My own life is about art, authenticity and spirituality! So, i like it when people combine, or have integrated these areas-like Thomas Merton, Oswald Chambers, Henri Nouwen, CS Lewis (at times), Van Gogh (who was a pastor before painting), St Francis, Teresa of Avila etc—people who were authentic artist and spiritual teachers-a hard tight rope to walk without seeming, or worse being, pretentious, or making a mockery of the symbol of yourself.

Their lives say, that we can truly be ourselves, and we can integrate our creativity with our spirituality, so that our expressions flow from who we really are, and give other people the permission to do the same. And at best, their lives became symbols of how to live well. To live a “valid” life, as Francis Shaeffer might call it, matters. We like the word integration better, but validity is still a useful term in art and life. Is the thing true to itself, self revelational in that sense.

My version of authentic creative spirituality is based on Psalm 139 and Jeremiah’s calling. Both are celebrations of identity and how our callings are meant to match who we are; what we do, flows from who—i.e. flows from and is not separated from who we are-identity precedes and is the source of calling.

Or, as it says in Ephesians 2:10-we are poems, so the pronunciation or pathways of our lives (calling, or stuff we do) are both eternal things held in Christ, according to this verse.

Both I am, and I do are meant to be true to themselves. I like it when the body of an artist work reflects the whole trajectory of their identity story of becoming, even if it never fully arrives at itself.”If we are authentically becoming, we are reflecting something bigger than us, which desires us to be.” as one of my mentors put it.

Anyways, I like this guy, he’s been at it a long time.

Once I went to where he recorded his most spiritual album in Scotland—FIndhorn, a unique community of artists—eco spiritual before it was trendy!

And, Mike is still on his journey, still a freak, still awake, like every other human he’s unique, as he sings. Poems still being pronounced, we are. Anyways, someone gave his latest album on vinyl, just grooving on it tonight.

My own life is about art, authenticity and spirituality! So, i like it when people combine these-like Thomas Merton, Oswald Chambers, Henri Nouwenn, CS Lewis—people who were authentic artist and spiritual teachers. It says that we can truly be ourselves, and we can integrate our creativity with our spirituality, so that our expressions flow from who we really are. It’s based on Psalm 139 and Jeremiah’s calling. Both are celebrations of identity and how our calling are meant to match who we are—i.e. to be authentic. Both I am, and I do are meant to be true to themselves, authentic. I like it when the body of an artist work reflects the whole trajectory of their identity, even if it never fully arrives at itself.

Jeremiah had a ministry of authenticity! I relate to that. To be your true self does indeed bless others for it gives us permission to be, and have unique relationships with Our Source.

Today…

Considering, the role of the prophet when a nation is being judged; to warn, to call people back to their true selves (the ministry of authenticity!), to see what is happening and tell folks who and what one should ally with (true revealed discernment) etc. Jeremiah was allowed to stay free when the enemy came and took over. He had a unique position. Consider his role and times.

His nation was being overthrown because it would not repent, return and lean on its God for life and protection. It’s leaders were making false alliances. And then, even at the end, would not listen to The Voice. The city could’ve been spared. The women, not raped.

Then they get carried away in waves, given the choice,. Jeremiah stays with the poor remnant and ends up wandering down to Egypt but still leaving the symbol of having bought land, as a hopeful symbol for the whole nation that after many years the nation would be restored, and specifically, the priesthood (as Anathoth, his hometown, was a city of priest-this action symbolized a restoration of Jewish priesthood itself eventually; all the Jewish revivals started with a restoration of priestly activity (a recovery of reading and understanding the word, levitical stuff, the priestly precedes the procession or incarnation; symbol comes first, the artist move into a neighborhood first, then everyone sees it and moves there etc; in short artist are prophetic and move in a priestly role—Nehemiah’s time is an example), just as all Christian revivals start with the priestly activity of prayer! Nothing’s changed).

