens when the flow gets blocked. I know how dangerous it truly gets when what was meant to flow stagnates.

    And I think that’s what this rain has been showing me.

    So this is not a weather report.

    This is a gospel.

    A gospel written in raindrops.
    A gospel for anyone who’s ever felt the ground beneath them has turned to mud.
    A gospel for the overwhelmed, the uprooted, the ones learning to grow again.
    Because the rain isn’t here to ruin us.
    It’s here to bring life.
    It’s here to return us.
    To the soil.
    To each other.
    To something older and deeper and far more alive than the life we built on the surface.

    Welcome to The Gospel of Rain.
    Let it soak in.

    -JD

    We are made of these…things…

    dirt… and water… and breath.

    That’s not poetry. That’s Genesis. That’s biology.

    Rain doesn’t just fall from the clouds. It gives. It baptizes the ordinary. It brings the hidden back to life. And if you truly pay attention you’ll start to notice: the Earth doesn’t just respond to rain. It remembers it in a beautiful way.

    And maybe we do too.

    We as people have forgotten the gospel of the ground. The good news written into roots. The sacred story woven by weeds and worms and wild herbs growing in the cracks. Somewhere along the way, we’ve traded the ancient truth for convenience, plastic packaging, and produce that doesn’t rot because it’s so stripped of life it doesn’t even know how to properly die.

    But the gardens still sing the old song. And if we’re willing to slow down, become aware, and listen, it will teach us how to sing along again.

    Jesus, Soil, and the Mystery of Seeds

    Jesus didn’t build temples. He didn’t establish seminaries. He told stories about soil.

    In Matthew 13, he says the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, small and overlooked but capable of becoming a tree that is a shelter for birds. He says some seeds fall on rocky ground, some on shallow soil, some among thorns, and some on good soil…and the difference isn’t in the seeds. It’s in the readiness of the Earth.

    The soul, like the soil, must be open… soft enough to receive, nourished enough to sustain, deep enough to grow.

    This wasn’t purely metaphor. It was sacred geometry. Divine agriculture. A cosmic parable encoded into every living thing: life comes through death, transformation takes time, and good fruit only comes through rootedness.

    Jesus didn’t say believe these doctrines or memorize these creeds. He said:

    “Consider the lilies…”

    “Look at the birds…”

    “The kingdom is like a seed…”

    He was pointing at the Earth, not away from it.

    Photo by Akil Mazumder on Pexels.com

    Honor Your Father and Mother

    There’s an old commandment, one many of us learned in childhood:

    Honor your father and your mother.

    It’s usually read as a family ethic. But I’m beginning to wonder if it isn’t so much more.

    What if the Father is referring to our Divine Source, the heavenly blueprint in the stars, the radiant Spirit that animates all things…

    And the Mother is the Earth, the womb of form, the soil of becoming, the very dust from which we were made?

    In Hebrew, the word for “earth” is adamah—the root of the name Adam. In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, Adam represents not just a man, but humanity as a whole—the cosmic being, both formed from the dust and filled with divine breath.

    To honor the Father and the Mother, then, would be to walk in alignment with where we come from—Spirit and Soil. Breath and Body. Mystery and Matter.

    When we dishonor either; by spiritualizing everything and denying the body, or by commodifying the Earth and forgetting the sacred, we lose our way.

    We lose our very selves.

    Wisdom from the East

    The Taoist tradition teaches us about living in harmony with the natural rhythms of life. The Tao is the Way—the Source from which all things emerge and to which all things return. It flows like water, nourishes like rain, moves like wind through trees and time.

    “The Tao does nothing, yet nothing is left undone.” – Lao Tzu

    In gardening, this wisdom becomes real. You can’t force a plant to grow. You prepare the soil, tend the space, and then you must trust the seed to know what to do. This is the heart of both mystical faith and herbal practice: alignment and harmony, not control.

    In Hinduism, the idea of dharma reflects your truest path—your alignment with nature, spirit, and self. There’s a beautiful teaching that all beings have their own dharma, even a leaf or a river. To live your dharma is to live like a tree: rooted, patient, in service to the whole.

    Herbalism becomes dharma when we begin to see each plant as a bearer of wisdom, each root as a teacher. We don’t just utilize them—we commune with them and we learn from them.

    Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

    Soil as Scripture, Rain as Revelation

    We were made from the dust. That’s not a demotion. Honestly, it’s a deep honor. The same elements that form stars form your cells. The same carbon in a fallen tree lives on in your bones. The Earth isn’t beneath us. She is of us.

    The Bible says, “The heavens declare the glory of God, the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1).

    And the Earth?
    She doesn’t just absorb the rain
    She listens. She remembers. She responds.

