Future plans:

Principle in urban planning of continuity with variety is also true with spirituality and spiritual direction. You need to rest on what you know (or have already embodied in your life of His Life) as you expand into what you don’t know of Him. This principle of dynamic growth is true across the fields of knowledge, and we need both in spiritual growth as well. Know our foundations, even as we build new wings with and in Him. When a city develops with a lack of continuity with its past, you feel the dis-integration. When there is an honoring of the past while taking things into the next level of expression, you keep oriented as you expand. God is the same, yesterday, today, and forever into your own future. He is present in all three spaces simultaneously. It’s possible therefore to pray from your future self to bless your current situation. How would you pray from your older self into your current self? Sitting with Jesus in your future. Peter’s principle of spiritual continuum: already currently receiving the object of your faith, you live in inexpressible joy. (I Peter)

Jesus as the teacher and the Way to enter the teaching:

“Jesus accessed or discerned people’s real questions, and invited them to encounter The answer, for and in themselves, and be transformed by it. That was not just what He taught (spiritual information), but how He taught. His Medium was part of His Message. He, of course, was both the medium and the message and the empowerment to actually transform. So He was in a unique position. He offered true identity, purpose and power to become it. Answering the most basic needs of being human: identity and empowerment to walk it out. Impressive. It’s one thing to get information about how to grow and find the solution to your problems. It is another to also be that solution. Master. The ultimate Guide was also the Way. His answers always led people into the Reality of their solutions.”

What got you interested in the relationship between art and faith?

Well everything. My dad is a minister, my mom, an artist; so, in some sense, i feel i have always been trying to find a spiritual context for both the church and the art world.

I realized early on that the Kingdom of God, which Jesus spoke of was bigger than both the church and the art world, and somehow contextualized both.

In what sense?

Well, for the art world, it provides a sense of purpose for why create, and addresses that need for the work to have a larger significance, than just making stuff. The art world has it’s own upper stories or ultimate ground of being—usually in the west it is some form of success. But what Jesus was teaching was higher than success.  It was more transformational, on an individual and outwardly and society level. If we take on His Nature, we change all that is around us by His character and Life flowing outwards through our lives and art. We express our core identities in Him, through art-and it communicates through symbols His Life out to others. He was teaching us about what we actually are–I know you, therefore I called you to create. In this way, true art making is inescapable from finding identity.

And the way to do that?

Well, St Peter would be a clarion example. You have a spiritual revelation in such a way that you see the true nature of things, this happens first through seeing the True Identity of Jesus Himself. This is always the starting point to self understanding–seeing who Jesus is; then He is permitted to start whispering our names to us. When we focus on Him, we are given ourselves, because He knows us better than we do. He contextualizes us to ourselves.

Then I think, He starts revealing our eternal names to us over time, and through experiences. The white stone room above where all our names are written, starts to get activated as we look at who He really is. He is the Source of Identity. I think lots of people miss that in the church. He knows us. As David and the prophet Jeremiah saw!

Jesus, You,  knit me, therefore you are able to call, cause me to stand and reveal my particular path in you–that one prepared before hand, which is hidden and secure in His Own Heart. That is our ultimate context for every dimension of who we are, including our creative selves or imaginations. The whole self is meant to be baptized into that place in Him, and it does indeed become the “secret place of the Most High”. He takes us to His Own Garden. And there is great mystery and becoming in that journey.

So there is a relationship between art making and finding your true self?

I think they are inevitably intertwined! There is no way to truly be in the creative process, and not desire to know who you are. And the way to know who you are, is to seek out who God is. You may stop at lower versions of God—Nature, or some philosophy; but you will want some way of interpreting why you create.

Some people go with modern psychology or other philosophical systems as their method of interpreting. I’ve gone with Jesus, and His word. Of course, the Bible itself is more a work of art, than a book of philosophy. So even to encounter God through the book, requires a paradigm shift for most of us.

The Bible as art interest me?

Well, it is—one third is fine art, the rest is mostly stories and great cosmic tales.

