I think exaggerating True life, is the right way to go, until we are living it more fully!

Circus boat!
By the old river, near where I am staying in Prague, is a performance art boat started by the sons of a local theater hero. I love the metaphor of a traveling, on water, circus boat! Have boat, will go with the Flow of the River!

Also, i’ve secretly always wanted to live on water, and in the circus. I’ve done some circus (worked as a clown during university), and had many friends who lived in the actual global circuses of the world, but never tried it on the water! (Once, gave a pass to a book store i was running to some Croatian circus family, they only bought cook books about fish. But that’s another story!) Love to combine the two metaphors, seems like they already are in my heart.

Water, and rivers (the realm of the prophets and Wisdom) specifically, speak of messages, connectivity and memory; circus, of child like wonder and possibilities (unless we come as kids, we cannot enter The Kingdom..). The two together carry the right message, i think.

Nice to have a friend point out this floating performance space to me last night. Sort of a medieval circus on water! I think I’ll enjoy it! Photo to follow as I experience the show…nice discovering new metaphors this week, or combinations of older ones, which lead and lean forwards…into new Hopes!

People often say I exaggerate life. I’m not sure that’s possible really. It’s much bigger or grander than we imagine, and there are so many unseen realms intersecting at any given moment! Just ask Daniel, the prophet.

The setting alone is an endlessly enormous room which we have barely learned to live in! Each of us are novels God’s been wanting to write forever! Our names and stories (paths prepared beforehand-ephesian 2:10) are written in Him somehow. So, both identity and calling are held secure in Love. Yet, we are novices at being written well!

It’s hard to exaggerate what really is. Hyperbole may be, at least in the right direction of the truth. “Sometimes one must yell, to pronounce Silence.”
Or, as the writer Flannery O’connor put it: “Sometimes I have to caricature my characters, so the reader can hear redemption.”

People often say I exaggerate life. I’m not sure that’s possible really. It’s much bigger than we imagine, and there are so many unseen realms intersecting at any given moment! And the setting alone is an endlessly enormous room which we have barely learned to live in! Each of us are novels God’s been wanting to write forever!

Hello again Europe,
Just checking the pulse of your heart! Glad to be back! I should address you more properly, but today i feel casual, thankful, awake and happy to see you again friend. Let’s just be ourselves with one another. I enjoy you. And I think we all need one another now.
We are all precarious right now, so let’s be kind to one another for another train ride or so….let’s share ferris wheels and zoos and things which remind us of life. I always love it, when we are alive together, just listening, beholding in thanks.
I always feel welcomed here. People whistle in Belgium-a good sign. I always notice that, and their curiosity about other. Talked to about ten people on the train up, and in several different languages. I like speaking other languages when jet lagged-makes it more poetic, and you don’t care as much about mistakes! The lady on the train held suitcases from sliding for a Spanish family, and the fellow across from me told me all his favorite spots and festivals, and invited me for dinner this week.
Kindness cannot be overrated in these days. Gentle curiosity in language and action. Tenderness, what a great state of being, even, is in short supply these days!
Once, my wife Amy fell off her bike here, literally nine people came to help, including an old man with a cane! Kindness combined with a curiosity about other are helpful attributes these days!
First things i always notice in belgium: people whistle, they don’t make straight lines, and they are genuinely curious about other. Makes sense Pieter Bos (the late nations theologian from Holland) called belgium, “creative friend”. Feels true to me at least. And we all could use a creative friend at the end of the world!
Nice to be back, and see some old arts friends today as well. We picked up just where we left off in our stories (which are still odd tales)…as life should be. Also to enter with a monkey-clad ferris wheel celebrating one of the oldest and definitely best zoos in Europe felt specifically welcoming to me—combining creatures and child like wonder are two of my favorite things. At the center of the ferris wheel were images of kids playing with animals, my kind of symbol! Plus, this zoo is art, seriously! As is the train station of course.
Sorry to take photos of the normal, and myself (I was my only model to work with today-that will change tomorrow! One good thing about being your own model, is you work for free!) but I always see it best upon arrival. See people, places and things for the wonder they are, that is.
Sort of like seeing an old friend, you haven’t seen in a while. You see them almost as if for the first time again. Just this side of in between-as I often am in life! Like I said, i like the in betweens, i see the symbols clearest there! Tried to do only selfies today, tomorrow only doors. It’s good to make limits! Glad to be back with europe, an old friend!
“You are a gem in Him, so shine!”, I heard today as I came in. I often hear little words or word poems, as i come into regions or cities, or see old friends. So, I concur, as I am back in the diamond city again. Nice to see you again creative friend. Let’s play like the monkeys, otters and squirrels, like little kids in an enormous room! “Until we are what we really are.”
That was my little entrance prayer today anyway! Love you Europe despite ourselves. And in clear view also of what we are, and are becoming. I like how our stories intertwine at the heart. Just checking in on yours today, as I land into it!
(Written on napkins and receipts in travel. Thought I’d share it. Thanks for your patience and kindness. Let’s welcome one another as if we were forever.)