    Rain isn’t just water falling from the sky.
    It’s the memory of the heavens returning to the soil.
    It’s the baptism that makes resurrection possible.

    Soil isn’t just dirt.
    It’s alive. Teeming. Holy.
    A thin place where death becomes nourishment.

    And the herbs we plant?
    They’re not just medicine.
    They’re messengers.
    Whispers from the old world,
    carrying healing that’s older than any of the systems we’ve created.

    The Garden is Calling Us Back

    We live in a time when disconnection is profitable.
    But reconnection is powerful.
    Revolutionary.
    Healing.

    When you grow your own food, you remember that abundance isn’t just an idea, it’s a practice.

    When you tend to your herbs, you remember that healing is not always instant.
    It’s relational.

    When you let the rain baptize your garden, you remember that nothing living thrives without receiving.

    This is the gospel of the garden.

    The truth that’s been growing since the beginning.

    Eden is not lost, it’s waiting for us to honor our Father and our Mother.

    Since you’re still here, I wanna know:

    What are you growing this season in the soil?
    In your body?
    In your spirit?

    What rhythms are you aligning with that the world told you to ignore?

    What would it look like to honor both your Father in heaven and your Mother beneath your feet?

  • Embracing Doubt: A Journey Through Faith Deconstruction

    A quick note: I’m currently writing a book. It’s going to be a spiritual autobiography that will include much of what’s in this post, and much of what’s already been posted on this blog, but will go into much greater depth. The topic of deconstruction alone has inspired entire blogs and books of their own. So with that being said, here’s a glimpse into my journey through deconstruction.

    -JD Merrill

    I remember the first time I felt the floor cracking beneath my faith.

    It wasn’t a slow erosion… it was an earthquake. A single question at first, then another, then a tidal wave of doubt that left me gasping for air. Things that had once felt rock-solid… God’s goodness, the reliability of scripture, the purpose behind it all… suddenly seemed fragile, even hollow.

    And the worst part?

    I had been taught that doubt was the enemy.

    In the faith tradition I grew up in, questioning wasn’t just discouraged: it was dangerous. It meant you were “backsliding,” being “led astray,” giving in to the deception of the world. There was a formula: Believe. Obey. Don’t ask too many questions. If the answers didn’t make sense, the problem was with you, not the system. So when my questions became louder than the sermons, when my prayers felt like they were evaporating into silence, I was left with an unbearable weight of guilt.

    Maybe you know the feeling.

    Maybe you’ve sat in a church service, surrounded by people singing with a sense of certainty, while something inside you whispered, I don’t know if I believe this anymore. Maybe you’ve tried to ignore the nagging contradictions, hoping that if you just had more faith, the doubts would go away. Maybe you’ve been told that your questions mean that you’re losing your faith. But what if that’s not true? What if deconstruction isn’t falling away, but waking up?

    When the House Falls Down

    For a long time, I saw faith like a house. A sturdy, well-built structure I had inherited, passed down from generations before me. It had walls made of doctrines, floors of biblical inerrancy, a roof of absolute certainty. It kept me safe. It kept everything in order. But when the cracks started forming, when I realized some of those walls weren’t as solid as I had been told, the whole thing started shaking. And when it finally collapsed, I thought I had lost everything. I felt like I had lost a God who had been my best friend for my entire life.

    For me, deconstruction started in the background, on the periphery, like a creeping vine I wasn’t paying too much attention to. When something didn’t make sense to me, I could just set that aside until I had better understanding or a new perspective. I had always been one to challenge tradition and the status quo. I was raised charismatic, after all, so if something didn’t resonate with my spirit, I needed to know why. Why do we do things this way instead of that way? If I understood the “why” I could either get on board, or find a new avenue.

    After leaving the church we met at, my wife and I were part of planting a new church. As the Worship Leader I had the opportunity to decide what kind of songs and what kind of theology we were going to incorporate through music. So I started really paying attention to the lyrics of every song, to see if they resonated with what we believed, and what this new church was going to believe.

    Bring On The Questions

    It wasn’t the big doctrines that wavered at first—it was what I would consider secondary beliefs:

    Was Noah’s Ark historical?

    Was Jonah really swallowed by a great fish and survived?

    Was Jesus actually born of a virgin?

    Was the Earth created in 6 business days?

    Were these stories meant to be taken literally, or was there something deeper I was missing?

    As time went on, however, the questions grew bolder. The cracks spread. Pretty much everything except the person of Jesus stopped making sense to me… or at least, it didn’t make sense in the way I had always understood it.