The whole book begins by focusing on God’s creative process, of which we were the pentacle or crown of creation, as the book says it. If we are the best art of God (the crown of creation, His poetry -Ephesian 2:10), then we need to consider that we ourselves are also probably creative, and play a collaborative part in creation.

Of course there is the constant interruption of our beings by sin, but we still have this echo of the Voice in us. We still have to create, and can do so as collaboration with God. Art is basically another area to tabernacle with the Living God, and be transformed through, and then refract that transformation and Life Force outwards to the world, or society, if you are given such a grand platform.

For an artist, their spirituality is largely a collaboration with God. It is less about and more from this collaboration. At least, my favorite artists did this: Van Gogh, TS Elliot, George MacDonald etc….people who actually met God through their creative process. You feel that dialogue regardless of how far each artist was along in their spiritual growth. You sense God meeting them as they created. When this happens, you begin to know yourself.

Art and true identity, and even empowerment to live out who you really are, are all intertwined, and spill, or pour forth from our authentic and actual relationship with God!

The church has often just used art as propoganda, the art world as a product to prove success; but there is something much different going on in the Kingdom. Art, and art making is a part of collaborating with God, and getting to be part of stewarding and tending, and even naming and expressing Reality! It’s part of tending the garden!

I think traditionally the post-reformation church sort of contextualize art as evangelistic propaganda-illustrative art meant to convince people the gospel information. Or was just overtly against, any type of creative dialogue with Christ in a living active way. I think what is changing there as a gospel of the Kingdom is preached, is that art ends up being more about our deeper formation and discipleship, firstly of ourselves, then of the nations. The imagination starts to enter into our relationship with God, rather than be decorative. You have to ask, if the poverty of the imagination in much of the 20th C church, has had to do with not understanding creativity as a part of our relationship to and with God.

You can leap ahead to now, where people really need creative spiritual rituals in their lives to offer meaning. People are seeking backwards, but the symbolic dimension of our spirituality and relationship with God has always been available, it didn’t take Azusa and, later the charismatic and prophetic movements to reveal to us, that God was creative and wanted to shine through His people in creative ways.

He is One, His Own creativity is eternal, and includes the new creation He is creating in us, and the new heavens and earth. He doesn’t stop making up new metaphors of Himself! God expresses Himself. That’s there at the beginning of the book. Why would God create. In the beginning, God CREATED!

Now, many are returning to monasticism or earlier, more ritualistic forms of christianity, but this stream of creativity has always been there, because it is in Him. He wants us to be free in this area of the arts, and to meet Him there. Conversely, there are other problems in the art world.

What of the art world? Is it the idolization of the creative talents?

Certainly it is that. But also it is art as entertainment, as opposed to ladder to the stars (ad aspera Dios etc), or artist as teacher of how to see many dimensions and live well in that fuller view. Art is meant to lift us up into His Kingdom, so we can interpret what’s going on down here!

Instead, artist are pulled towards just mere representation of ideas of projects, usually, in the West, to sell products–so Mammon pulls and kills many artist. Still, most artist want to be what Francis Shaeffer would call, “valid”–ie to be true to their process and create a body of work which makes a whole statement. But the temptation to value ourselves based on our talents is immense. And worse, to give them to causes which are not His. We have to often return to our first Love, and be meet God in our art making.

If our talents are not really on the altar as they say, we won’t make it. We have to have gotten our validation directly from The Father first, way before the world or the audience. Otherwise, we will need to get the fat lady to clap forever. Funny thing is, the fat Lady is Christ, and she has been applauding all along! We are approved and He is amazed by us, because He made and knows us. As long as we chase after the praise of men, our art will be violated and misled. Our best art is foolishness compared to His. He created the earth, then made us our of Nature, and breathed His breath, and then gave us permission to tend His Own creation. We are collaborators at best.

Art as product–talk about that?

In the art world, art is seen more as product, and part of the artist celebrity complex–where you try to get the biggest and most exposure or gallery shows etc. You basically try to get famous in the world system. This is bankrupt of course, in the end as a true motivation to keep creating.

There are the three monsters against the art world: some form of materialism, some form of witchcraft or false advertising serving fame, and some form of narcissism which looks at the artist as god. In truth artist play a priestly role, but their creative nature is a reflection of who God is, and meant to be a sign of hope joy and inspiration and freedom for others.

