Writing requires a lot of pacing, in both senses of the word. I end up getting up and walking back and forth often as I write, searching, and even sometimes praying, for the next small group of words to come. Some intimation or hint of the next sentence.

I’m writing lots again lately, and trying to remember how to write well-to steward words authentically in and into love intentionality again. Farming language in kindness. Thinking of Aristotle’s challenge not not just make good art, but understand what makes it good. So you can repeat it, and teach it, and make it better than how it arrived. (“Poetics”)

Stewarding language, how we use and listen to it, is fun and a needed discipline in our times. To read the times well is aided by a love or words themselves. Love discerns the inner tone of words.

To plant excellence in others-words of life not death. To plant the seeds of the words you carry well, has always been a high value for me. For the words to match and carry the life of the content–ie that the language is not prostituted for the message, but actually reflects and carries it. I hate propaganda. It’s the use of art to get across your message. I think the art should contain the message. As Paul Tillich put it, “The symbol, to be true” should participate in the Reality to which it points. That still feels true to me.

The church hasn’t always been great at using its creative symbolic expressions in this way. Often, she used her art as propaganda instead. This mis-represents God really. We do use language, but it’s not meant to be used, it’s meant to be overflow of expression, and flow from our ongoing conversation with God. Something which is connected with core identity. The medium should express and be formed by the content of our heart’s relationship with God. Language in this way becomes the tip or surface of an enormous iceberg.

To amplify the best parts, or where the light is already settled or present in conversation or writing, to throw a spotlight on the gold, so it shines in full effulgence of understanding is how we learn communicate well. To listen to words as we speak and write them, is one way to match our inner content with our outer expressions. It’s part of becoming one really, or more integrated. So it’s a type of spiritual practice to write, really.

To find where God is already having a conversation and enter and expand there. Writing feels like a practice like that to me. It starts with listening, and expands into having overheard, and moves on to edit into clarity so others can see or hear also. It’s a very humble and humbling activity really.

So much happens simultaneously, without us there. Yet, word is always speaking, even in Silence. In that sense, you are tracing the unseen or unheard conversations beneath and in the midst of things daily. It’s a form of recording the background of life, and bringing it into the foreground for a moment or two.

Language is also fun to carve in, swim in, and play with, and to listen through into understanding. Just the urge to speak and express alone is a miracle of life. Then to consider how it works, is just a joy for me. Having fun writing again!

Fun writing and studying the art process at the same time anyways.

In college, i used to help international students in English composition. Then taught English in Jerusalem to children. I’ve got a collection of word books: etymologies or word stories, and then tons of grammar and composition books. My mom was a British Literature major, and we used to have to memorized lots of poetry, especially Shakespeare, but also most of the Romantics. I think i got the point, that words matter, they carry a certain density, when composed well.

And at times, language can even transcend itself, and form other worlds worth walking around in, and getting to know. Word-smithing is a lost art, in our times of millions of words a minute, all with equal attention; to use and discern which words matter most daily, becomes a sort of spiritual practice for me. I still find language fascinating, and a nuanced en-toned medium. What you say, and how you say it, can be life or death on a given day.

That we like to symbolize and shape our thoughts in words, still interest me. That words can still be used authentically is a small miracle.

Most people find that boring, but as I get to bore into words and writing again, I get excited by the nature of how to shape thoughts well in word, into art expressions, and greater clarity of communication. Little words which form their own constellations or spheres of meaning. Language itself is a symbolic activity. And I love symbolic communication. We write in dream talk, we make symbols even when asleep. Anyway, fun getting back into writing this season. As my California friends say, right on! I think i will.

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I remember my life as a series of dreams really. God spoke to Daniel in both dreams and visions. In dream, i was told to do all the major things in my life. In a dream, i was told where to go to college, what to study there, when to live on the road, when to go to Austin, Prague, Antwerp…dreams have been the most consistent form of communication outside of art for me. IN dreams, things occur symbolically—symbol to symbol. Symbols always feel like the most direct metaphor and form of communication. Metaphor as Aristotle defined it: as the ability to see the inner relationships between things, to see their implied narratives. I love dreams anyways. Just thinking how strange it is, they occur when we are asleep like little hidden sayings we can ponder all day.