    And all the while, I was still leading worship. Still married to a Christian woman that I met at church. Still getting my paycheck from the church. It wasn’t just my faith that was unraveling. It was my entire identity. My career. My way of life. Worship leading wasn’t just my job; it was who I was. It was the thing I had always wanted to do, the dream I had carried since I was a kid.

    And then, one night, while studying the Bible and examining the lyrics to a song, the last brick in the foundation of my faith crumbled.

    And I still had to lead worship practice.

    I had to pray out loud to lead a worship team that I was building, who were looking to me to lead them, knowing I no longer believed in a God who was out there somewhere listening. I had to lift my hands in the songs I had led a thousand times before, knowing they no longer meant the same thing to me. I had to stand in a room full of people who had no idea that, inside, I felt like I was disappearing.

    The Dark Night of the Soul

    This journey through doubt and uncertainty is not a new phenomenon. In the 16th century, St. John of the Cross wrote about the Dark Night of the Soul, describing it as a period of spiritual desolation, disorientation, and doubt that precedes a deeper communion with the Divine. He wrote:

    “To come to the knowledge you have not, You must go by a way in which you know not.” —St. John of the Cross

    Contemporary theologian Peter Rollins echoes this sentiment, suggesting that embracing doubt is integral to authentic faith. He says it this way:

    “The point is only that the believer should not repress the shadow of doubt that hangs over all belief… Instead, the believer ought to acknowledge and even celebrate this dark night of the soul, understanding that this is not a threatening darkness which conceals an enemy but rather is the intimate darkness within which we embrace our faith.” —Peter Rollins

    Deconstruction as an Invitation

    For so many of us, deconstruction starts with grief. The loss of certainty, the unraveling of everything we thought we knew. But what if it’s not just an ending?

    What if it’s an invitation?

    To see the Divine… not in rigid doctrines, but in the uncontainable vastness of reality itself. To find meaning… not in having all the answers, but in the beauty of the mystery. To encounter “God”… not in the places we were told they must be, but in the places we never expected.

    For me, the breaking of my faith wasn’t the end. It was the beginning of something deeper, something freer. I stopped looking for God in the confines of a religious system and started experiencing the sacred in the very fabric of existence. In music that shook me to my core. In the stillness of the morning. In the unfiltered, unforced moments of love and connection that needed no theological justification to be real. And here’s the paradox: It wasn’t until I let go of certainty that I actually found something worth holding onto.

    Losing to Find

    Jesus once said, “Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.” I think that can apply to our faith, too. Maybe the faith we were handed… the kind that demands certainty, that requires obedience without question, that fears doubt like a disease… was never the point. For me it was just scaffolding, a temporary structure meant to get us to a place where we could finally encounter something real. The loss of that faith doesn’t have to be just a tragedy. Maybe it’s the first breath of freedom.

    What Next?

    If you’re in that space of the in-between, the aftermath, the uncertainty I want to tell you something I wish someone had told me:

    You are not broken.

    You are not wrong.

    You are not failing.

    You are not alone.

    But… please keep an open mind.

    I didn’t mean to stop believing in God. It wasn’t a choice I made, a rebellion I embraced, or a philosophy I eagerly adopted. It was more like a slow, unrelenting erosion… like the tide pulling the sand from beneath my feet until I realized there was nothing left to stand on.

    At first, there was grief. Crying in my car outside of a church because I couldn’t’t take communion. That was for believers, and for the first time I was on the outside of that. But over a few weeks that led to a sense of relief. The weight of trying to reconcile an ancient faith with the brutal realities of the modern world had been exhausting. Without God, I was free. Free from the cognitive dissonance, the theological gymnastics, the need to justify suffering with some twisted divine purpose. Free to love and accept everyone, no matter their religion, sexual orientation, voting record, or any of the other ways we divide ourselves.

    There was something clean about it, something sharp. The world made sense in a way it never had before… random, indifferent, ruled by chaos and natural laws rather than magical celestial orders. And for a while, that was enough. I leaned into thinkers like Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris, reveling in their unflinching logic. I found comfort in the idea that morality was an evolutionary construct, not a divine mandate. The universe didn’t care, and maybe that was okay.

    But atheism, like the faith I had left, held its own brand of certainty and exclusivity. I saw it in online debates, in the way ex-believers scoffed at spirituality, dismissing anything beyond the material as childish wishful thinking. And if I was honest with myself, I had adopted that same posture. I had traded one dogma for another, one absolute for a different kind. I became cynical. There was no room for mystery, no space for wonder. The vastness of existence had been reduced to atoms and neurons, cause and effect. And yet, something in me still ached.

    It was in that emptiness that I found something unexpected. Or rather, something found me. Because even when I had deconstructed everything, even when I had tried to empty myself of God, there was still… something.

