My own life is about art, authenticity and spirituality! So, i like it when people combine, or have integrated these areas-like Thomas Merton, Oswald Chambers, Henri Nouwen, CS Lewis (at times), Van Gogh (who was a pastor before painting), St Francis, Teresa of Avila etc—people who were authentic artist and spiritual teachers-a hard tight rope to walk without seeming, or worse being, pretentious, or making a mockery of the symbol of yourself.

Their lives say, that we can truly be ourselves, and we can integrate our creativity with our spirituality, so that our expressions flow from who we really are, and give other people the permission to do the same. And at best, their lives became symbols of how to live well. To live a “valid” life, as Francis Shaeffer might call it, matters. We like the word integration better, but validity is still a useful term in art and life. Is the thing true to itself, self revelational in that sense.

My version of authentic creative spirituality is based on Psalm 139 and Jeremiah’s calling. Both are celebrations of identity and how our callings are meant to match who we are; what we do, flows from who—i.e. flows from and is not separated from who we are-identity precedes and is the source of calling.

Or, as it says in Ephesians 2:10-we are poems, so the pronunciation or pathways of our lives (calling, or stuff we do) are both eternal things held in Christ, according to this verse.

Both I am, and I do are meant to be true to themselves. I like it when the body of an artist work reflects the whole trajectory of their identity story of becoming, even if it never fully arrives at itself.”If we are authentically becoming, we are reflecting something bigger than us, which desires us to be.” as one of my mentors put it.

Anyways, I like this guy, he’s been at it a long time.

Once I went to where he recorded his most spiritual album in Scotland—FIndhorn, a unique community of artists—eco spiritual before it was trendy!

And, Mike is still on his journey, still a freak, still awake, like every other human he’s unique, as he sings. Poems still being pronounced, we are. Anyways, someone gave his latest album on vinyl, just grooving on it tonight.