In the church, it is more a problem of using artist to promote your own agenda, so it is prostitutional use of the arts. Both need to contextualize themselves in a Kingdom of Jesus setting in order to be able to interpret the true meaning and purpose of the arts.

Seek first His Kingdom and righteousness, and all these things, including a context of arts and culture, will be added unto you….

More soon from this interview.

Blessed are you for overcoming with the art word of His Testimony (The Word as communicated through a creative media, like language or visual media, even prayer is a creative medium!). (A translation of St John’s blessing for those who overcome by His Light-understanding and power and the truth of His Word, and the power of His Living story!) It’s like overcoming by His Version of how things really are- the true story about Reality, given what Jesus, The Light, has done and is doing!

Also, to express it through art, imparts the truth of it. That’s one of the gifts of art—direct impartation like music.

Thanks for claiming and downloading that truth through art friend. Isaiah also says, arise and shine your Light has come! (Is. 60) that passage augments and illuminates the one in your art. We arise, claim and name, then He shines, and overcomes darkness. There’s a whole sermon in this piece! Love it! For the light is already dawning, as it dawns in and on us, it is refracted out onto others! Been thinking about the nature of Light in scriptures this week, thanks for sharing that one lovely sister. Glad we are on the same illuminated page friend. “The people walking in darkness, have seen a great Light.” Isaiah says earlier in his collection of prophetic art. (9:2) Good meditation.

Isaiah’s sermons on light.

The funeral of this planet, and the coming of the Light of marital beauty, occur simultaneously in Isaiah’s (one of the most poetic Jewish prophets) passages on the nature of the True Light.

The darkness covers the whole earth, at this future moment he poetically inscribes repeatedly, when the light breaks forth on His People and City (Isaiah 40 and 2), the nations make their choice! And, we, stream either towards or away from it! Those who move away, die. Those who move towards are instantly blessed into being!

The darkness increases, and is increasing daily, and yet, and then the Light appears (as it is already dawning on those of us who are turned towards it! We, just simple reflectors, not based on how far we have come, but on how fully we are turned and yielded, how close we are to The Light!), and illuminates and transforms everything! People stream towards it, or away from it–always that is the choice, move towards or away from Him, The Light! What magnetizes you? Determine that now.

 Everyone leaves and clings towards, or in reaction to the Light.

The prophet’s metaphor here is the nature of the dawn. He uses the metaphor’s of nature.

As the sun is a sign of The Son’s Nature dawning…each day, we watch this break of light over all of creation. The metaphor here is the light is already breaking on those who are receptive! And it will shine ever more fully as we lean in! Our job is to lean well, to be the receptors of The Light. We then, not only  become transformed, but we become refractors of His Light–He who is The Light!

People stream towards or away from  it (from Him), bringing the best of what they have (the gift of their nation)s, their finest gifts to bring to the King and His Presence.

Isaiah 2 and 40 both deal with this moment in future history!

We offer our very best to The God who is steaming from Zion.

Our own transformation is from Light to light. We are changed by encountering His Light!

The Light makes us lights, and we refracted The Light and attracted all of mankind to The Light. Those that rejected the Light, became and become utterly desolate.

As in the days of Noah (which are like our own days), the whole world was dark, under the pall of funerial sickness. Then a great Light broke in and illuminated all that was turned towards it. We waited beforehand, expectantly until the Light fully shown. And we no longer needed the symbol of the Sun. God Himself was the Light for us, and we shown ourselves like the Son.

He shone and seared through and in His People, and His Holy City until all of mankind had to choose rather to go on pilgrimage towards The Light or to stay in death. He seared us into place with the sheer radiance of His Light! Refining us into our true natures and being. That’s the picture in this passage. So awake, and shine for your Light has come!

And this same Light of His Being, which illuminates everything at the end, broke down into the darkness beforehand in Jesus, to bring His Light to the peoples, to set the captives free (Jesus quotes this passage from Isaiah about Himself). Behold we have seen a great light, already dawning and shining in His People….Welcome to the once and future King, who is The Light of all nations, and illuminates the cosmos itself in His Own Being. This is the light we serve by reflecting it, and being forged by it. This is our Friend in His most sheering and intense expression, symbol and experience of Himself. God is Light, whoever walks in this light, will live.

