Towards the telling of my tale: Raw notes:
My story in brief:
Sons of preachers, John Coltrane and me, and both from North Carolina. He went on to make ground breaking music with deep spiritual content, while also making new musical forms.
I, well, i went on.
Still, i love his music, and i’m sure he would find my life interesting as well.
Born the son of a preacher, but also the son of my mother, a opera singer. I grew up in church and the theater, worship and musical blended in my imagination, and somehow were one.
And I loved both the church and art worlds, and when i did meet Jesus at ten, i could tell He had both worlds covered. Jesus was the big top, I’d always wanted to be under. And He was also the Master of the circus, i was born in.
Now, sorry if i mix so many metaphors, but I’m in good company like ST Paul, the king of hyperbole.
In my case church, circus and creativity. Church and art went together. I was literally conceived in a parish house, and birthed during a sermon on a Sunday morning in Baptist Hospital. You can’t get more churched.
Fortunately, i still met Christ and not just His ianity. I was able to tell the difference between christ and culture that is.
The rest of my life has been as in my painting as a kid–all about a man on a tight rope between worlds, walking through a sky made of musical notes, and wearing several top hats. I still draw that man between worlds.
And when i later discovered the french guy who walked between the world trade centers (which i later saw fall), i was elated that someone else dreamed of walking between worlds too!
But that’s later in my tall tale.
Well, maybe not. Let me instead skip ahead to 911, as that’s a good light shining backwards on everything else.
Ok, I’m in London doing art therapy with a friend’s kids. Yes, i had become an art therapist by then. Anyway, i had a dream in which i was handed a ticket the next day on Virgin Air, flying to NYC. The ticket told me times etcetera. Just the day before i had searched for a red silk scarf which i was going to take back to America, to officially start the courting process with my eventually to be wife. But that is another story.
I figured the dream, was to get me over there, as I am often led in dream, about where to go when, and that sort of thing.
Well, in this case, it was to land me into NYC on 911.
I took the plane and got in early on that morning, rented a car, assuming i would pop up to Boston where i went to grad school for art therapy, and say hi, then take my red silk scarf to Cincinatti where my soon to be wife lived in a creative community.
Ok, i get a national car (everything about this story is symbolic); i drive out, and end up on the George Washington Bridge (first father’s) when the first plane hits.
Boom, we all stop, get out, try to interpret what is happening. Suddenly signs light up over bridge to leave our cars and get off the bridge. We know then, that something very truly bad is happening. I could see the first plane clearly all the way in, and then this enormous dragon shaped cloud emitted hovering out from the building.
Still, unable to interpret what we were seeing, my counseling instincts kicked in, as many were crying already and in fear of more explosions. We rush beneath the bridge eventually.
Confusion, anxiety and shock was the tone.
I see an old school silver graffitied payphone (back before all these mini computers we carry). I remarkably recall all my friend’s numbers who lived in the area–mostly brooklynn where my friends had an art community, which they made after art school in Virginia. We were all still friends–dancers, film makers, writers, musicians-who had all moved up and gotten several wharehouses in Brooklyn back before it was hip. I used to visit often–their neighborhood had the best Borsht i’ve ever tasted. Anyway….
i was able to recall all their numbers, and all were fine–two were watching from their roof, still not sure what was happening.
Second plane, and we had to get away from the bridge.
Purple green smoke mainly, and all shapes of debris falling…..
I suddenly also kept seeing what looked like angels catching objects. I started to consider that bodies were falling and angels were breaking their fall as they did.
As we got closer….yes, bodies and styrofoam cups and other debris. I really did feel and see the angels at work on all sides during that entire sequence.
It seemed to last forever, and then we had to go move our cars.
We had to drive away from the city.
For some reason just then, i was thinking of the day i met Madonna. I’ve met lots of famous people, but i was similarly told to go to a certain place get a table wait. She and her entourage showed up. I sat there. Ok, make eye contact, The Voice said, i did. She smiled and called me over to the table. She thought i was both Italian and Jewish, which was funny.
As i had been sitting at the table i had gotten an image of a mernorah over her head and a what the baptist or pentecostals for that matter, might call “words” for her.
Personal prophecies my charismatic friends call them, i suppose. Anyway, i got one for her, gave it. She cried and asked me to give “words” to all those at her table. Some pretty interesting high impact people! Now, this sort of thing had happened often to me, but not with Madonna. I felt she was cherished in my heart and told her so.
Why i thought of her on that day, i’m not sure, other than i think i was starting to figure out, that i had been led specifically to bear witness to 911, and it was no accident i was there.
