People, things, places each have meaning clusters around them. To reattach the true cluster of meaning around each thing is part of God’s restoration of the earth.

On a city level, each city has come to be associated with certain ideas, images–Paris, for example, is associated with romance, passion, beauty etc. Berlin with might or strength, decision making. A false association placed on Berlin from the war is abusive use of power. But we can see that this is not a true association. The fact that it is mighty or powerful city does not necessarily mean it is also an abusive city.You see in our time a real battle in the realm of what things mean

Jesus is the light, which in part is the understanding of what things mean. He is working to reattach things to their true meaning clusters, so that it is clear, that, for instance, woman’s body is not associated with evil. Or bread with death.

Man cannot live on bread alone. We eat and we drink daily. We fast from food at certain points. What do food and drink symbolize? Jesus understood that things have a symbolic dimension of meaning. He knew what bread symbolized. The nature of symbols is that each thing in life has a cluster of symbolic meaning surrounding them. Bread or food is not just an allegory, but symbolizes a cluster of associative meanings.

The church has largely not understood the nature of the symbolic. Even the medieval cathedrals were largely allegory only and less metaphore. Metaphore radiates more levels of meaning than allegory. The lion is not just Jesus or David, but also Kingship itself, regality, strength with wisdom etc. There is from each thing in life a stream or circle of symbolic associations surrounding them. Red symbolizes more than blood or life. It also symbolizes passion, verocity, vibrancy, things of the heart-emotions and on and on. But not on and on forever–there is a semantic ending to these associations.

One thing does not mean everything. God is a God of distinction. Each thing has a distinct ring of associations surrounding it. This is why art works. That yellow tree does not mean everything. It has specificity. What it symbolizes has a boundary. But this boundary is much further out than is commonly assumed. This is why we have art–to remind us that there is more to reality than this=that. That there is a symbolic level or dimension of meaning to life!

We often accept false symbolic associations. Advertizing is full of them-where we see woman’s body associated with a product, or a motorcycle. It is good to break down these false associations and question them. Part of renewing our minds is to mend the breach between things and what they actually symbolize! To re-cluster the true ring of associations which a thing was meant to mean. Much of the mission of art is to teach true associations–ie to teach us what things truly symbolize.

Pornography is a great example of clearly false associations. Woman’s body equals power, enslavement, domination, secrecy, and a host of other false associations. One way to fight porn is to reattach true associations to woman’s body. Take off the old associations, put on the new. If we, for example, were abused by the opposite sex, we probably have false associations around them. Often these false associations are the same as the ones in pornography, so we are drawn to the reinforcement of these false clusters of meaning around the opposite sex. We then have to take off these false associations and put on the new truer ones. This process is a healing of our symbolic level of perception, so we can see truly, and perceive accurately.

There are false associations and limited ones–as i mentioned above as allegory. Allegory says lion equals strength. But it stops there–a bit short of all the other aspects of what lion symbolizes. Allegory is like the first step, but then we must go out into the actual symbolic dimension of meaning to glean the fullest sense of what is being communicated. Symbol is, in the end, a part of communication. God desires to communicate Himself. The symbolic dimension is one aspect of this communication.

In our times, there is war in the symbolic realm. We see this in the early 20th C in war propaganda, where artists were ask to make one to one associative messages supporting this or that agenda. But we also see it more subtly in marketing. Our battle is to reattach the complexity of what God is trying to communicate through people, cities and nations–His fullest revelation about Himself-to the world we see around us. Jesus came to break down many dividing walls–one is between things and what they symbolize. He wants to reconcile things and what they truly mean. We, as artists, are partners with Him in this task of mending this gap, and healing the imagination of the planet.

This morning the barges are singing like old whales in the bay

Invisible but for this ancient sound of lurching horn through fog–Angelic husks in ground cloud covering

Or metallic beast left ramming into her shores?

I’m not sure,

But today, The sea lions applaud along the shore

In skipping, flipping patterns of joy, and they want more-an encore

And so do I!

Shepherding the mystery of the symbolic. That God also symbolizes Himself, even before He acts. The Levites go in first, and do a ritual, which brings in the spiritual Reality, then the fuller incarnation comes! That the artist go first, and open the portals, so that the rest of the tribes can enter the reality of the thing.

Even the whole act of the cross was a great symbolic gesture of things to come, and the eventual completion of the restoration.

To be a father in the arts, is to consider the symbolic nature of God–why He speaks and reveals Himself in symbol, and then makes us in His symbolizing image. There is always this dance between the literal and the many spokes of the symbolic. Few have written adequately about the nature of the symbolic. But clearly this is an aspect of The Creator!

God communicates. One level of this communication is the symbolic level. This is the area which has most fascinated me throughout the years, and is still the area I meet Him within. I am able to disciple people and cities most directly through their imaginations–through their symbolizing function. It is, to me, so direct! If we are to disciple the whole person, and allow our entire selves to be formed by Christ, then this area of the imagination is a huge area of neglected Lordship in our lives!

Christ is Lord over all of Reality–every dimension, including His symbolic dimension!!

Last year’s christmas was for us about the starlight in the story. It was about the range of radiance and constellational patterns made by stars, and why God chose to express Himself as starlight-esp in the way of this story, as a signal of the birth of The Son. It was a meditation of varying degrees of glory from a single source–His Star. This year, we are meditating on the wise ones from the east. The whole way of God that is the east–what it says of Him, and the nature of its silence.

Last year, we expressed our exploration by having disco balls and euro club lights, projected images onto the house, and lots of swirling pools of different types of light (again, exploring star light). It was frenetic, and had motion and sound activated lighting–the swiss machine shooting 12 different patterns onto the barn, activated by kid claps and even laughter.

This year, I see less pools of motioned light as last year, and more still streaks of single colors. More about the inner life of wisdom, and the gift of being able to examine each element distinctly.  I see more of a cubist tokyo Jesus this year. I would love to do a nativity with just the wise men in it–to meditate on the fact that the baby actually made the wise men, so is reflected in their questing!

As I walk around with Jesus as the backdrop for everything—I am able to see what each thing truly is—whether a city, nation or person, or even a street corner, a train station…Jesus is my walking meditation, my transparency, my filter-HE comes into the illusion and bleeds, making it Real again. He incarnates in the samsara.

There was a city once, i didn’t know how to love her-i was a boy. Then I came back as a man, and i could see what she needed. After I felt bad for not blessing her, i decided to do what i could to help her come into her fullness.

Grace is a difficult sound, when your bound by your own strivings to come clear. But Grace is the starting place for all losers to become kings. It is grace and freedom, the bells I’m ringing. May my face come clear, as the billboard man expands to renovate the stars.

I have a burden to fly.

Slowly retracting from the descending clinch of stress, we recall cacoon of womb–this shape around us telling us where we end…in mortal light’s dim referal, we can be happy to have landed in one of the universe’s soft spots, so gracefully held despite our gripping.

Cities are shining stories. People are uniquely shaped reflectors. I cannot say why we fragment, why we implode…so many pressures, forces unseen, within and witout.

I am a star, so I shine. It is my purpose to reflect His Patterns. A city is not unlike me-meant to reflect some composite, some nuance, some singular ray back to Him, so He can be thankful He shone. We dull ourselves too often. We mute being, and in doing so obscure His Reflection.

We are distinct. Land is not sea–distinction is His Essence.

We make homes to house our own stardom, the unique domain of our own density and velocity–we form the pleasant lines of our inheritance. Celestial homes for stars, for we need the sheer magnetism of our specific boundaries. We need to be framed in the sheer fabric of our own beings. It is not for us to worship one another, but to be illuminated into His Mapping of His own contours.