Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: Okay, I'm going to make everyone very uncomfortable right now.
I want everyone in the room, everyone online. If you're listening to this later and you're driving your car or working with heavy machinery, I don't want you to do what I'm about to say. But everyone else, if you're in this room, here or online, I want you to close your eyes.
Now. I want you to keep your eyes closed.
No one's gonna, like, you know, spray a water gun at you or anything.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: This is an exercise. Keep your eyes closed.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: And I want you to take a.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Slow, deep breath in and hold it.
And exhale.
Fill your lungs in with your eyes closed.
Hold it and exhale.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: Keeping your eyes closed.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: I want you to keep that deep breath, hold breath out pattern. Take a few more deep breaths, inhale and exhale with your eyes closed.
And as you continue with that regular breathing with eyes closed, I want to tell you what's happening to you. As you listen, as you breathe, you're pulling invisible life into your body.
The air, this perfect, miraculous mixture. Oxygen, nitrogen. God designed it. It's exactly what you need, breathing in, flowing down your windpipe into your lungs. There it fills millions of tiny air sacs, so small and delicate, yet powerful.
And in those sacs, the alveoli, an exchange takes place. And in less than a second, as you're breathing in, oxygen's crossing a barrier thinner than a spider web. It's racing into your blood. It's being carried by 25 trillion red blood cells to every corner of your body.
In and out.
And all this happens without any command from you.
Your heart pumps that fresh oxygen through your arteries and your veins. It's nourishing every cell in your body.
And while that's happening, another miracle. The carbon dioxide that you breathe out, it crosses back into your lungs with every exhale. You get rid of what your body no longer needs.
And every exhale, creating a balance of acid and base. Or else your blood would be off. Every system would collapse in.
And God built this system breath by breath regulation, maintaining balance. You take in life. You release what you don't need.
And all of it is happening in seconds. This invisible exchange. Perfect timing, whether you think about it or not.
While you work, you sleep, you dream it happens because he designed it that way.
Take another deep breath with eyes closed, in and out.
And know that that very act of breathing, and even the simple mindful attention that we pay to it, can calm a storm of anxiety in your mind.
When you focus on that breath, your heart rate slows. Down your mind, clears your body, releases tension.
And God placed all that in you at the most basic level, through breath.
Now take one more deep breath in and slowly exhale and open your eyes.
You just participated in a miracle.
It's a divine choreography that holds your whole life together, second by second. You didn't earn it. You didn't do anything for it. You didn't create it. You just get it. You just received it.
And so my question is, how many of you woke up this morning, took a deep breath, filled your lungs with air and your heart with gratitude, and said to God, thank you for the breath I breathe.
How many of you said, let everything with breath proclaim, adonai, God of Israel is king. His sovereignty rules over all, and I am one with breath to thank him this morning, first thing, as you breathe in and breathe out, that you're this miraculous creation, to thank him for those 500 million little alveoli, for those. Those 25 million red blood cells that he made and knows about.
Thank you, living and eternal king, for restoring my soul within me and remembered the text that said, God formed the man from dust of the ground and he blew into his nostrils the breath of life that brought humanity to life. And it is, if you think about it, that very same breath that he started the process with, that still animates your life.
Maybe you did.
Maybe those were the first words out of your mouth.
The next question, after you got out of bed, it's a little less glamorous, but once you went to the next stop, that usually happens, which is the restroom. After that, how many of you finish.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: That process with these words, Blessed are.
[00:06:56] Speaker B: You, Adonai, our God, King of the universe, who formed man with wisdom and women and created within us many openings and cavities.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: It is revealed and known before your throne of glory that if one of.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Them were to be open or blocked, it would be impossible to survive, to stand before you, even for a single hour, blind. Blessed are you, Adonai, who heals all flesh and performs wonders. Who said that after you went to the bathroom this morning?
Who even thought about that?
[00:07:29] Speaker A: That's the blessing one says after relieving themselves in Judaism.
[00:07:36] Speaker B: And you probably didn't say it.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: And it's okay. This isn't a guilt trip. I didn't say it. I wrote the sermon.
Why?
Why?
It's not because.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: It's not important.
We all know it's important to express gratitude to God.