My church musician friend said today:

“Please rise already Jesus, the musicians are exhausted around Easter. We’re doing Handel, this weekend, but feels like it wants to be Bach-bit deeper resonance. Needs more nuance for people to enter into the deeper parts of the story, to attain the whole thought.” Musicians at Easter.

Church musicians have the best sense of humor, by necessity. I told him, He did rise, so we should be alright. Even though our rituals have yet to be perfected, and you guys are overworked. My Jewish friends are more relaxed as there’s less sonic hoopla around Passover, at least in terms of music. Maybe deliverance songs are easier to play than resurrection ones. Both seem tough to me though.
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When the table lights up! The world changes. The conversation changes into another hue. If you have that gift of lighting up the table, take care of how you steward light.

“The table lit up, when you showed up, a friend said today, and I love your hat.” I’m glad my hat could bless. Those moments matter. They support the duller moments. When the table lights up. Maybe I want to be one who lights up the table, or maybe I already am one of those glow lights, or candle bearers.

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As a photographers son, you learn to see.
As a pastor’s son, you learn to care for souls
As an engineer’s son, you learn to see 3 dimensionally.
Still, spiritual intelligence informs all professions.

I love interviewing and just being with people, listening into their hearts carefully, and honoring their stories. I used to work with elderly and dying folks—most of what i did, was just listen well to amazing stories! Somehow, just listening in love, brings so much mutual healing. People are worlds, worth encountering forever.

Often, when we are safe to unpacked our tales, be seen and heard, which is half of healing, we unfurl the nuances of our blessings to and into one another, in the safe container of listening and beholding one another well together. Depth dialogue is the place of healing. Each person needs to feel heard forever, every story worth telling eternally.

This fellow today, was coming off of teaching a younger lady to take great photos. Teaching her how to see the essence of daily scenes. “To hunt for the essential moments of a scene in love,” as he put it.

He’s worked with everyone from Dan Rather, Bob Costas, Charlie Rose, and other American and international interviewers; just last week, he interviewed Wayne Gretzky (the sport’s star), an autistic child who teaches others to play sports, then did a interview with former president, George W about his art. “The autistic child taught me the most.” Teachers are learners, which is one thing i’ve learned from listening to them over the years.

People blow me away, all they carry, and truly are. “I’ve had to put my memories in files to recall them all,” he said today. This fellow is a camera man for multiple networks over the years, with two sons, both of whom are artist from a new generation. “Their much faster than me tech-wise, but don’t always get the inner meaning of things, or have the patience to note it’s wisdom, or know how to find what really matters about each story. So we teach one another.”

He said, “I protected and encouraged them, encouraged their creative sight, and told them each day, I loved them, and meant it. They felt loved and safe. That’s the most rewarding experience so far in my life. He also told them how to find the implied narrative behind each photo they take. Care about what is really going on in each moment. Each person and tone. And see the photo before you take it in Love.” Nice line, and maybe this week’s favorite quote i overheard.

He enjoys most, at this season of life, imparting to younger people what he’s learned, and making their way easier and swifter. The generations rock when they serve one another in Love. His oldest son keeps telling him to write a book because he likes to teach. Even as we were sitting together today, he went over to instruct a young man how to play better pool. People are cool.

And this man is a great story teller, knows when to hold back on details, and when to add or intone them to create flow, texture and ambiance, or draw you into specifics which reveal the whole. He get’s how symbols work, that is. And how to connect with his audience. I learn so much by just listening in respect today from this fellow. People, when encountered well, really are the crown of creation, despite ourselves.

This fellow, has been the camera man on interviews with the most important world leaders and thinkers over the past 40 years of so. Nice to get to chat, and mainly just listen to him today. What a treasure chest. And, as I get older, each conversation becomes more and more sacred. And each generation’s gift, when carried well, blesses the whole story. Nice gift conversing with this fellow today.