    Not the old man in the sky. Not the tribal deity of my childhood. But a presence, a current, a whisper beneath all things. It wasn’t a return to certainty, it was a surrender to unknowing. And in that surrender, I began to heal. I embraced experience, and found hope in adopting a mystical lens.

    Deconstruction is not the end. It is the beginning. The bravest thing you can do is walk into the dark, not knowing if the ground will hold, trusting that even in the void, you are not alone. Because once you have a real question, there is no way out, only a way through.

    As St. John of the Cross once wrote, “If a man wishes to be sure of the road he treads on, he must close his eyes and walk in the dark.”

    So for today, don’t be afraid of doubts.  Don’t be afraid of questions. Your community may not understand, and there may be very real risks in being authentic and striving for truth. But if you stay curious, brave the uncertainty, and refuse to accept hollow answers, you will find truth. What is true will remain true regardless of your questioning. And any “God” worth believing in, will be there on the other side in a way that’s more true than you ever thought possible. And when new questions or doubts arise, you will have the tools and experience needed to navigate the mystery with intellectual integrity and joy.

    And hopefully, like me, you’ll find that in the ancient wisdom traditions lies a truth that is so deep, so true, and so real that you have to use metaphor, allegory, and poetic language. Because once you pin down the butterfly to examine its wings, it loses its ability to fly.

    Stay curious, my friends. The truth runs in the deep streams.

  • “Hallelujah!”

    The Wild Unstoppable Cry of the Soul

    Growing up in a charismatic Pentecostal church and family, I heard the word Hallelujah a lot. Sure, it was shouted during sermons, whispered fervently in prayer, and sung with hands raised high. Usually, it was said as a trivial celebration when my mom found her keys or that thing she’d been looking for for weeks. I often hear it used sarcastically. When I was touring with Settle The Sky, my Christian metal band, Hallelujah was screamed into microphones, echoing through sweaty clubs and church basements, sometimes from the voices of kids who weren’t even sure what they believed—but something about that word felt powerful. And while everyone used this word, I felt like most people didn’t seem to be able to articulate what it really meant.

    Hallelujah isn’t just a word. It’s a cry. A defiant, unrelenting, soul-shaking exclamation that transcends language, genre, and even belief systems. It’s one of the few Hebrew words that has made its way, unchanged, into nearly every language on earth. My wife, Ariel, walked down the aisle to an acoustic version of this song whose only lyric was just the word Hallelujah.

    But what does Hallelujah actually mean? And why does it hold so much weight—whether whispered in worship, shouted in ecstatic praise, or screamed over a hardcore caveman riff in a Sleeping Giant song?

    The Etymology of Hallelujah:

    The word Hallelujah (הַלְלוּיָהּ) is made up of two parts:

    • Hallelu (הַלְלוּ) – A command meaning “praise” (from halal, meaning to shine, boast, or act wildly celebratory).

    • Yah (יָהּ) – A shortened form of YHWH, the divine name of God.

    So Hallelujah literally means “Praise God!” But not in a quiet, reserved, or passive way.

    The root word halal is wild. It comes from the exclamation of freedom. In Islam, if a food is “halal”, then it is praised by the divine and they are “free” to eat it. It means to boast, to rave, to shine, to act clamorously foolish in celebration. It’s the kind of word that doesn’t fit neatly into the stoic, buttoned-up version of faith so many of us were handed. Halal is loud. It’s undignified. It’s messy.

    It’s the kind of word that makes most religious people uncomfortable.

    Dance Dance Revolution

    One of the most unrestrained biblical pictures of true Hallelujah comes from 2 Samuel. King David, who was a warrior and poet, brings the Ark of the Covenant back to Jerusalem. And how does he celebrate?

    He dances.

    Furiously.

    He strips off his royal linen robes and dances before the Lord with all his might, completely unbothered by how ridiculous he looks. His wife, Michal, watches in disgust, embarrassed by his lack of dignity. That’s a striking image for Michal’s attitude toward David. She wasn’t just upset; she was cutting him off in her heart, separating herself from his joy and his deep, intimate worship before Yahweh. But David doesn’t care.

    “I will become even more undignified than this!” he tells her. “I will be humiliated in my own eyes!” -2 Samuel 6:22

    That is Hallelujah—the kind of unrestrained, all-consuming celebration that doesn’t care about appearances or what kind of societal consequences or judgment it brings up in others. The kind that doesn’t hold back. The kind that shakes the ground.

    Hallelujah in Metal, Hardcore, and Charismatic Worship

    When I look back, I realize that my time in the charismatic church and my time in metal and hardcore were deeply connected by this same reckless, passionate spirit.