Anyway, after a day or so, i felt led to head out towards Pensyvania to decompress. I drove and found a seluded lake, pulled over and jumped in. As i was swimming alone, a woman and her son came and were playing on the shore. Her love for him was obvious. Something about the image of mother and son went inside me, as comfort, like The Holy SPirit was playing skipping stones with me like that.
Turns out my sea of tranquility was five miles from where that other plane went down, so i had just been following the rim of that tragedy. This wasn’t the first time that had happened either.
Back in college, i was driving cross country and just outside Oklahoma when the bombing happened; later i was at gare du nord in Paris when the terrorist attacks happened; and later at the brussels airport day before and after the bombings there. Always near, but never injured. Always reminds me of King David’s poem his God the Guard (Ha Shomer in hebrew)–a thousand may fall but it will not come near your tent…..
Well, i’ve been very close to some enormous global traumas, and was an eye witness, even been on the news in many nations about what i saw, but i wasn’t hurt at all and even was given extra inner Peace to help counsel others in trauma. I’ve always been in wonder about that, because anyone who knows me knows i’m a highly sensitive and nervy or empathetic reactive person, as my teachers said, not just hyperacitve, but hypercreative and hyper-responsive….so that i get Peace washed over me when near huge traumas is itself a wonder.
Peace and Joy are still signs to me that it is God not me in those situations.
As one old priest friend said to me once, “As you get older, you will know more of God’s emotions, and less of your own.” True that, so far.
Another thing a praying saint spoke into and over my life: “You have a gift of words, which will touch the very special ones.” And it is true i do tend to be drawn to the “special bus”! Mostly artists or those somewhere on the margins. I’m thankful to live slant. And it’s ok being green, though not always easy.
Typically, i’m misunderstood by both the church and art worlds, but i also speak both their languages in Love!
Love translates.
Speaking of translators, many of my friends are which again makes sense, as in between people meet people at the gates and edlges–rivers, rims and ridges were where the prophets of the old book were usually found. I’ll hang out with them. Jeremiah was always in the gates rattling at the people and doing performance art for God! Or, hiding in his cave. Love Jeremiah, he’s my hero, for being so emotionally transparent, and for trying to quit his job with God multiple times!
I also like how his biography is part of the message he was carrying. I relate to that!
His story became Gods, or as King David put it–“I have bedome a living portent!” I like the idea of being a living symbol, as God has always spoken to me most directly through dream, art, and the symbolic dimension of things. Anyway, i always felt my life was a sort of fable or symbolic story, or at least a very tall tale.
My first job was as an ice cream boy, with my uncle Archie, the oldest of 10 on my mom’s side. The reason i mention archie is not because he gave me my first job and how to make kid’s days, but because that was his Summer job, while he wasn’t on the road preaching and planting churches!
He was an itinerant preacher who left me his last sermon, written in all end and internal rhyme.
I saw him just before he died, he told me to pray for the martys, so many suffering son. He knew i had a special calling, and went out of his way to let me know.
He also knew all the old family stories. Once, all the brothers and some of us went to put headstones on the grave of the two who were still born. This was on chikelah mountain, which my mom’s dad homesteaded. He knew were every well was. My grandfather had killed himself from depression at working in the mills years before. So Archie was sort of as close as you could get.
At the end of Archie’s life, he adopted a little mexican girl. I loved that he wanted to take care of her in the last part of his life. He also still occasionally preached a good sermon, and told lots of good jokes. Felt like he knew decades of life.
Some people are living poems.
All people are poems according to St Paul, but some people make it more obvious than others.
I’m thinking Van Gogh, Patti Smith, Rothko, Chagall and the gang. Phillipe Petite, St Benedict, St Francis, Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton and all the cloud of poetic witnesses I’ve always felt as my community above below and around me. After all, i was born of St Patrick’s day–who really only left us a converted Ireland and some great poems and a critique of the church in his day!
I respect that. Leave poems, be a poem, and try to get the Bride ready for Her Groom.
Archie did all that.
St Patrick has become a friend over the years, not just a holiday. When i get off “the path prepared beforehand to be my way” as Paul called life- i often return to this man who was led by dreams and vision to go to a foreign land and bless strangers.
Like St Paul, another mystic who had a vision of a man in a foreign land who was ready to hear, the “secrets of the gospel” Paul was carrying, and went and told him; St Patrick followed God through the language of visions and dreams, but was also a practical mystic. He actually helped people find the truth about life, and he, like all my heroes of the faith, was an adventurer, and loved “other”.
My dad in addition to being a famous and now old minister, was also an archaelogist when i was a kid. He loved and had and has a contagious curiousity about cultures unlike his own.
On friday nights growing up, he opened our house to all sorts of pilgrims–hippies, intellectuals, painters and dreamers-who wanted to talk about God, the bible and authentic spirituality.