I love studying the creative process itself:

Looking at the creative process itself a bit today, as I prepare for some creative workshops, making sure I have room for each part of the process in my workshop…I tend to like the hovering, and lighting up part best, then naming, and sharing it aspects (in my workshops we share our art as gifts or art responses to other’s art)—but we need to dwell well in each part of the art process from hover to publish for the experience to be effulgent and transformational.

The creative process in a nutshell: hovering over chaos, lighting everything up so you can see the elements, separating, naming and delineating the elements, seeing how they all relate (discovering the narrative), editing them accordingly, and sharing or publishing.

Each part can be creative, and requires unique attention and skills. And you really can’t skip any of the parts, but each person tends to be drawn to one part of the process more than others. At least in my experience. Fun prepping to facilitate each stage of the creative process well.

More on love

Love’s the only way to know things. We can’t even interpret things without Love. And believe me, we need to know how to interpret things now. Love knows. Love brings understanding. Love is our hermeneutic, or method of interpretation. St John taught us, that we cannot even know one another, apart from Love, for as He put it: “God is Love.”

But love is also practical. Love is making things whole, or more truly themselves. Love is then the healer in every direction. It heals us, as we offer it to others. It heals them, or makes them more whole to the degree we are truly inside of Love. Love is a place in God.

St John taught us that we can even tell who people are by their love. And whether they are in life. Love is the key to discernment.

We can’t understand the daily news without being in Love, and we can’t discern another’s heart or bless them apart from Love. Love, as St Paul put it, is the highest “way”.

Love does more than assume the best, it calls it into being in one another. This is why heaven is made of Love. Love is an active orientation, and places us inside of God. Love is a metaphysical space in God, as is Peace. We are told to abide in these parts of God’s Spirit. Love is therefore the highest commandment—to know God is to love Him, for He is made of Love. For God so loved the world…

Love sees you into your brightest spot. As we love, we are ourselves transformed. Love is not an ideal, it is a metaphysical space in God, we are commanded to dwell in. It’s the actual living poetry of His Own Being. All other true poetry comes from that place. It is the estuary of song and being. The origin point of all that is Real. Love is our home already and forever.

I sit near my friend Curt today. It’s a darkly blue lit local pub, but with lots of life, all sorts of nuanced sparkles, the way a pub gathers community over time into each evening–in that golden azure neon beer lit sign sort of way; where everyone is equally shaded to be and become, and able to finally speak their truth.

We are both pastor’s sons, and both have known the strengths and weaknesses of the church experientially, existentially, and in terms of seeing which part is which–discernment, they used to call it. In our case, telling the difference between Jesus and His church, and somehow still loving both! Both of us approaching it as artist, seers, dreamers, symbols and symbolizers, those who want to believe in the inner glory of each hymn we sang growing up.

His dad, a famous old testament scholar. Mine also a sort of hero of the faith. So we recognize what it’s like to be sons of greatness, faith greats, and still have to find our own ways “in Him”, our own spiritualities in order to know, even ourselves. It’s a unique challenge. And neither of us is bitter about it. More like Johnny Cash, we just want to sing a few great songs well!

We can tell when someone, a new leader for instance, carries intellectual truth mixed with a true heart. We can tell if their theology is revealed or just soul learned. We can sense the music of other’s soul’s. Perhaps we have some sort of discernment, gifted and earned over time, and still caring, or simple Grace. Yes, at least that. I’m not sure. But, we are both musicians by heart really.

Musicians, us both, in the sense of interpreting things through the inner tone of things-knowing them from depth, tone, the melody of being, encounter from within. Sensing where God is in things. Where He actually is, and what is the good soil of planting the right note or seed in His tone and pace.

Yes, that is true, ok, i will listen. That part is God, that part is his or her own wound; got it. I receive the part which is true. And needed water! We both sense the inner fluidity of water in people, and which parts are parched. Maybe we inherited that sense-either way it’s inescapable.