    In charismatic churches, worship wasn’t just singing songs… it was warfare. It was an outpouring of emotion. People danced, shouted, wept, fell to their knees. Some spoke in tongues. Some shook under the weight of something they couldn’t explain. The band played loud, but not for performance or recognition, but because the Spirit was moving, and nothing about that moment should be tame.

    Then I stepped into the world of metal and alternative music, and I felt something eerily familiar. The intensity. The passion. The catharsis of screaming from the depths of your soul, of pushing your body to the limit, of letting go of self-consciousness and giving everything you have to something bigger than yourself. To the energy that was stirring up between everyone in the room.

    In the pit at a hardcore show, I saw people swinging fists, jumping off stages, pile-driving toward a moment that felt transcendent. When we played, I saw kids who wouldn’t set foot in a church scream their lungs out to lyrics about redemption, about sacrifice, about love, about hope. The church might not have understood our art form, but it was never really about playing music or getting fame or being a rock star. It was about uniting the broken in a moment of raw transcendence.

    To me, that is Hallelujah.

    Hallelujah and the Illusion of Separation

    There’s something about raw, undignified presence and unity that breaks through the illusion that we are separate from something greater. Not the polished, performance-driven kind that is trying to impress to satisfy an egoic need—but the kind that throws off every weight, every inhibition, and lets the soul truly cry out.

    Hallelujah is not about conformity. It’s about connection. It’s about that deep, undeniable pull that every mystic, every artist, every seeker has felt—the pull toward something vast, luminous, and overwhelmingly real. Whether you call it God, the Tao, the Divine, the Source, the Universe, or simply Love, there is something in all of us that knows:

    There is more.

    And we are all a part of it. We are all invited to leave our egos at the door so our truest self can be free.

    Hallelujah is the moment the wave crashes and you feel one with the ocean.

    It’s the lump in your throat when a song wrecks you in the best way.

    It’s the dancer lost in flow state movement, the poet captivated in words, the mother holding her child, the breath that catches in awe.

    It’s in the scream of a metalhead in the pit, in the whispered prayer of the doubter, in the sigh of the atheist staring up at the stars, feeling something too beautiful for words.

    Hallelujah isn’t just for “believers”. It isn’t just for “church”. It isn’t just for those who understand. It’s for whoever breathes.

    Psalm 150:6 – Let everything that has breath praise Yah.

    And Yah means YHWH

    The Invitation to Live Hallelujah

    Maybe you’ve been taught that spiritual connection had to look a certain way—had to fit into a religious mold that never quite felt right. Maybe, like me, you felt more of something divine in the roar of a crowd than in a pew. Maybe you were outcast by a church more focused on everyone believing and behaving the same way than having a real encounter with an untamed spirit. Maybe you’ve been waiting for permission to show up fully as you are, to throw off self-consciousness, to stop filtering your presence and just be—raw, honest, unrestrained.

    Here it is.

    Let your Hallelujah be loud. Let it be messy. Let it be real.

    Not because you have to worship a deity, or a god out there somewhere else, not because you need to fit into any system of belief, or any organized religion.

    But simply because you are alive.

    Because you are part of something bigger than yourself. Because your voice, your body, your breath, your existence—it all matters.

    Because to be fully alive, fully present, fully surrendered to this eternal moment—that is the cry of Hallelujah.

  • The God Without a Name

    Finding the Divine in the Breath of Life

    Zeus. Buddha. Shiva. Ra. Flying Spaghetti Monster.

    Have you ever wondered why most deities have names—but the Christian God is most often just called “God”? This used to baffle me as a kid. I remember thinking that other religions must think we’re so arrogant. We didn’t just claim our God was the one true God—we took the very word “God” and used it as His name.

    Names have power. They define, they distinguish, they shape how we understand something. Yet, in the Western World where it’s almost assumed that everyone is a Christian, the Divine is often left with a generic title rather than a personal name. Why?

    The answer to this mystery lies at the source. It is ancient and profound—something that has been hidden in plain sight within the earliest writings of the Bible itself.

    YHWH: The Breath of Existence

    The first time we encounter the Divine Name in the Hebrew Scriptures is in the story of Moses and the burning bush from the book of Exodus. Moses, a shepherd and fugitive, finds himself drawn to a strange sight—a bush engulfed in flames that is never consumed by the fire. As he approaches, he hears a voice calling his name. This is no ordinary moment; it is an encounter with the Divine.

    Moses asks the voice, “Who should I say sent me?”

    And the response is enigmatic, profound: Ehyeh asher Ehyeh (אֶהְיֶה אֲשֶׁר אֶהְיֶה)—or in English “I AM that I AM.” It is an answer that refuses definition, evading labels and fixed identities. Then, God gives Moses the Name: YHWH.

