Thoughts from today’s prayer hike: little/long homily from da hills!

Nice place for a prayer walk today! Great place to pray for this very ethnically diverse city to symbolize dignity and creative collaboration or even, companionship or friendship in love, among all types of peoples. In times of great division, nice praying for unity among the peoples.
Things always start in prayer because it’s where you see from. You see Jesus always sneaking off to the lonely place of prayer, before “doing” things.
Today, kept seeing a vision of unity with the splendor of diversity as a starting point. If we can’t spiritually imagine one another as a human family, we can’t labor to incarnate it.
Nice to have a nearby high place to pray from today (love this hill and neighborhood of great racial and generational diversity), and listen, which is most of what prayer is for me. (That passage where we meet Samuel, coming down the mountain….so many mountains of prayer and exchange in scriptures…)
Maybe this particular city is meant to creatively teach/model about ethnic companionship and spiritual familyhood.
This specific city has always historically spoken of diversity and collections of ethnicity, but maybe it can also speak of the family of humanity now. Not just tolerance, but being family, cousins to one another. That seems to be one of the highest metaphors, and needs now-that we see one another as relatives, all of us globally!
St Peter got up, early on, and gave a simple word of welcoming the other nations (ethnos and people groups all all sorts!) into a spiritual family! Even at pentecost, it was the beginning of the message (the confusion of tongues or division of languages was reversed, or began to be so!)—all these different types of people were invited in! That hasn’t changed.
Welcome back home all you who were exiled foreigners, which is everyone, is one of the core messages of the gospels. We are all strangers and foreigners, and all welcomed back home. That really is good and needed news.
And it seems, that at least with Jesus He went out of His way to find the most foreign foreigner to welcome! Whose the one everyone hates the most, let’s make sure they get invited to the party, was the way of His Heart. That’s so basic. Anyways….prayer helps us incarnate this living orientation towards others. That’s one of its gifts for our own transformation of heart. And know, that racism is really at root a human heart problem. To change it, you must renovate the heart. And prayer starts with the heart!

Sacred exchange happens in high places so we can see what to be doing in the valleys. Prayer offers overviews. Geography symbolizes these rarefied communion spaces. It’s also good to go up high, when it is very noisy in the valleys!
This is why people build altars there, or rituals of exchange between what is above and below (studied this in cross religious studies in school! Fun anthropological study actually about religious use of symbolic spaces). It matters what we do on hills and mountains. The sermon on the mount is still the center of the NT in my opinion, but anyways…what i was seeing today, was something about what it means to be a house of prayer for all nations, which is one definition of church.
How can we symbolize that in our times, and be part of that living temple (or prayer chapel for one another) of welcome!
It was fun praying my way into it. If we ourselves, as St Paul taught are a living temple, then we are also a house of prayer for all nations! A high and safe place of exchange and encounter with the Divine! Isn’t that what priesthood is?! Where human meets divine through symbolic activities?
One of my favorite topics of study. What true priesthood really is! Right now, we are priesting for more than racial reconciliation, we are priesting towards seeing one another as actual family.
Prayer is also often the “scenic route”. I always am surprised by flowers along the way there. Today felt like a sky wilderness up top, traced to in floral explosions of life. Hiking is cool, prayer hiking is even more richly textured with meaning! I love prayer hiking! I learn so much in prayer, especially in high places. Wisdom seems to dwell on rivers, ridges and rims! And on the heights!
Anyhow, just sharing some insights from the heights today! Blessings….sorry for the length, but prayer is a long trail and trial at times, but, maybe all of life is just a prayer walk in the end. At least, it makes hiking more meaning-filled! Glad i went on a prayer hike today, gave me some hope for our times! Now, i really know what to be praying about!