I’ve helped many pastors sons not to hate the church, but to find Jesus nonetheless. To forgive her shadows, and labor for and with her Light, in other words. Since, He hasn’t give up, why us. Or at least to not throw our The Baby in the bathwater. But curt is different. He cares about music, and still likes the church. He chose to love what Jesus loves even if he didn’t. The music of the church.. And church history through music. He was a choral singer as a kid, and watched the church go through stages of musical evolutions. Some more or less relevant.

Turns out though, you end up loving what your Friend loves. If you find Jesus, you end up liking what He likes. He still loves the church, and so do we, despite herself, and despite ourselves. I suppose that’s a particular type of Grace, or maybe God just feels sorry for those who grew up entirely under the church’s roof. I myself was conceived in a parish house, and have listened to over 5013 sermons over the years, and counting. Curt’s journey has been similar.

I’ve hung out with Curt for many years, his dad was a great old testament scholar. And he never got bitter about the church, but does question where it’s at now.

We finally got a live baseball game as we talked.

Ok, look, the younger pastors are great, but they really need to be in His spirit to make it work. Not too emotional but enough. And super smart. They need spiritual intelligence, which is downloaded, not just book smarts. Anyone can become spiritually smart. He tells me, as he leans back into coding on his computer. He used to work for NASA, and since for the biggest churches.

It’s a hard time to represent Christ, even as fools like us, who had to discover Christ despite Christianity.

Curt’s personally more interested in Greek Orthodox, and the Anglican form or worship which he feels is closer to the Source. Something which reflects the silence of that intimacy with Christ and His Journey. I’m more interested in sheer Friendship with Jesus, and getting to come close to The Father, outside of our current expressions of it. I like all the generations of expression, but some are richer than others. Both of us know it’s true. And desire to do our part in making it so. And there is love between us, which we both recognize as home.

I love people who grew up near the church, and still somehow still feel attracted to her. Or maybe more to Him! We are remarkably, still friends with Jesus, despite our stories. And, still leaning into a larger context of Kingdom for the significance and interpretation of our stories. Thankful for that type of brother today.

It’s nice to meet other pastor’s sons. We have a way into Him which seems to make interesting art, if nothing else. Lot’s of very famous musicians, and artists of all colors, are pastors kids. It rears you with a yearning, as one friend put it. A yearning for something higher and Real.

Curt studied music for many years, here and all over Europe. But he’s always had a heart to somehow serve the church. It might be in his blood like mine. Still, he’s often been more honored in the secular rather than sacred venues.

“A workers worth their wages, and the law of sewing and reaping includes artists.” Curt pipes in again. The lament of the Levites, and yet also the privilege of downloading centuries of praises and prayers.

Maybe that’s the gift of growing up in close proximity to the church, even before you know what’s at her heart. You encounter the cultural building before you meet Her Heart Beat, or Core Identity, but at least you are in the parking lot of the Holy. It’s an easier, if more ironic route to Christ. And He tends to take note of the challenges. You are also able to tell the difference between culture and The Actual Christ, more succinctly and quickly. You can read the fruits of the Spirit more quickly. That’s another benefit of growing up under the cloth.

Back with Curt, it’s always talking over or through the cleft notes of our own spiritualities, bringing sonnets into now, and still keep finding Christ somehow, in the cracks and broken light shimmers, of our stories and the small glories of daily lives.

Some days, it’s enough to be be alive, much less, the sheer melody of the privilege of being alive here in our endless story-the poetry of small moments together. Each one so specific, yet pointing and signing into the Same grand Story, and Glory. With both appreciate the opera of daily life in all it’s unseen nuances. Like two pastor’s sons talking religion versus spirituality, and actually enjoying it.

I guess, we must still believe in more than Jesus, but also His people. Yet, we both now like simple glories. Good conversations. The miracle of kindness in some passing person’s eyes daily. Or just meeting someone else with a similar journey in life.