    This moment is mystical, deep, and powerful. The name revealed is not just a title but a verb, a state of being. I AM. It is existence itself, the ever-present, ever-unfolding Source. YHWH is not a static deity bound to a temple or an image but the very essence of life itself. The Israelites would come to see this name as so sacred that they wouldn’t use it in writing or speaking, because it is a mystery that could only be experienced but couldn’t be fully grasped or nailed down.

    Most scholars believe that it should be understood as a symbolic representation of God’s presence and call to Moses, rather than a completely literal account of a physical burning bush that did not burn up. The focus is on the divine encounter and the message conveyed, not necessarily the exact details of the imagery or its literal nature. Keep in mind that this writing is premodern and doing its best to give language and story to the mystery that we call the Divine.

    The Hebrew Bible does not originally call the Divine simply “God.” It speaks of YHWH (יהוה), a name so sacred that it was often left unspoken. But this isn’t just about reverence—it’s about something deeper.

    Some scholars and mystics suggest that YHWH is not a typical name at all, but an attempt to capture the sound of breathing. Say it slowly without vowels—YH…WH…—and you might notice how it mirrors the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling. In this sense, the Divine name is not meant to be spoken in the traditional sense, but experienced. Every breath we take is a reminder of the Source, the ever-present reality sustaining all life.

    I remember the first time I heard this idea, and it hit me like a punch to the gut. The name of the Divine—so ineffable, so untouchable—was something I had been unconsciously uttering my entire life. With every inhale and exhale, I had been speaking the Name. It wasn’t something separate from me; it was within me. It was me, and it was you, and it was everything that has breath. What animates us all.

    Why Was YHWH Left Unspoken?

    In Jewish tradition, YHWH is considered too sacred to pronounce. Instead, substitutes like Adonai (meaning “Lord”) or HaShem (meaning “The Name”) are used. But even these alternatives hint at something beyond language itself.

    Adonai, meaning “Lord” or “Master”—and also, incidentally, a banger of a song by Petra—comes from a root meaning “sovereign,” a term of reverence, yet it does not replace the unspeakable reality of YHWH—it only gestures toward it. The reluctance to speak the Name serves as a reminder that the Divine is beyond human categories, beyond definition, beyond limitation. The moment you try to define it, you lose it.

    This stands in stark contrast to modern Christianity’s casual use of the term “God.” It’s a catch-all phrase that has become so generic that it often loses its depth and mystery. Yet, the ancient understanding suggests something radically different: the Divine is not a concept to be named, but a presence to be encountered. A spirit to be present with.

    Echoes in Other Traditions

    This idea—that the Divine is beyond naming yet intimately present and accessible—resonates across spiritual traditions.

    • In Taoism, the Tao Te Ching begins with: “The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao.” Like YHWH, the Tao is beyond words, a force that underlies all existence. Tao actually means “The Way,” which I find quite fascinating.
    • Hinduism speaks of Brahman, the supreme universal spirit, the ultimate reality that cannot be fully defined, yet is the essence of all things. The sacred sound Om is often said to contain the vibration of all existence, much like YHWH as breath.
    • Sufism, the mystical branch of Islam, often chants the Divine name Hu in meditation. Hu is the breath of life, the ungraspable presence of Allah, known not through intellect, but through experience.

    Reclaiming the Sacred Mystery

    So what happens when we move beyond “God” as a mere label and return to the mystery to be experienced? What if we stopped trying to define the Divine with rigid words and instead sought it in the breath, in the motion, in the silence, and in the spaces between?

    I think about my friends who have walked away from religion, many of them artists, musicians, and punks who reject anything that smells like control or dogma. I get it. I’m there too. Especially with the current state of the church in America. But what if the problem isn’t the Divine itself, but the way it’s been packaged and sold? What if the real thing was never meant to be locked inside churches and creeds, but was as close as your next breath?

    To speak the Name of God is to breathe. To seek the Name of God is to live life to its fullest and most abundant.

    In the words of Father Richard Rohr: “I remind people that there is no Islamic, Christian, or Jewish way of breathing… The playing field is utterly leveled.” No one and no religion can control this spirit.

    This shatters identity politics and the idea that the Divine is exclusive to any certain people group. If you breathe, you’re in. Period.

    The Name that isn’t a Name is still speaking.

    Are you listening?

  • You never knew THIS about Valentine’s Day

    Is it just me or have Valentine’s Day products been on the shelves since like Christmas Eve? Let’s not even get started on the corporate consumerism of it all, because while true, that sounds draining and stressful. I want to talk little bit about real love. I’m sure all the retailers and date night spots would like you to believe that love is something you can buy.  Or at the very least, that you have to spend money to prove your love adequately. But we all know that love is one of those things that can’t be bought. Love can’t be defined. Love can never fully be expressed or contained. Artists, poets, philosophers, filmmakers and humans throughout all of history have tried to capture something that seems to be futile to the ineffability and infinity of love. Behind the candles, dessert menus, and manufactured romance this week lies an invitation to explore an eternal mystery:

    What is love?

