God made a covenant with Noah which included the creatures, in addition to the seven commandments for all of humanity, that last one dealt with ethical treatment of animals.

He wanted to tell us something about how to treat and relate to His creatures, how to partner with him in being better humans while on earth.

Been thinking about that recently-even in the jewish tradition, to be a righteous gentile-to follow Noah’s 7 commandments- includes ethical treatment of animals and the earth.

That it is for our own good to tend things well, even people who are weaker than us (you see the commandment to care for the poor-to do charity, was the only one which St Paul and Peter agreed on to transfer to christianity; St Paul, said it was the very thing, he was most eager to do!), and more vulnerable to our mistakes.

A good study to look at God’s care for the earth, and how He teaches us to be better people through care of His Creatures! Why God wanted to save, preserve and teach us how to care for the animals-Noah was not alone, he had all the animals with Him!

Maybe they are here to teach us of Him, still–just a meditation I’ve been having. Of course, He also made a covenant with the earth itself, which is a great mystery worth surveying!

Thinking about this as one of my dogs is sick this week. We are temporary parents of the planet, let’s do our creative partnership parts friends. Each sparrow, the Father has named. Just has He has each of us! Each name and identity matters forever!

When he let Adam co-name the animals–what a moment in the grand narrative. Are we not still learning their names-how to speak and call them forth in Love, and to speak, or have spoken, our own as we do!
Like

Music is always playing around us, if we listen well.

Taking The Risk of Engagement:

To the degree i risk engagement in Love, i and others will be made more whole; to the degree i hold back my heart, it and the other’s shrinks. Love calls forth true identity in all directions. We know something—art or people, or cities and nations- to the degree we risk engaging ourselves in Love for and with them. That’s also how and the degree to which we are healed and become healers of others.

Take the risk of depth engagement today! Why not! We are all worth it, in the end. And either way, we will meet God as we engage in Love, for as St John told us, God is Love. And Love is always where God is. This is one reason we are commanded to love the strangers, orphans and widows, and weak. It’s for our own good to do so.

To love your enemy is also to transform them and yourself. Love calls forth identity on both sides. Love always works in all directions. Part of the reason to love the “stranger” is to know ourselves! This is why both Jews and Christians were so adamant about this command—originally, of course, all Christians would have been the strangers intended!

We know one another, to the degree we engage in the relationship. That’s true with God and others. Love is not osmosis, it is active risk pursuit of Loving other to know them, especially those with the least Love extended towards them. I was a stranger and you let me “in”! Let’s let one another “in”! It’s for our own good as well to bless one another. For, it places us in the old Way-the position of Grace.

How art and healing relate—one of my favorite topics! Working towards and article on it! Thanks for your kind patience as i do….just some raw seeds of contemplation here:

What art can teach us about living well; how can we view art as a practice of empathy! How art appreciation relates to healing the planet and one another!

Don’t underrate perception in the healing process! As I see you, i will treat you! If I see you through my wounds, i will interpret you like that. If I see you more as God does, i will find myself loving you, and working towards your wholeness. Jesus saw the hearts of people, and acted accordingly. He did not judge by surfaces.

Most writers talk about being surprised by the perspective of their characters. I didn’t know they felt or thought like that. Something about entering into true empathy with others is one of the roles of art in spiritual development, and appreciation of art. Art is not superfluous to spiritual development! It’s a basic way of learning to be better people.

“Looking at art and beauty well, teaches us how to look at one another better! The practice of appreciating art from the heart, is a spiritual practice which teaches us how to treat one another as those “in God’s image”, which is our most basic human ethical imperative!” From a great book I’m reading on Christian/Jewish dialogue called, “For the Sake of heaven and earth”.

Or, as Martin Buber, the great jewish poet philosopher, might put it, “To the degree I engage others in Love, I will see them as they truly are, and know them into or towards wholeness. I can only know even a piece of art, to the degree that I risk my “I” in encountering and calling forth, their “thou”!

I still think this is true in art and life! To love our neighbors as ourselves, or to love the stranger, (which is a command in judaism, and implied in christianity, as Christians were the originally implied strangers-as were all gentiles)- who in our times is everyone, as we have become so inter-connnected- requires another level of ethical spiritual technology, or formation or incarnation of His Spirit in us, as MLK put it!

Viewing art and others well is one spiritual practice towards learning to love our neighbors as ourselves. Another level of the “heart of Christ” in us! Let’s implement that heart tech! So we can appreciate the art of others around us!

This is how looking well at art becomes an ethical practice for treating others as neighbors and family! In this sense, aesthetics, isn’t just for breakfast anymore-learning to see the beauty of other, the image of God in them, leads to how we actually treat one another.