Curt’s last lament went like this: “The words and language need to work with the lyrics, I studied and taught music history, focusing on sacred choral music; when you take German and Latin and English and try to throw them all into one some contemporary praise worship, something doesn’t feel right. I’ve done choral music in Latin, Greek, and German. It depends on the music. The music itself can reveal the whole thought, prayer or meditation. But people these days want to be so contemporary. It’s nice to overhear the older prayers, though. This friend goes on and on, about all the possibilities–it’s ok to use Bach, but they only let me do so with the ones he wrote in Latin. He wrote most in German, and there is some resistance there. Alas, the lament of the levites, never ends. Still, we get it. The music is the most direct way to enter in, and encounter God, so it’s worth it eventually. It’s ok, to be ancient sometimes, if its still true.”

As it turns out, that particular Glory’s long story, is still present today, in a simple but, evening blue light conversation at the end of a day between us, with the right care, we might all make it; remarkably respelendent story, and a certain type of wounded glory in two preacher’s kids sitting simply in beer light, having a conversation of Grace.

I worked with elderly people for many years doing art therapy; I still love it when people grow better, and more beautifully themselves, and not bitter as they age! They become living portents of the possible! Signs of the cadences of seasons, and that a life lived well is still possible.

I watched more than a few die. How they died symbolized how they lived. The end essentialized the whole story. They had crystallized the symbols they carried. That’s the best death, because it leaves true art behind.

Some of the people who blessed me the most were in the last chapters of their lives! And were able to speak a clarified truth from experience, a sheered wise poetry into my bones and heart, which made me hear the call to life.

What they sowed in youth, grew into beauty, and even clarified and rarefied Wisdom. The laws of sowing and reaping with a huge touch of Grace, go a along way!

Some of my greatest heroes are those who aged the best like fine wine!

How we live the later seasons of our lives, teaches everyone the point of all the previous ones. And offers hope. Thankful for those who keep growing and being themselves in each season of life!

I love all generations, each has it’s unique part of the poem to carry (I see them less in terms of age, as “generations of God’s purposes”, and many of us get to live out several!), but there is something powerful about watching someone grow old well! Old oaks are the best! Thinking about this week, as an older friend passed.

Generations are not just ages, they are purposes to accomplish on earth. Each generation has certain gifts to accomplish these purposes, and they each fit together in the overall narrative.

Knowing the purposes of your generation, and the ones before and after help us move in wisdom, and God’s overall pattern of revealing Himself. It helps us appreciate who He is. And it helps us find our place in His long poem. Of course, some of us like Joshua in scriptures, get to walk out several generations of His Purposes. That’s a nice gift, as you are getting to see how things fit together between each generation.

Of course, there is lots of disruption and even hostility, between each generation, but they are meant to be part of a seamless narrative of God’s purposes. This is why reconciliation between the generations has always been an area of labor for me. I love elders, and I love youth, and I even love my own strangely authentic interpretive generation. Each has its strengths and shadows, but the more I love what He loves, i find myself at home with all ages of generations of His Purposes, and enjoy helping them work more as One.

I’ve had many dreams about His Love for each generation. In the dreams I was training youth, encouraging peers and honoring those older ones who have gone before me. I think I’ll keep doing that.

Been thinking more on Love:

Love doesn’t just assume the best, it sees the best, and the future of what you actually are. And in doing so, it calls it forth in you. The gaze of Love activates the best in you and me.

Love goes out of it’s way to bless other into being what they actually are.
Love perceives best! In order to see something well, we must love it. And to the exact degree to which we love something or someone, we know it. Love is the highest way of knowing other. For, Love precedes and informs interpretation. Love leads us into how things really are already and will be.

Love perceives a banquet beforehand in every conversation!

Been thinking more on Love:
Love doesn’t just assume the best, it sees the best, and the future of what you actually are. And in doing so, it calls it forth in you. The gaze of Love activates the best in you and me. And, causes it to be.
Love goes out of it’s way to bless other into being what they actually are.
Love perceives best! In order to see something well, we must love it. And to the exact degree to which we love something or someone, we know it. Love is the highest way of knowing other. For, Love precedes and informs interpretation. Love leads us into how things really are already and will be.
So, let’s watch the tone of our words in each season, for our words start all sort of fires in one another. Let’s make sure we see and speak in the tone of Love as we go and grow.