    Like, really….what is it? And how do we begin to grasp its infinite depth?

    A Brief History of Valentine’s Day

    The origins of Valentine’s Day are hazy, and a bit jumbled together from history, legend, and myth. The most famous tale tells of St. Valentine, a priest in 3rd-century Rome. Emperor Claudius II had placed a ban on marriage for young soldiers. Our boy Valentine risking everything, he performed secret weddings, believing that love transcended law, empire, and even death. For this, he was put to death on February 14th, and his legacy grew into a celebration of love.

    But long before St. Valentine, around the same date in February was Lupercalia. Lupercalia was an ancient Roman festival of fertility, passion, and renewal. It was a time when love was understood as something untamed and primal, honestly maybe even a bit brutal at times. They saw love as a force woven into the very fabric of existence.

    From the earliest days of human history, love never seems to be merely sentimental or easy to capture with words.

    Love is…  Sacred.

    Esoteric.

    Transformative.

    It is the fire that has bound hearts, shattered oppression, and opened doorways to the divine throughout eternity.

    Ancient Wisdom on Love

    Traditions across the world have long understood love as more than an emotion and more than human attachment or pair bonding. Love is the gravitational force of our souls, the spiritual thread stitching all things together, the current that carries us back home.

    • The Taoist Perspective: Love is the dance of Yin and Yang, the interplay of opposites. It is not about possession or control but balance. Allowing the other to be fully themselves while remaining fully yourself. Love is not static. Love is found in the flow, in surrendering to the harmony of existence.

    • Hindu Teachings: The Bhagavad Gita speaks of bhakti, a love that transcends the physical and becomes devotion to the divine in all things. To love another fully is to see God within them, to recognize that every face is a reflection of the infinite. Namaste.

    • Jewish Mysticism (Kabbalah): In Kabbalah, love (ahavah) is not just an emotion but an act of giving, a channel through which divine energy flows. The more we give of ourselves, the more we reflect the divine essence that permeates all things. Love expands the soul, dissolving the illusion of separateness from God.

    Jesus and the Way of Love

    Jesus did not just teach love; he embodied it. And not the pretty pink love of overpriced greeting cards, but a love so radical, so boundary-shattering, that it turned the world upside down.

    • “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This is not just an ethical rule, it is a deeper truth about our connection to one another. The boundaries we perceive between our selves, “me” and “them”,  are not as solid as they seem. When we love another, we reflect that love within ourselves. When we harm another, we diminish something within our own soul.

    • “Love your enemies.” Jesus knew that love isn’t about being deserving. It isn’t earned. It is not a transaction. Love simply is. A force that flows freely, without condition, because love is the very nature of God. And aligning ourselves with that spirit, living in this way can heal ourselves and those around us. 

    • “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” I truly don’t think that this is merely about physical sacrifice, but about something far deeper: the surrender of the self we construct, the one bound by ego and illusion. The one that sees itself as separate. To love is to release that false self and step into the greater reality of connection. It is letting go of the masks we wear, the pride that separates us, and the fear that keeps us from recognizing the deep river that flows through us all. 

    Love as the Bridge to the Divine

    Love is not something we possess. It possesses us. It moves through us like breath, like light, like the pulse of the universe itself.

    To love deeply is to see beyond the illusion of separateness. To love fully is to recognize the divine in every face, in every moment, in every breath. Love is not a reward. It is not a prize to be won. It is not earned. Love simply is. It is the essence from which we come and to which we return.

    An Invitation to Love More Fully

    This Valentine’s Day, go beyond the surface-level expressions of love. I’m hoping that we expand our love beyond romance to the stranger, to the enemy, to the earth itself. To love with the reckless abandon of mystics, the unwavering devotion of sages, and the boundless generosity of the Source from which all love flows.

    Whisper a blessing to someone in silence. Speak love into the world, even to those who may not return it. Reject fear. Love your enemies. See the divine in the ordinary… in the eyes of a friend, in the face of a stranger, in the reflection staring back at you in the mirror.

    Let love not be a fleeting feeling, but the very path that leads us home.

    Because in the end, love is not something we give or receive.

    Love is who we are.

    Love is who I Am.

  • Teshuvah: Repent or Return?

    If you grew up in church, you probably heard the word repentance a lot. Maybe it was shouted from a pulpit, written on a sign, or used in altar calls:

    “Repent, or burn in hell!”