Why don't we do it? Well, because we don't think about it.
Because we Often forget. And it's a simple explanation. For most of us, our programming is just not quite tuned in. We don't see, we don't internalize.
[00:08:25] Speaker A: And it is so easy to lose sight of the amazingness that surrounds us and even is within us if we.
[00:08:34] Speaker B: Have those eyes, those miracles.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: But there is a price to be.
[00:08:39] Speaker B: Paid for this kind of blindness.
The price is high.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: We walk through life surrounded by miracles. Biological miracles in our bodies, natural miracles in creation, relational miracles in our connection, spiritual miracles in our existence. Yet many of us are effectively blind to them. Not because they don't exist, not because we don't think they're important, not because we lack the capacity really to see them, but because our spiritual vision for this way of seeing has not been properly activated or is not properly maintained. And there is a high price for.
[00:09:22] Speaker B: That in the pursuit of abundant life.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: Which is what we're supposed to have, right? We're supposed to have a fulfilled life. Joy diminishes when we fail to recognize gifts. Anxiety increases when we focus on what we don't have rather than what we do. Relationships suffer when we take other people for granted because we don't see them. Our connection to God wavers when we don't acknowledge his handiwork. Whether it's going to the bathroom, breathing, creating a tree, I don't care what it is.
Now, here's an amazing connection.
The discovery of something called olo. You know what OLO is?
If anyone in here knew what OLO was, I would hang it up. It would be. That would be miraculous.
Scientists recently made this discovery. They used a device called oz.
OZ is a specialized laser that focused energy pulses on a particular area of the retina, activating certain cones. You have cones in your retina that help you see various things. They activated these special kind of cones called M cones in the retina. They bypass normal pathways that the human brain uses to perceive color. And because of that, the participants in this study, there weren't a lot of them, but the participants in them described seeing a new green blue tone unlike anything ever previously experienced before. They named the color Polo.
That's not it, but that's to get.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Your mind seeing and thinking.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: What makes this discovery fascinating?
Well, the human eye perceives color, these three types of cones, S and M and L. And typically light stimulates those cones all across the system. But using that ah, system, they directed these pulses. Now, here's the thing. The ability to see the color is there. It's already present the cone cells capable of perceiving it. Are there. But without precise stimulation, the color remains invisible.
The scientists had to create a special device stimulating these things. The color is theoretically possible but practically invisible without intervention. And I want to make the very ob connector. I hope you're ahead of me on that.
We deal with the same concept when it comes to gratitude and satisfaction in our lives. This is exactly how gratitude works. The ability to see the world a certain way with gratitude is hardwired into our souls and our vision.
The capacity is there to perceive it. It's already there. But without proper stim become obscured or we become completely blind to them.
Most people walk through life colorblind to divine gifts. When I took you through the breathing exercise today, that is a gratitude receptor stimulation exercise that is like the eye with its miraculous and various cones and stimulating the m cones to see olo. That breathing exercise is supposed to stimulate your g cone.
And you know what those are, right?
Your gratitude cones.
That is supposed to help you. The gratitude cones that you need to activate in your vision if you really want to see the beautiful life around you. If you don't, you can leave them dormant. It's up to you.
Now, you may need some technology to do this.
The good news is Judaism has it.
It's available, and the cost is minimal.
It's 100.
Can you afford it?
Can you afford 100?
You need context, right?
Okay, good.
That breathing thing wasn't supposed to put you to sleep. You're supposed to be awake now. You're supposed to be back, your eyes are open. Right. Judaism has this idea that every day you say 100 blessings. Right? 100 blessings. Where does it come from? Judaism.
Sorry. In Deuteronomy, Moses tells the Jewish people, what does God ask of you? Mad ma. That means what? The Talmud explains that that word, that same word, ma can be read as meach, which means 100. Therefore, the expectation is God wants you to give 100 blessings a day. There's another interpretation of it. David. Times of David, there was a great plague. It was killing 100 people a day. David sought out the elders. They prayed and they realized we must offset the death with life. We will say 100 blessings a day. And they prayed, 100 blessings a day. And the plague stopped.
It wasn't just some words. It was life giving, life saving words. The blessings weren't ritual. They're not casual expressions. They're not the brief, you know, thank you, God for this meal. Let's hand me the biscuits.