It’s an imperative ethical practice to see well these days (sight comes before speech!)-good spiritual aesthetics, or seeing others and art more as they actually are through the lens of Love. For, if I see you more as God does, i will perforce, find myself loving you!

To see one another well—i.e. more as God sees us and them-is to help repair and heal (make more whole) our friends, cities, nations and planet. Let’s be participators in that grand reconciliation of true sight, friends!

Let’s be better art appreciators with one another. Sometimes, it just starts with looking at art well, as a practice. Empathizing our way into His Loving Vision of one another. In this sense, art becomes our learning to enter into God’s empathy for His Own Creation! Let’s! Aesthetics are underrated as a spiritual practice!

Learning to look well at art and one another displaces a pornographic vision of life-looking through our wounds versus looking through His.

It heals us, as we look well at art and one another-this is how viewing art can become a spiritual practice, rather than a superfluous luxury activity. To learn to see is penultimate to learning to Love well!

That’s my thesis anyway. We come into a deeper fellowship and communion with His vision and suffering by looking with Him at art, others and life, rather than viewing things only from our own vision. Art, in that way, becomes perceptual communion. We join His Sight of other. And our orientation shifts by conjoining with His!

In doing so, we become better people, art and life appreciators! Looking at art well is a practice for looking at others in God’s image and living well.

This is why aesthetics still matter as a spiritual practice. Art’s not just for breakfast anymore people! Our view, and interpretation of the world around us, is how we end up treating it! So let’s nurture our lenses well! And pick the right ones!

When we look at art with God, it helps us see more of how things actually are, or, will one day be. We then, become collaborators in seeing and being healed and healing (making more whole others and ourselves) what’s around us through the depth of our collaboration of sight! See well, to be well.

Everything wants to be fathered!
Each item, technology, plant or gadget, or person or city, looks eagerly unto fathering!
We are each children and potential fathers and mothers, meant to be stewards-potential parents.
We all look eagerly unto fathering! We want to be fathered. All of us.
Even when i look in my kitchen, at utensils and ingredients, they all want to be creatively fathered, yielded into order and identity in kindness, gentleness and wisdom. Everything wants to be fathered. It’s an intrinsic need of us all.
I’ve never encountered anything, which didn’t have an inner desire for fatherhood! We may not trust Father, but we all have a secret desire to be Fathered.

If you want to teach us Life through death, then do; death is just another deepening of trust; or, if you want to teach us through daily living, then do. Whatever the medium, teach us Yourselftoday, meet us through our passing circumstances, and teach how to be with You in everything. The medium is less important than the Message coming into us! Impart yourself through our daily circumstances Lord, whatever season of our lives we happen to be in, so we can be content while becoming who we really are while here!

Help us play whatever our parts are ours now!

I personally pray for EXTRA LIFE! Lord, thanks. I want to, like Joshua in Your Old story, live through three of Your great ideas!

Each item, technology or person looks eagerly unto fathering! We are each, meant to be stewards-potential parents. We all look eagerly unto fathering! We want to be fathered. All of us. Even when i look in my kitchen, at utensils and ingredients, they all want to be creatively fathered, yielded in kindness, gentleness and wisdom into their identities. Everything wants to be fathered. It’s an intrinsic need of us all.

I’ve never encountered anything, which didn’t have an inner desire for fatherhood!

I awoke again to…
Surfers practicing at dawn, on the linda mar cove today, in the Pacific’s winter way-
breaking the fray with our bodies leaning into sea like glistens. So,
i decided to stay with the gulls and hawks in stillness this hour where they alone
live, and just listen well with them,
to the endless waves turning… until, that is, i could really hear and see
them breaking together in some cacophonous unison unseen. Until i could surf them with my heart in Peace.
Until i could call them my morning dawn devotion, already breaking within.

As a photographers son, you learn to see.
As a pastor’s son, you learn to care for souls tenderly.
As an engineer’s son, you learn to see 3 dimensionally, design and implement.
Jesus was a carpenter’s son, and He seemed to figure the bigger context out!
Paul liked making tents on the side of his teaching career…lots of the disciples liked to fish.
Spiritual intelligence forms and informs all professions, and every area of our passions, and inheritances, if we make them places of meeting and being transformed by God.

“The medium is just a means to encountering what really matters.”

Just found this entry today from just after we visited the town Terezin on the Czech border, years back:

After visiting the town of Terezin, years back, and going to that cemetery of locals, jews and christians, with deep red roses hovering over each tomb..i wrote-

Terezin cemetery in fall, even I, could not crack a smile there at all!
Yet, the roses growing over the christian jewish local graves together,
did bring a hopeful scent into mid air. Perhaps wafting towards the Word reconcile;
which opens in silence, eventually, over all our seasons…