These friday night gathering went inside me, as they way church was supposed to be–an open dialogue, where people could ask their real inner quest-ions!
On one of these friday nights, i met Noah, an abstract artist who was trying to paint God in black and white abstraction. I like Noah immediately, and he told me about his creative process and how he saw. It was like hearing my native tongue for the first time! He spoke symbolically and also in colors, composition and lines as meaningful.
Noah later killed himself. That’s when i wanted to make a safe house for artist, so that wouldn’t happen. I later called my life long ministry–Noah’s Other Boat. It was and is for creatives who couldn’t find a context for their quest-ions in the church, or the art world, and still somehow believed in a loving naming God who cared, and wanted us to seek and ask Him honest questions.
Who would meet us in our confusion and inquiries.
So i started several arts communities along the way to haven those from both the church and art worlds who wanted a deeper spiritual context for life and art.
Noah killing himself was the seed i needed to awaken my own calling in the healing arts. To become something like what they might call now, an art’s pastor.
Noah’s Other Boat was for all the others, all the strange animals which God wanted to preserve from the flood of meaninglessness which was and is still there waiting to take away lives.
This odd boat has floated now all over the world, and still floats!
So, those friday night gatherings changed my life, and clarified my calling.
Later when i studied at L’abri-a similar creative christian community of global seekers started back in the 60’s, in Switzerland, by a man named Francis Shaeffer-i refined my vision for being and making a safe space for artist to find and ask their quest-ions in life.
Shaeffer and his amazing wife Edith had planted a seed in the Alps which has been serving generations of those who desired a larger context than mere cultural christianity, who wanted something more like a “kingdom” or larger spiritual setting for their creative and intellectual pursuits. The church wasn’t offering much then, so they opened their home, which later became many homes, and then a global network of homes and families.
L’abri (the haven) was a true haven for me and many others to stay friend with Jesus while also trusting that we were designed to pursue our fields of passion with Him. That if Jesus was actually Lord, He was also Lord of the imagination and culture, and we were free to meet him in our creative pursuits. That we could also have our imaginations baptized, as CS Lewis another artist thinker who got free to be, put it.
My dad told me about the place when i was in college. He figured it would help me remain an artist, but also a friend of Jesus, and to help me integrate the two worlds i walked between–the church and art. Dad and mom. Perhaps i was just integrating their two callings. I was an artist minister, or a minister to artist, or somewhere between a preacher and performance artist!
Regardless, L’abri helped me. And I loved living in Europe. I was mentored by Shaeffer’s daughter who was a french surrealist expert and art lover. Her freedom to explore the arts, and other artist i met there, freed me up to have permission and courage to be myself in Him.
As David puts it in my favorite poem of him—“You make wonderful art, You made me–i too then, must be fearfully and wonderfully made!” He sings to true song of myself from God’s perspective! And so could celebrate his own identity as a poem of God. That’s my calling too! But thank God i don’t have to be a king like David.
I think if Noah would’ve been able to sing that song of himself from God’s perspective, he would still be alive. Perhaps, he is now painting God in his studio above.
I studied art therapy in Cambridge, Mass. It was an intensive program where 12 of us went on a transformational journey through arts and healing. At the time, it was a rare program, emphasizing going through healing while you were learning to be a counselor. I loved how experiential it was, and that for my thesis i got to give communion dressed as Elvis.
This wasn’t the first time i had preached as Elvis of course. But that is another story. Later, at seminary i was in a play as Elvis, and decided to do some preaching in character. Loved those homilies! Some of my best, although i was almost arrested afterwards. Yet, another story.
Graduate school was amazing, but just towards the end, i had a dream in which an old man told me to go “into full time ministry”. This use of traditional language was and still is unusual in my dreamlife, so i paid attention.
That month, i went down to my dad’s church, got re-baptized (which you can do in baptist churches, though the book doesn’t tell you to), and loaded everything up in my 69′ Kharman Ghia (my favorite of many 68 cars i drove over the years!) and drove across the country to go to seminary.
California, had the only baptist seminary i could imagine myself studying in, so i drove straight out.
When i arrived, my contact person immediately told me–i have some people you must meet. He took me downtown San Fran to Haigh Ashbury where i met a family and community i knew i would work with forever.
They had homeless programs, art studios, happenings, feedings in the park, and a church of the open door, which was literally a door we would take with us wherever we set up camp that day. I liked these people, and their community could use an art therapist. They were Christ centered but free and authentic, and i fit right in–which isn’t an easy fit, i assure you.
I lived and served with this Patridge family of the church world, for years, eventually going on the road with them on a north american tour which ended in Europe, but went nearly everywhere. Along the way, we made family and served so many creatives who just needed a sense of belonging and creative community of mobile gypsies in love with Jesus.