Like so many, the idea of gratitude for so many people is. All right, we got a Couple of things we gotta say now. Many of those hundred blessings are part of the traditional prayers of Judaism, the Amidah. You know, different things. And that's not a daily practice for many people. I understand that. That's okay. I'm not fixated on this specific number. It doesn't actually take 100 to activate the G cones. I'm turning more, tuning, trying to tune you more into the practice of just generally stimulating your spiritual vision. We have this comprehensive set of blessings. Every blessing in Judaism is precisely calibrated to stimulate a part of your gratitude awareness.
And these things hold a front and center life in Judaism. And the breadth of the blessings blessings is astonishing. When you really think about it and you think about how many times in a day do you do these things? Ready? Blessings for thunder, Blessings for lightning, for rainbows, for oceans, for joyous occasions, for difficult news, for reunions with friends, for seeing 600,000 Jews gathered in one place. Anyone ever said that one?
Anyone ever seen 600,000 Jews? Blessings upon waking, upon dressing, upon traveling, upon studying, upon using the bathroom. Asher Yatsar, I said that to you this morning. Blessings for seeing a beautiful person. Blessings for seeing a not so beautiful person. That's not a joke. Blessed are you, O Lord our God, King of the universe, who created unique things.
That's the blessing. When you see some weird person, it's not supposed to be derogatory. It's supposed to be an acknowledgement, a statement of theological awe. God created this too. Wow, what a variation.
Each blessing is like a spiritual laser, stimulating that G cone aspect, activating our souls. We're seeing colors of the divine presence in this gratitude, they train our spiritual retina. So my point is not, you better say 100 blessings or somebody's going to die.
I hope you see the point that there is an opportunity every single day to see the world differently.
And that is profound beauty. Like Oro, they couldn't even describe the color. It was so beautiful. It's not actually that different than the same thing, that many people who have a near death experience report that as they're going out, something activates in their brain and the world becomes just indescribably colorful and beautiful. Man, we shouldn't have to wait till that to see it.
And so living in a state of gratitude, you know, practical steps, I said the cost is minimal, I didn't say it's free.
The Omer period, of course, is why we're talking about this. 49 days of vision training, opportunity to stimulate gratitude receptors. Every blessing, another chance to see Some divine color. And I want to get you started. Okay? Just easy stuff. You ready? The breath. Exercise is not just an exercise. I sang you the song today so you could actually really focus it in.
If that's all you can say, or if you can just press the play button on YouTube and hear.
Or forget it. Just say, thank you, God, for restoring.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: The soul within me.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: And get out of bed and, yeah, go to the bathroom and say, so glad I could do that, God.
And walk down your heated or cooled hallway into your refrigerator that's probably full of stuff into your pantry, and then get into your car that's full of gasoline and probably go to your job that every week pays you or pays you so that you can eat more food and you can go on trips and see the world that God created. I mean, the list. Do you see the list? And it all starts with find three things.
Blessing, multiplicity. I was writing in my gratitude journal before Shabbat services. Do you know what I wrote down? I had this super weird thought. I wrote down God, and this isn't about me. I'm just giving you this crazy, weird example of the way my mind works. I wrote down on one of my three things. And there were more than three today, thankfully. But one was gravity.
Because as I was drinking coffee, I was thinking, what about if God, just one day, for fun, said gravity off?
I mean, seriously, think about the incredible miracle of the fact that the Earth is spinning around like this and we're standing here and the ground is firm underneath you. That didn't happen by chance.
It's not maintained by chance.
Thank you, God, for gravity. That keeps me grounded. Literally.
Just a weird thing to think about. But yet I had a new appreciation for God today, and this is a big one.
If you can develop the gratitude cones in your eyes to see, like, this particular way, human gratitude practice. What does that mean? I should look around at all the ways that God is good to me in the earth and all the good things he does for me. Sure, that's great. That's fine. That's one of the first two things. How about taking every single day? If you're married, it's to your spouse. If you're not married, you have kids, it's to your kids, it's to a coworker, it's to a parent. I don't care what it is. Every single day, looking at the people closest to you and saying, you know what? I love this about you.
I'm so thankful for this about you.