Hello again Europe,

Just checking the pulse of your heart! Glad to be back! I should address you more properly, but today i feel casual, thankful, awake and happy to see you again friend. Let’s just be ourselves with one another. I enjoy you. And I think we all need one another now.

We are all precarious right now, so let’s be kind to one another for another train ride or so….let’s share ferris wheels and zoos and things which remind us of life. I always love it, when we are alive together, just listening, beholding in thanks.

I always feel welcomed here. People whistle in Belgium-a good sign. I always notice that, and their curiosity about other. Talked to about ten people on the train up, and in several different languages. I like speaking other languages when jet lagged-makes it more poetic, and you don’t care as much about mistakes! The lady on the train held suitcases from sliding for a Spanish family, and the fellow across from me told me all his favorite spots and festivals, and invited me for dinner this week.

Kindness cannot be overrated in these days. Gentle curiosity in language and action. Tenderness, what a great state of being, even, is in short supply these days!

Once, my wife Amy fell off her bike here, literally nine people came to help, including an old man with a cane! Kindness combined with a curiosity about other are helpful attributes these days!

First things i always notice in belgium: people whistle, they don’t make straight lines, and they are genuinely curious about other. Makes sense Pieter Bos (the late nations theologian from Holland) called belgium, “creative friend”. Feels true to me at least. And we all could use a creative friend at the end of the world!

Nice to be back, and see some old arts friends today as well. We picked up just where we left off in our stories (which are still odd tales)…as life should be. Also to enter with a monkey-clad ferris wheel celebrating one of the oldest and definitely best zoos in Europe felt specifically welcoming to me—combining creatures and child like wonder are two of my favorite things. At the center of the ferris wheel were images of kids playing with animals, my kind of symbol! Plus, this zoo is art, seriously! As is the train station of course.

Sorry to take photos of the normal, and myself (I was my only model to work with today-that will change tomorrow! One good thing about being your own model, is you work for free!) but I always see it best upon arrival. See people, places and things for the wonder they are, that is.

Sort of like seeing an old friend, you haven’t seen in a while. You see them almost as if for the first time again. Just this side of in between-as I often am in life! Like I said, i like the in betweens, i see the symbols clearest there! Tried to do only selfies today, tomorrow only doors. It’s good to make limits! Glad to be back with europe, an old friend!

“You are a gem in Him, so shine!”, I heard today as I came in. I often hear little words or word poems, as i come into regions or cities, or see old friends. So, I concur, as I am back in the diamond city again. Nice to see you again creative friend. Let’s play like the monkeys, otters and squirrels, like little kids in an enormous room! “Until we are what we really are.”

That was my little entrance prayer today anyway! Written on napkins and receipts in travel. Thought I’d share it. Thanks for your patience and kindness. Let’s welcome one another as if we were forever.

I’m gonna go ahead and lean into what’s Always!

In the enormous room, we all actually live in already… What kept us from being is no longer in the atmosphere. We find ourselves uninterrupted! We frolic and enjoy one another’s becoming, as if the room never ended, and each moment were just a poem about the whole story. Read out loud without fear of rejection, or any hiding whatsoever!

We come out and dance, in the rhythms of ourselves with one another.

We know God is in the garden, and so, already seated at the table! We do not hide from ourselves or each other.

The enormous room is where we really live all the time already. So, we might as well get used to living in an unseen banquet room which never ends…just now, they are starting to read another poem!

We are not afraid to talk clearly with the waiter, the stewardess, the bill collector; because we know, they too, are already in the enormous room with us, and Christ is seated at the head of the table, enjoying us all in Love. For He is made of Love, and this is His room. And every other room is fading…

How a tree and each person I meet, have all their seasons within them, even now! We can go backwards and forwards as needed for our healing. We can revive Spring, if needed, or listen through and into the dark of Winter. We can join our future lives and speak Love over our whole story. Or we can begin in the present, and go back and care for our younger parts into their unique glory. In autumn, the trees also contain Spring. As do each of us, as we lean well into Love. The present spreads its’ Love in all directions, as needed…by Grace.
Do we trust Love to touch every season in us daily? There trees certainly do. Why not you?!

Oh, what The Father has up His enormous Sleeves for each of us!