In Jeremiah’s day, there were people who recognized God’s true voice on both sides (that is people who were actually intimate with God, not just religion). And those who did not. Jeremiah was recognized by the enemy’s guard as knowing God’s voice. And even in Babylon people recognized God’s Voice in Jeremiah’s words, and Daniel, having read Jeremiah’s words, was able to work things out from within the system. All sorts of people listened to Jeremiah’s words-unexpected people. Still true.

Daniel and Jeremiah were in an interesting tandem. Daniel, who is not considered a prophet, but clearly moved prophetically, stayed true to God from within the government-different position, same type of spirituality. Jeremiah from outside it. Both were under a higher law, living in a time when things were being overturned which weren’t honoring God, and Jeremiah represent all He sees both in his life and art. And stays true to God. Good role model for these days.

These stories are lenses, filters through which to see-even our current situation.

Jeremiah is a great model with 40 years of service in tough times-he symbolized the way of the prophets in tumultuous times; and this, most autobiographical of the prophets, man’s life itself was a teaching or way. Intense figure, Jeremiah. My favorite of the Hebrew prophets! A bleeding heart, who actually quits his job at one point, then decides to return. Honest.

Even if you don’t read the bible, you gotta dig Jeremiah! Even just as a way. Plus there are lots of cool paintings of him, which makes sense.The ultimate misunderstood artist, who stays valid! Paul might be a close second in the New Testament. No one understood him on any side. Regardless, the bible has categories and ways of seeing Reality embedded in the lives of people and their stories. The lens of Jeremiah’s life and way is very useful in our days! I’m enjoying considering it today!

Notes from this week:

//

Why wood? the construction worker asked me….

“Wood is just a world

of memory and knowing.

It holds us, somehow in place

until we ourselves, remember, who we are.

The Cross was made of wood.

The ultimate juxtaposition. It’s a material meant to hold stories,

without splintering, recalling endlessly,

the ultimate story occurring forever.

Skin and bones of the right one, on wood

the memory of that wood still echoing in my bones…

tells us who we are.” Sorry if that was too deep an answer.

But we, definitely, need to work with wood.

Perhaps, i over explained

or responded on the wrong level

Still, wood matters. Let’s go with that.

 we clearly, need wood on that particular

counter top.

//

I’m not sure the difference between light and glory.

We are told to walk in the light, but to move

from glory to glory…

Perhaps glory is her contour.

In the meantime, which is where we all live,

this grilled corn

tonight in yellow texas evening light,

looks nearly perfect.

//

you gotta do what you are

then you’ll mean it.

//

across the street a young woman tends the elderly.

today they are watching rain fall

and being thankful in small ways

she often wears blue dresses

but unlike a nurse, for pleasure.

today, she leans over the railing with one elderly man

looking at a freshly wet blue bird

strutting around for seeds or something

the bird is startled to be seen, but then returns to his happy hunting

into the moist earth. today, i notice she is pregnant,

while caring.

//

write your own name on your loves

as they say

define things with your love

tell them, they are, they exist, they matter

the pen we write with is Love, the ink, His Blood. That’s how we contour things

into Being.

if you can’t tell something it is loved,

you can’t be yourself, yet.

//

europe is lonely.

in a dream, i come to her to listen. to be with,

her thoughts seem so deep and distant, as if

she feels irrelevant to herself.

i ask her what she thinks about at night-

“all that has come before

how did i get to this place

given so much foresight?”

we talk for many hours

i slip my hand into hers

as the sun, finally rises.

//

don’t pare down your life.

the old man said, then he went on…

i gave my wife a bucket once for her birthday

told her to fill it with things she wanted;

she chose chocolates.

i was happily surprised as she could’ve

filled it with car keys or diamonds

or anything else which made her smile;

we ate dinner, then made coffee,

and eventually made love, and then

 had chocolate for dessert.

////HE

 He went around shining, in a

simple, understandable, form.

People could mingle in His Light at will.

He was trying to make Love

conducive. To make a condensible tangible expression and compression

of “love

one another.”

Or, of Love itself.

He, a more exacting symbol.

/…

what we said here to one another, were pools of light,

to dive into, to become in, whenever.

the mediums hardly mattered…

just, wherever language made us

most likely to jump in! we gazed our way there,

then, we gave this to one another, for many seasons

until we all became ourselves,

eventually.

the morning was the sound of cigarettes and thought.

bereft of interruptions, finally.