We've been through this together. And I'm thankful for this.
Listen, it's a win, win situation, I assure you. At first they might think, oh, you little butt kisser, that's not what it's about.
And you have, especially if you've never done that. And all of a sudden you're like, sweetie, I love your blue eyes.
That doesn't work. I'm talking about genuine finding things to celebrate. It helps them. And I assure you, people do not get tired of hearing the people they care about tell them good things about themselves. They don't.
And it works for you.
You don't find the negative. I haven't said the words one time in this message. I could have just said at the beginning, hakorat Hatov. We've talked about it before. Recognizing the good. Look for it. Find it and verbalize it. Say it. Find it. It's not that hard. And it changes the world, your world, their world, and everybody's world. It sounds so dramatic, but it's true. A grateful world is an incredible place to live.
So some of you might be thinking, yeah, as a matter of fact, you have talked about this before. Hundred blessings. How about this is the hundredth message you've given on gratitude.
Dude, I get it, okay? Say thank you. Be grateful.
Well, first of all, this is the best gratitude message I've ever given.
That oral thing is super cool. Secondly, if that's you, I'm talking to you.
If you're asking that question, you're proving my point. Gratitude. We think we master it and we just go through the motions.
Everything I said about your breath is in no way judgmental. It's just simply to recognize how much we go through the motions. This isn't just nice spiritual practice. The Omer is this soul curriculum, this building, this elevation. Find a way to do it. The world needs your grateful eyes.
It does. We need people who have been trained to see an abundance. People who perceive blessing where others see burden, people who recognize the gifts of others. While many people are jealous by it or they feel entitled to certain things, let that become contagious. And when you help do that, when you show other people what that life looks like, you help them see what they're missing. Okay? Your perspective can literally change the atmosphere around you. You become like the Oz device. Put Oro up there for me, Darren. You become like the Oz device, stimulating people's retinas to see good with their G cones. It's not really the color. It's memorable. It's sort of green, which I was talking with somebody this week, Suzanne Rogers. Who relocated here from Colorado. And she said, I've just been amazed by all the green. You know, it's so green and, like, how beautiful that is. And I was thinking, yeah, I know people who. Yeah, well, guess what? In two months, that green's gonna be brown and it's gonna be 150 degrees out there. Or you know what? All that green has also got all that yellow on it that makes my sinuses explode.
You know, people like that, you might be that person.
Don't be that person.
Green oro gratitude. G cones put the whole thing connected vision. To see beauty, you just have to activate it. So that's the ultimate message. And. Yep, I'm giving you another message about gratitude. I'm giving you another message during the omer about gratitude. You know why? Because I bet you're not great at it.
I bet you're not perfected in your ability to recognize the good. So I'm reminding you kindly and reminding myself very much so. Okay? So I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath. I'm just kidding. You don't have to do that. In all seriousness, listen, please don't lose that lesson that we started with with closing your eyes, breathing. Breathing out and recognizing the good, even small things. Joking aside, 25 trillion blood cells, it's something to be grateful for.
No joke.
The breath of life from Eden to right now.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: What a miracle.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Abraham Joshua Heschel said this in a.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Book that he wrote called who is man?
[00:27:48] Speaker A: Listen, our goal should be to live.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: In radical amazement, get up in the morning and look at the world in a way that takes nothing for granted.
To be spiritual is to be amazed.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: So may these 49 days that we're well into now train our eyes to see the world as it truly is.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: And make it as it could be.
[00:28:17] Speaker A: Saturated with divine goodness, overflowing with reasons, finding colors of blessing that most people will not see. The final blessing is this. Blessed are you, O Lord our God.
[00:28:28] Speaker B: King of the universe, Sovereign who has given us eyes to see Shabbat Shalom.
[00:28:39] Speaker C: I'm Darren with Shalom Macon. If you enjoyed this teaching, I want to ask you to take the next step. Start by making sure you subscribe to our channel. Next. Make sure you hit the like button on this video so that others know it's worth their time to watch. Last, head over to our website to learn more about Shalom Macon, explore other teachings and events, and if you're so inclined, contribute to the work that we're doing to further the kingdom. Thanks for watching and connecting with Shalom, Macon.