If you look at this passage as a story, it’s one about the effects of Light.

As soon as you enter Light in the scriptures, you travel all over the place. Great way to enter His Life and Being! Look at the metaphor of light in scripture! Wow. What a  great way to encounter Him—my ultimate Reality Friend!!!

Genesis, Isaiah, the book and thoughts of John, Revelation—everywhere. God is Light, and it shines all the way through the book. Great meditation. The Light that was and is and is to come. It pierced time itself and space!

May the blessings of more of HIs Light fall on us all who are seeking it! God calls Himself Light, it is one of His Names. Good to pay attention to how Light works! We are His little lights on earth. Don’t hide your light beneath a shade. Shine brightly until all see and have a clear choice!

If God’s metaphor of Himself is Light, we are wise to pay attention to the Nature of Light. Genesis, John and Revelation all reveal this basic symbol of who God is! God names Himself as Light, and reveals Himself within the metaphor of radiance itself.

Discovering old special books….

Tonight, in one of my dusty boxes, I found a book which was one of Francis Shaeffer’s-from his library called “Art and the bible”. I studied with his daughter years ago in Switzerland, and she lent me this book.

It still has some of his underlinings in it. How special is that. A father’s book, you weren’t sure you still had. Re-discovered, unexpectedly. Thankful for the continuum of discoveries in this life!

Plus, despite the poor design of the cover, which is unfortunately typical in most christian culture, the book has spiritual seeds which far outlasted Dr Shaeffer.

Lots about the bible as art, and freedom to create, and be creative, since we were made in the image of God, and not having to justify our creativity in religious terms, or even make overtly religious art. Instead, to make authentic valid art and life was, on its own, a way of honoring God! “The act of creativity is priestly in itself, no need to use art to talk about God, rather you are free to live in God, and make what you will before Him!”

Also a nice seed about The Lordship of Christ over every area of life including the arts. Lots of permission to live and celebrate being fully human is also implied in the book.

Not a flashy book, but spiritually potent. Means a lot to me that i still have it. I have so many treasures from the years, born from encounters with so many remarkable people. I am blessed to have had father’s words passed on into my heart and soul.

Some books come and go, but that one stuck.

 Thankful when people take the time to name what they have learned, and pass it on to the next generation!

It’s like the sound of a train whistle or a distant fog horn at night—something which came before you, which keeps on passing through time. The elder’s gifts keep giving far past their lives on earth.

Most people are focused on the now, but I’m growing fond of the past present and future on this passover.

Still thankful that I’ve gotten to meet most of my favorite artist and teachers in my life. What a gift. Hope I can scatter some of their seeds while here, like my distant cousin Johnny Appleseed did. And find and be, the good soil.

Today’s deep thought by another foolish follower…

“The gift of inspiring others to have greater faith. I want that one God! St Anthony was said to have had it, St Francis certainly did, why not us!” (an anonymous monk)

As many of us these days, are tapping back into early monasticism, finding a living and needed stream and anecdote there for our materialistic times, it is good to think about what their personal spiritualities really looked like. Reading some of the sayings of the desert father. Considering, not just there outer “orders” or rules (which at times for some became just religious), but what made them fruitful and abundant in the character of Christ, as many were. Perhaps their main gift is this one Anthony asked for—to inspire us to greater active faith. To be a living portent pointing towards faith, the ladder into the Father’s lands-that’s a good thing to want to be moving in! To be a living symbol like King David asked for, and some of these early monks, who still inspire us thousands of years later, carried and became, in themselves.

Here are some little tablets to run with. Felt led to write some little golden nuggets, for those with information add!

Little tablets to run with: speed teachings for those with spiritual add. Little seeds can still grow big plants, or even trees.

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Soil, Sight and Skin are three neglected areas of His Lordship. Our relation to the earth, our imaginations and our physical bodies are all places of meeting and knowing Our Lord.

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Creativity is meant to flow from core true identity. Culture flows from identity.