    “Repent and be saved!”

    “If you died tonight, would you go to heaven or hell?”

    For many of us, repentance meant fear—a desperate attempt to stay on God’s good side. It wasn’t about transformation; it was about avoiding punishment.

    Repentance was something we did when we felt guilty, when we messed up, when we knew we weren’t enough. It was tied to shame—the deep, gut-wrenching feeling that not only had we done something wrong, but that we were wrong.

    How many times did we sob at the altar, begging God to forgive us, only to walk away feeling like we were never quite clean enough? How often did we promise to be better, to stop sinning, to try harder—only to fail again and spiral into self-hatred?

    And the worst part? The cycle never ended. Guilt. Shame. Fear. Try harder. Fail. Repeat. I must’ve been “saved” at that youth group altar at least a hundred times and still it never felt like it “stuck”.

    This was “repentance” as we understood it—a painful, never-ending struggle to make ourselves acceptable to God so he wouldn’t send us to hell.

    But what if I told you that this isn’t at all what repentance was meant to be? That the original Hebrew concept of Teshuvah is something radically different—something healing, something freeing?

    Teshuvah: More Than Just Saying ‘Sorry’

    The word Teshuvah (תשובה) is usually translated as “repentance,” but that translation barely scratches the surface. Teshuvah comes from the root shuv (שוב), which means to return.

    It’s not about groveling before an angry God. It’s not about wallowing in guilt. It’s about coming back home.

    Teshuvah is the realization that you were never meant to be lost. That even when you wander, the way back is always open. That you are not a filthy sinner begging for mercy—you are a beloved child, made in the image of the divine, finding your way back to wholeness.

    Breaking the Cycle of Shame

    One of the most damaging things about our modern idea of repentance is that it keeps us trapped in shame. Shame isolates. Shame paralyzes. Shame tells us we’re broken beyond repair.

    But Teshuvah offers something entirely different: healing.

    Instead of saying, “You are a failure, and you must pay for your mistakes,” Teshuvah says,

    “You have lost your way, but you are not lost forever. Come home.”

    Instead of saying, “You are defined by your worst choices,” Teshuvah says,

    “Your past is not your identity. Who you truly are is deeper, truer, and has always been connected to the divine.”

    Instead of saying, “You must earn forgiveness,” Teshuvah says,

    “You are already loved. The path to healing is open—step into it.”

    Teshuvah as a Path to Transformation

    Teshuvah isn’t a one-time event. It’s not just about asking for forgiveness. It’s a lifelong rhythm of waking up, realigning, and returning to who you were created to be.

    Jewish wisdom teaches that Teshuvah has four essential steps:

    1. Recognizing the misalignment – Honestly acknowledging where you’ve gone off track. And that’s all it is. Stepping off of the path.

    2. Feeling true remorse – Not guilt, but a deep realization of what has been lost.

    3. Making amends – Repairing what has been broken, especially in your relationships, actions, or intentions. My AA friends know all about this step and how crucial it is.

    4. Committing to change – Becoming someone who, given the same situation, would choose differently. Not about doing anything, but about who you are, what you believe about yourself, and what you believe about the world around you.

    And here’s the most radical part—Teshuvah doesn’t just erase your mistakes. It transforms them.

    In Jewish thought, when Teshuvah is done from a place of deep love and sincerity, even past sins can become merits. The very things that led you away can become the very things that bring you closer to the divine. Your story isn’t ruined—it’s redeemed.

    Teshuvah and the Teachings of Jesus

    Jesus, as a Jewish teacher, absolutely understood Teshuvah. When he spoke about “repentance” in Greek (metanoia), he was talking about a fundamental shift in perception—a transformation of consciousness. He wasn’t calling people to wallow in guilt, but to awaken to something greater.

    Think about the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15). The son leaves home, squanders everything, and finally realizes he needs to return. He expects shame and punishment—but instead, his father runs to embrace him. That’s Teshuvah.

    Jesus wasn’t preaching fear-based repentance. He was showing us The Way home.

    Living a Life of Teshuvah

    So what does this mean for us today?

    It means that whenever you feel lost, you are never too far gone. The way back is always open.

    It means that your past does not define you. Mistakes aren’t final. You are still becoming. Your power has never been in the past or thew future anyways. It is right here with a present awareness. This is why we meditate, focus on the breath, and pray.

    It means that the love of God is not something you have to earn—it’s something you return to. Something you were born into.

    And it means that every time you wake up to love, to truth, to the divine, to the present moment, you are practicing Teshuvah.

    No more shame. No more fear. Just the open arms of a father, The Source, running to meet you on the road back home.

    And that, my friends, is truly good news.

    Welcome home.