So, Let my little words, meet Word in mid air then, and be happily informed, grounded and contoured, edited by this unseen encounter. And let my angels, much less other people, be not bored by my sonic explorations. I know that half my prayer is stumbling into what i’m (then Your) really praying. So forgive the introduction God, let’s skip to the good part. Thanks friend again, and also thanks for non stop talking to me over the years. If You, oh God, were not a babbling brook, I would not have learned to swim at all! Glad we talk all the time, even in my sleep! (Yet, my poor wife!) Amen.

A few more visual mornings poems of different tones from this month, but all of us still in dialogue with morning light…even by the end of night. I could stare at morning all day! I like the way morning light equalizes and highlights us.

CS Lewis, in “The Weight of Glory”, spoke of this idea that if we really saw one another in our glory we would be shocked, and treat one another with reverence—good meditation for these days! Of course, as St Paul taught, we all have unique constellations and styles of shining, of radiating or reflecting glory!

Even shop windows hold worlds! It’s healing to see things in more of their actual glory! At least it’s a good practice, and made easier by morning light. Looking from and into the heart of things, overcomes all forms of racism, which is based in fear and judging by appearance.

Glory outshines and displaces hatred. When we see another person’s true glory, we can’t hate them. This has always been true. Shine on people! Let’s uncover the light from one another bushels, so to speak! Art can help us see the glory in common things and one another. It’s not a luxury to do so, it’s a necessity! Especially now.

the world is sheered in wonder still…
a little morning world for you today. so much is implied about life in a single instant. even bushes are replete with worlds to behold. in the small is contained the tall universe sheer with wonder. in the small, the wide world hides! so many seeds plant themselves in the unseen. blessed are the meek things. the stars are hiding in the bushes each morning…and one another’s opened eyes.

It’s breezy today
that is, the trees are talking
the language of the invisible again.
I’m just listening.

From a pilgram’s journal:
My people, we were instant travelers, sudden streams in the desert. We never thought twice about going yesterday to get to you by tomorrow. We were more than wanderers, we were becomers and we caused people to become as we went….we were instigators of being. And we ourselves were instances of being also. That’s all we ever were, for better or worse. We were water in the wilderness.

Re-reading this great collection of thoughts on art and spirituality by Madeleine L’Engle called “Walking on Water”.

One of my favorite of her many great, wise and well named truths she carried: “Artist are the ones who still see the angels around us! They see angels in the background, which allows them to interpret the foreground better.”

We certainly are in times where you need to see the angels behind things! En-couraging and enlightening reading her thoughts on art and spirituality today!
“If you can’t see the angels in the background, it’s hard to interpret the foreground.” In this sense, artist are interpreters.

Artist are people who still see angels!

In times likes ours, when the foreground is so noisy and boisterous, contentious and fermenting, we need the holy silence of the background in order to walk on. To walk on water that is. Elijah prayed that the eyes of his student would be opened to see the angelic host which were present on the scene!

May we continue to see angels friends! The setting is actually bigger than the stage! Nothing has changed about that. We still live in an enormous room. It is the job of artist to make us aware of its dimensions. Doesn’t the great sonic architecture of music do that directly for us; or a magnificent building which points beyond itself do!

She says about Peter: “As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it. Artist help us remember that we too can walk on water! They heal our loss of memory. Artist are those who are willing to incarnate, more of what actually is here! The chief job of a teacher is to help us remember al that we have forgotten.”

In this sense, artist are teachers and interpreters, who allow others to see that they too can walk on water, or as with Chagall, float above city rooftops!
So many great quotes in this collection of her thoughts on art and faith. Another which felt apropos for our times: “But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos (ordered design) becomes essential.” Fun resonating with this wise woman artist today!

She writes about spirituality and art because, as she says: “My feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable!” Here was a woman with an integrated imagination who could read the skies or interpret the times. Isn’t that more of what we need these days!

This writer’s art and spirituality were integrated. There was no division in her between sacred and secular. The kingdom had come into both areas of her being, so she was free to think about and create her art as overflow of her spirituality!