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Identity is hidden in Christ, and therefore eternal. He shows us who we are as we lean into Him. Both our names and our paths are in Christ. He protects and nurtures both. The streams of who we are in Him are trustworthy because of who He is. We are not broken lines in Him. We are not crazy in Christ. We are known seen and loved. Psalm 139—search me and know me. Ephesians 2:10—we are His masterpiece poems. He who made us know us, and can reveal us to ourselves, and share us with others for His Purposes and pleasure. Trust that your identity is held in Him, even when you cannot see the whole narrative yet. He is writing you, and you get to collaborate.

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An elder is never worried, but concerned. They know the Father, therefore are in His Peace, even in the midst or clear site of suffering and grief. Elders are commended for knowing The Father. When young we are commended for overcoming or for righteously reacting. We are also defined by what we push against. Elders are no longer pushing against. They simply rest in His I-AM-ness. There is still sadness, but more trust and less rush. Restlessness is worthless to an elder. They have given themselves to the Father, and so become shade for others. One of the occupations of an elder is to be thankful. Trust breeds thanks. Elders are comfortable not knowing everything, but resting in God. So seeming paradoxes don’t bother them as much. Some things just trail into mystery, and they are ok with that. Not everything must be black and white or fully known. For they know the Knower.

They are no longer being formed in reaction or by pushing against or competition. But are defined rather by being in His Being.

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The chain of communication. From Father to Son, to Spirit, to revelation to our spirit, down into our soul. Our spirit is higher than our soul, and is in charge of our soul and body. Our spirits should be leading, as they are led by His Spirit through the scriptures and The Holy Spirit. Through HIs Spirit we are led to The Son, and through the Son into The Father. That’s the heavenly hierarchy. There is a hierarchy in the Kingdom. For there is a King who is in charge and above every other name. Spiritual things are discerned spiritually! That is by our spirit talking to His Spirit. We cannot discern by the soul. When we are soul led, we are idolatrous. To lift the soul above the spirit is to raise an idol.

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We need to be in God, in order to deliver His Messages. God is One, and wants to be represented as whole. We go up the mountain, and draw very close. Then, if He sends us down into the valley, we stay in Him, and deliver what He has told us, in His Tone. That’s prophetic spirituality. To be close friends with God is more important than doing things for God. We are ones who instead prioritize being with God. God can use a donkey to prophecy. But if we have a spirituality of friendship with God, we may be useful to others. And have His prophetic orientation towards others and the world.

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What we will be has not fully been revealed but is already in Him. The way to know yourself is to know God. We lose ourselves-our versions of ourselves-in order to find our true names in Him. We die daily to the false versions of ourselves, to live in our new creation selves. We reject the streams of accusations and enter into the streams of intercession. This is our hourly practice. This is applying the Cross in the area of identity. We confess, thank and get true revelations of who we really are in Him. We then seek to live from our true selves. Then we are able to truly lay down our lives for others. Jesus knew who He was when He endured the Cross. He knew what He was laying down. He was not victimized by the Cross. We should choose to take up our crosses also. But we need to know who we are while doing so, so that we are truly laying down our lives for others. The apostles knew themselves, because God had revealed it to them. So should we.

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The spiritually mature are slower to speak, and quicker to listen in Love. They are less loud and more comfortable in His Silence. The Silent Being of The Father. The secret place of the Most High. Elders reside in the I Am.

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Deeper sanctification includes getting Christ into the whole self. So that He and our true selves are co-ruling within. A deeper embodiment of the Life of Christ is the spiritual journey for us all. The further He comes in, the more I am my true self. Sometimes, we need practices which help us let Him in. That’s our part of working out our salvation. We learn to progressively yield more and more of our lives into His.

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Some are in healing seasons, and just need to meet Him working through the grief, necessary confession and forgivingness, and transparency in order to get less opaque. In order to come clear. We meet Him where we are meant to meet Him each new season. If we are in denial, we are unable to confess, grieve and let Him in. This stunts spiritual growth. Confess constantly is what John is teaching in his first letter. He is faithful to guide us to areas in ourselves which still need healing. And He is The Healer, and will make us whole in that area. He who started a good work in you, is able to walk it out into completion! He is faithful.

