Considerations I’m having…..

In Zen paintings, the subject is The Absolute, but the medium to encounter it, is the little simple boat. I wanted to add what Elijah saw—that the Absolute is replete with sound, color and characters-animals staring at angels!
Yes, it is trans-rational, but not absurd, rather teeming with life, as even a single pond is. Nowhere we look lacks life on every level. Life is teeming with life! Silence filled with music. There is no Void. No place without life. “Even hell is filled with souls!”
Kandinsky wanted to paint music. Jesus spoke in koans and parables to invite us to encounter Reality. If you want to know what He is talking about, you have to dive right into the parables to know.
Reality is relational, and requires depth encounter to be known.
A good painting just shows more of what is already really there, or here.
We see the three big influences on western art in the 20th C being: Zen (the version coming from Japan); Freud and Jung’s theories, and existentialism. We might add some form of Neo-Marxism.
Each deal the nature of Reality in different manners. And each lead to different forms of art.
Great art is a like staring through a key hole into a previously unseen room which was always there, but needed an opening to be seen through.
Just as the act of prayer, allows us to tune into the larger ongoing conversation, so art, lets us see more of what is already there.
And what is already there, is more that the artist’s unconscious, unless they are incredibly narcissistic. And even then, great art, goes far beyond self expression—it is overhearing self and Being conversing.
Even when Van Gogh mirrors himself in his self portraits, he is aiming at something Absolute. His white stone forever self. The particular poetry of God he was and, I’m sure still is!

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What I’m learning. First century context to Jesus life and ministry. Then the three major streams of influence in the 20th C.
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To live in simple thanks for each day. A thankful life—being to Being.
The idea of wabi in Zen—poverty or simplicity. Just being thankful while taking out the trash. Adding to that—to consciously BE WITH the Spirit of Christ as you do all things. Life as collaboration.
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I’ve always wanted to guide people to the circus or the Big Top larger Reality space, so we know how wondrous it is. Back in the day, that was the Jones ( circus family I traveled with), or travel, itself; or hidden cathedrals in the forests of Europe.
. But it has always been His Kingdom Big Top, I wanted people to believe in. That magical space and place which is always right here.
The Kingdom is not just coming, it is here. I believe, for I have seen enough to know.
Even music or movies is reminding us of what’s just behind the veil.
Life is mystic, you don’t have to be a mystic to know it—just look at any good art. There is more than meets the eye, once the I opens to it.
At first, like St Paul, it may seem blinding. Like in Matrix when Neo is reborn, it is at first hard to see. But then the new or always Reality becomes familiar.
As in CS Lewis’ “The Great Divorce”—the grass no longer hurts our feet once we get used to it.
My art and life is about pulling back the veil and saying, there is more to Life than meets the Eye; and in doing so, I hope, with St Paul, that your eyes may be enlightened to see far more than we all imagined! Jesus came to bring sight to the blind—that’s all of us!

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My other life theme is that we all are named. We all are not just loved, but have nuanced names which want to be pronounced. To be named is to be loved. And Love is all that knows your name.
Once, loved, we are able to love and be safe places for others to find or hear their own names.
The thesis is that God wants to pronounce His own poetry. And we the poems.

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If we look at Zen, Existentialism and Psychoanalysis-we see the big three lenses of the 20th C.

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Painting is like meditation; writing is like overhearing more layers to the conversation.