It was like touring with Johnny Cash and John Coltrane but with a lot of circus thrown in. I loved my years with the Jones. And the several communities they started in San Fran, are still some of my most frequent re-visits in life!
While living in San Fran, i was apart of several community start up. One of my favorite we called the “Stooge House”-it was for fools for Christ who mostly came from church backgrounds and were recovering Christians, who still liked Jesus.
We had a coffee shop and i curated the art gallery, while working at the Art Institute as an in house pastor and model for art classes. I got to know lots of artist there in a transparent way, and was able to link many to do shows in our little community. That bridge between active christian community and the art world was my zone.
We had so many great shows. One of a woman who made sculptured light up bras which were mounted on the wall and illuminated at eye level. Her art was about restoring beauty to the feminine form, and thinking about the layers of clothing we wear primarily for God or those most intimate, and placing a breastplate of beauty just over our hearts. Loved that show. It was the opposite of pornographic and, though it shocked many of my christian friends, it brought them into current dialgue about body image and feminity which was happening in the art schools at the time.
The artist herself felt so much love in our community, she decided to consider a different version of Jesus than she grew up with, and eventually came to be close friends with Him and us.
After that, i felt if we could restore the true image of the church and really live it, people would naturally be attracted to His Fragrance. The ministry of beauty fragrance and presence has always been the best evangelism I’ve known. Be the gospel, as they say, and if you have to later talk about it! As one saint put it.
We just wanted to be in Him, living gospel, and let That Spirit do the work of expansion.
Anyway, in those days i was still walking between the church and art worlds, but the church world was much more creative than some parts i had grown up with. It felt more indigenous to me, and more suited to how i was made. More like a creative circus that you want to invite your friends to. One which wasn’t trying to convert or preach at, but also wasn’t too sentimental. Just living out the story authentically.
I learned lots about what community could be out in California.
And how to live an authentic faith.
Maybe that’s easier in post-cultural christian cultures–or ones, the great southern catholic writer Flannery O’connor called, “Christ-haunted” cultures. The echo is still there, of the old stories, but the frame must be re-invented so the baby doesn’t get lost in the bathwater. Not unlike our times now.
After California, i went on the road with The Jones, ate doughnuts and talked about art and Jesus with all our vagabond pilgrims who jumped on board.
Then, it was over to Jerusalem to teach english to arab and jewish kids, and to get to know that city i had always secretly been in love with, but only known through her poetry.
I entered that poem quickly, sleeping on her curved white stone rooftops, and allowing my skin to become one with the cardomom-ed scented evenings of that favorite city of mine.
I came to know her, and she has never left me, but i knew it wasn’t time to die yet; so re-turned to the christian circus, which had now moved over to eastern europe. It was time for more adventure, and to get married–or so my dreams intimated.
As i said, my courtship passed through 911.
But after finally arriving in Cncinatti with my silk red scarf, which felt redder after 911, i was led to drive to a parking lot in downtown and wait. I waited until a woman arrived in front of me. I felt i was supposed to ask her if she knew Amy, my already fiancee in my imagination. It turned out to be her best friend. She took me to the amazing community where Amy lived (A Jesus People infused creative wonder house), and i had her leave the scarf on her pillow. She wasn’t there, so i took that as a sign and left on the last leg of my mission, which was to give a word to a young man about which city he needed to move to next.
After doing that, i returned to Prague, and waited her arrival. I was told, again in a dream, to marry the first one over the bridge. So i kept watching, until…
Amy had decided to come over to Prague ostensibly to serve with the family i was working with, but i sensed that the dream was becoming a reality. And, once she arrived, we quickly moved towards marriage.
We had met in Austin, Texas earlier that year. We were in charge of an international arts gathering at a downtown church. There were to be labyrinths and installations from all over the world. It was a powerful arts engathering of international creatives.
Afterwards, we looked at each other and planted an unspoken kiss.
That kiss extended into our wedding, which was another international arts gathering. We decided to make the happening our wedding. But no one coming knew that until they got there. We had the best artist in the world, bringing their best art, and suddenly it became a celebration of our song of songs wedding!
It was several days and included tea ceremonies, parades, opera singing, costumes…and the audience was church leaders and missionaries from around the world, who weren’t sure if it was performance art or a real wedding. It turned out to be both!
Exactly how i didn’t plan it to be, but perfect Divine choreography!
Our ministers, wore great costumes and tails and read from Jesus’ prayer in John 17 about mystical union among his people. This is my favorite overheard prayer of Our Lord. So intimate, and still His ongoing prayer for us all.
We went to Crete for our honeymoon and returned to Prague, covered in olive oil!
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