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Knowing what season you are in matters. We need spiritual maps to know where we are in Life, and where He wants to meet us. What is He forming in you now? What part of His Life is He grafting into yours at this moment. We need that GPS to know where we are in Him. Where is He discipling you and how. This is another way of getting to appreciate how Great He truly is. Trust that process. There are lots of good spiritual growth maps stated and implied in scripture.

The whole journey of Israel is one: from slavery, to wilderness refining and training, to the great equipping of Sinai with His Law (growing in knowledge of His Ways), to crossing over and co-reigning through possessing, occupying and cultivating the lands of your spiritual inheritance.

There is an order to occupying each city, and particular enemies revealed in the book of Joshua. Each city (or part of self, area of life etc) had a way God was taking it, and a particular enemy to overthrow. The whole book is a prophetic map of spiritual growth on one level.

Other basic models are John’s blessings of youth for overcoming, and elders for knowing The Father.

When young we claim the word and do battle to know Him. There is a blessing in doing that well given by John. As older ones, we are blessed for knowing God, and resting in His Nature. This offers clues as to what the trajectory of spiritual growth is meant to look like. It heads toward The Father.

We cannot take land outside ourselves if He has not already taken that land within us! To the degree He has, we will have authority to bless others in that area.

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The basic foundations to a theology of the arts are: God is One; Jesus is Lord over every area of Reality, including the arts and imagination; God loves the whole person, including their creativity. The rest are footnotes. The God who is One desires to meet and love, call forth, bless and be Lord over, every area of our lives. He loves our whole being, so wants to meet us in our creativity. He is the Father of the arts.

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The Lordship of Jesus over every area of Reality, frees us up to bring His Kingdom into whatever our sphere of influence is on earth. We are no longer divided into sacred and profane. He is One, and is making us one integrated expression. We are free to bring Him wherever He leads us. This is liberating knowledge. In this sense our ultimate calling is to become our true selves in Christ, and walk on the paths He has prepared beforehand to be our way! (Ephesians 2:10) He is already there, when we get there! He is with our future selves, forming Himself in us. We continuously transform as we walk with Him through time. He is Lord over the past, present and future. The Alpha and Omega. So we are free to grow, and go wherever in Him.

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Freedom is among other things, correct interpretation! If we interpret our situation from His Perspective we remain free regardless of our circumstances. This is the spiritual contentment which St Paul wrote about. He had learned to be free in every situation whether he had or didn’t have, whether rich or poor, in prison or walking around in the marketplace. He had learned the secret of spiritual contentment-to be in Christ. Freedom involves seeing things and understanding them from His Perspective. This occurs through prayer mostly. When Paul said to pray without ceasing, he was talking about an orientation of being with God in whatever you are doing. This is a freedom practice. It is the walk of faith into freedom.

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Performance orientation towards God is deadly. So is spiritual perfectionism. The first rest in the stream of lies about God not approving or really loving us, unless we perform well. In truth, we are simply “included in the Beloved” despite ourselves.The second puts our own soul attempts to do things perfect above His Grace and actual Presence. They both choke the spirit’s growth. Both have to be daily dislodged by His Cross actively. Put to death. We are responsible to be collaborators in working out our salvation; but we can’t perform our way into approval by God. He accomplished this through His Son. His Son is the only Perfect one. Let’s let ourselves off these unnecessary and crippling hooks.

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Reading “Falling Upward” today…mostly focused on the second half of life! A quick first take review:

Richard Rohr’s book—nice. He is foxy and cagey, and pokes at religious preconceptions, but when he gets mellow, and speaks from his own knowing, wow. When he just speaks from who he is, so powerful.

He starts speaking from eldership instead of about it. And when he does, something truly transformational starts to happen!

In his, “a bright sadness” section of his book for instance, you start to feel not the need to feel that this is valuable information, you start to feel moved.

Moved to transform, moved to grow up spiritually, a sense that there is something to look forward to in the later half of life, that it’s not a wasteland of regret!