Nice to be reminded of those who had baptized imaginations! And the result of course, was good art and living. Also, just nice hearing an artist talk about art in humble urgency. Art not just as luxury, but as essential to knowing, interpreting, understanding. Don’t we need such interpreters now, more than ever?! Those who model living between worlds, or seeing more of what is, and walking on water! What a great and needed wrinkle in time she was!

Re-reading this great collection of thoughts on art and spirituality by Madeleine L’Engle called “Walking on Water”.

One of my favorite of her many great, wise and well named truths she carried: “Artist are the ones who still see the angels around us! They see angels in the background, which allows them to interpret the foreground better.”
We certainly are in times where you need to see the angels behind things! En-couraging reading her thoughts on art and spirituality today!

“If you can’t see the angels in the background, it’s hard to interpret the foreground.” In this sense, artist are interpreters.
Artist are people who still see angels!

In times likes ours, when the foreground is so noisy and boisterous, contentious and fermenting, we need the holy silence of the background in order to walk on. To walk on water that is. Elijah prayed that the eyes of his student would be opened to see the angelic host which were present on the scene! May we continue to see angels friends! The setting is actually bigger than the stage! Nothing has changed about that. We still live in an enormous room. It is the job of artist to make us aware of its dimensions. Doesn’t the great sonic architecture of music do that directly for us; or a magnificent building which points beyond itself do!

She says about Peter: “As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it. Artist help us remember that we too can walk on water! They heal our loss of memory. Artist are those who are willing to incarnate, more of what actually is here! The chief job of a teacher is to help us remember al that we have forgotten.”

In this sense, artist are teachers and interpreters, who allow others to see that they too can walk on water, or as with Chagall, float above city rooftops!

So many great quotes in this collection of her thoughts on art and faith. Another which felt apropos for our times: “But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos (ordered design) becomes essential.” Fun resonating with this wise woman artist today!

She writes about spirituality and art because, as she says: “My feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable!” Here was a woman with an integrated imagination who could read the skies or interpret the times. Isn’t that more of what we need these days!

This writer’s art and spirituality were integrated. There was no division in her between sacred and secular. The kingdom had some into both areas of her being, so she was free to create her art. Nice to be reminded of those who had baptized imaginations! And the result of course, was good art and living. Also, just nice hearing an artist talk about art in humble urgency. Don’t we need such interpreters now, more than ever?! Those who model living between worlds, or seeing more of what is, and walking on water!

Just being with, in silence…
The gift of just sharing silence with someone at the same table, cannot be underrated! Did it today with a friend, and that silence was a mutual honoring. What a gift. When you are comfortable in yourselves together, sometimes there is no need for talk. There is just a knowing respect of being.

When you are a person who is constantly aware of others and their needs, and having to adjust accordingly, it is a special gift when you can just be silent together in the same space with another; it’s a holiday or sabbath of/for being. It’s the little love exchanges which restore us daily! Thankful for silent exchanges today!

By the end (from a dream)
The dawn saluted me with night’s echo.
And the evening contained the whole day.
I am old now and freer.
More myself and can listen
with no threat of loss.
I care more for small things
and birds than before
i also fell in love with the image of cities
and tried to construct them back together with paint
and love. I listened to the young man’s dreams more deeply
and went myself finally into a dream…
it was our most common form of talking over the years
as He lit a fire towards the end of night
on the balcony of my being,
he held me like a brother
or best friend, and we walked on together
where we all do-into the dawn which we always saw.
i no longer fear you
i’m coming closer to loving you for who you really were
all along. that is love’s progress, isn’t it-
the flowers which finally come to be seen.
the flowers also finally came to me
and opened their secret lives.
life was closer to what it was meant to be
by the end. i couldn’t stop talking about it though
words never ceased. But more of his silent thoughts
eventually engulfed me like an angelic bath, or unseen fragrance
i was much more myself by the end
and we were living next to a huge fountain.
And, mainly by the end we were all friends. I greeted
everyone the same, by bowing and sending out
my inner dawn salutes!