Not the western version of being stuck in needing to compete and contend for being, but the resting in the contradictions of becoming. And still caring for humanity and those around you without being in competition with them. Rather, in true care.

The section on living in a bright sadness is brilliant, i think. As we age spiritually, we continue to sense all the grief but there is also this growing hope, which is resilient and obvious to those around us. There is no need to be loud about it, it just has been formed there in our hearts, and radiates outwards. Feels true to me, as I begin to experience this depth of knowing in my own journey.

The beginning of the book is really trying to convince Christians that this is valuable spiritual information to consider, but then it shifts into the content of what is truly valuable-how do we head towards spiritual maturity and the later half of life well.

 Nice to encounter teachers who like to share it freely and are open about their own blind spots. The older the teacher, the more they begin with confession!

Very self critiquing, which i also trust in teachers. And in this teacher’s case, from a catholic standpoint. It’s another angle on spiritual formation.

 Dallas Willard carried a similar content, but coming from the Protestant position and addressed that part of the Body’s needs for a more complete formation of the life of Christ. And the spiritual mechanics of sanctification, which both teachers hallmark.

 I like looking at how different teachers have downloaded spiritual information about growth from different streams. Renovators really. But in their own authentic and needed roles in the Body. Refreshing when people get to the point of King David dancing before the Ark of the Lord, and just don’t care!

All great teachers, self critique, firstly. Then they move out into what they have learned. Confession always precedes useful information! When someone has been humbled, they begin to be useful. I think this book is useful.

re-Reading some contemporary spiritual Elders this week:

Reading Dallas Willard again. I like reading seasoned spiritual teachers, who no longer have anything to prove, or who have committed intellectual suicide to find higher thoughts (put their own best thoughts on the altar to find His, and found trust instead, as St Paul did)! As the American poet William Stafford wrote: “my mother told me, you don’t have anything to prove to God”. There is something nice about older teachers who aren’t in competition with the world, God, or other leaders, or trying to build their own empire or proving themselves to God. This stage of spiritual maturity, usually comes later in life, but I can always note the tone when i hear it! Dallas was convinced in his heart that true Christianity (not just the religious or traditional version) offered the real answers to life.

A close friend of mine met this teacher before he died and described how humble Dallas was and thankful, and a listening teacher; how his intellect, and best ideas had intentionally committed suicide to find God’s-(“It takes teachers a long while to die properly—pride is mighty in the human heart and especially lodges in the mind.” 1st C monk)-in order to be re-born into actual trust in God, the real Life of knowledge (spiritual things are discerned spiritually, our soul must quieten down, and listen through our spirit to His! “Human philosophy and wisdom is like a gnat in God’s Eye”)

Anyway, humility, rather than talent or expertise, or even articulation or erudition, or raw talents in art or ministry, always makes me want to sit under a teacher! The tone of love is even a clearer sign of a great teacher. A Father’s laugh underneath the message. A grandfather’s chuckle at themselves, and how kind God still is despite a clear view of who we are.

“All of the spiritualities that are now clamoring for attention, from explicit Satanism to what we hear on Oprah, are concerned with the two issues of identity and empowerment. Who am I? How can I have the power to live? Those are the questions everyone has to deal with. If we don’t come to terms with these, we lapse into some form of human decadence and failure. Renovation of the Heart is simply an attempt to say, “Here’s the Christian picture. It’s all true. It works. It’s accessible to everybody. And there’s nothing that compares with it on earth.”

Dallas Willard from an interview one of his most interesting books, “Renovation of the Heart”, which is all about deeper spiritual formation, or deeper incarnation of the actual Life and character of Christ in people, and some of the spiritual mechanics of that process. It’s also about our role in that work, so we are not just “paralyzed by Grace” as he put it. Good read. If you don’t like Christians, you still might like this book! Wisdom is wisdom.

I also like the idea of his soon to be released post-humous, but humorous or at least gentle, book, “Preparing for Heaven”. The basic idea that life doesn’t end, down here, that we are preparing for the continuing transformational process of the next life. Rooted in the idea that Jesus is Life itself, and that life never ends in Him. Great last meditation! I always have felt life is like rehearsal in theater, and then the real play happens!