The gentleness of light:

thinking about how to help others grieve well…(sorry, deep times require deep entries-part of the weight of glory these days! Promise my next will be lighter! And since, the last one was so short..)

Talked with a girl today, who told me that her mom killed herself last year, and she simply doesn’t know how to grieve. This friend is not on fb, so I’m not overexposing her journey. Just noticing ways to help us walk through grief so we don’t become depressive, lost beneath the weight of death.

She is an artist, so I asked her how she visualized her un-grieved space. She had a particular image which came to her. Then I asked her if she could grieve it a little bit at a time. Make art about one aspect of her pain each week, so it was less having to behold it all at once. Then maybe do a retrospect for herself at the end of each month, to see where she’d come. Slowly crumbling each aspect of the walls of fear, into grief.

I told her how I painted my black pool of grief and then cried each night, for about eight months, and prayed that light would come in, when I was dealing with depression many years ago. And how I needed a few friends who were aware of what I was going through, and who could take me to the movies when i needed it. And reminded me the grieving would end eventually. And I could be funny again.

She said she was afraid of the amount of grief and overwhelmed at trying to enter there, and yet realized if she didn’t she was going to be paralyzed internally. I told her, that if she can get a healthy external life, eat food, have a few good friends, and then….grieve a little of the black building at a time; some parts are letting yourself feel the fun parts of your lost ones life, and being thankful as well, and then parts which are angry at them for quit-ing. Suicide also brings shame and secrecy, so it is good to share feelings with others. I think this precious girl had only shared it with me and one other person.

Just made me thankful for my Counselor and my counselor, who walked me through breaking up the weight on the surface of that black pond in me, back in the day when i was under depression, so I could be the person of joy I was meant to be. We have to grieve the losses. Denial doesn’t work—stoicism doesn’t work. Our pain has to become a meeting place, it has to become our new spirituality for a season. And each of us have to, in unique ways. For me it was through art, active prayer, and counseling and friends who stood with me through the boring parts.

I started studying counseling, art therapy and healing for this reason. I don’t want some daughter in any cafe to live under the weight of depression unnecessarily, or to die before her time, or not to be born anew into her next season! And there really are ways in which our grief does not have to calcify into depression. If we expose it to the light with wisdom, and an understanding of how to walk it out with others, and as my mentor said, “fully let God in, sometimes slowly.” The incapacitating weight can and does lift if we grieve the pain.

Anger is a door into the room of un-grieved pain. Many of us stay only at the door, without entering the actual room of our pain, which is usually where Jesus is sitting—the Man of Sorrows acquainted with all our grief. Again, suffering becomes a potential place of meeting God (both individually and collectively), and our deeper selves, if we let it.

Grieving tools help. Anyways, I was privileged that she shared that with me today. Made me once again aware of how kind God has been to me over the years, and many others. And that Hope never dies for any of us as we let the Light in, gently!

I’m very interested in healing artist, as I had a great painter friend who killed himself when i was a kid. So i made a ministry called Noah’s Other Boat, which was really about an ark for discarded people rather than animals. I’ve always carried that boat in my heart. My friend’s name who died was Noah. There’s always a Boat, even for us weirdos!

How artist grieve:

I like reading all sorts of people’s perspectives on how to grieve and live and honor life well. Certain artist teach others how to grieve, which we all have to do, in the end.

Patti Smith’s latest book (her first one, “Just Kids” was an amazing poetically moving tragic memoir of her life in NYC in the midst of a cultural movement in the 60’s and 70’s), M Train—able to grieve for others through art is one of the things I’m learning through it.

She’s also a ridiculously talented writer and poet.

The ability to hold and evoke a container for collective un-grieved things, through her books and art. It’s a unique priestly activity, to be able to help others grieve things which they didn’t know they were grieving.

Wonder if this is one of the truer roles of art. Just reading her latest book today.

Not for everyone-raw beauty-her style, though it is brilliant, but this thing of giving others a

metaphysical/spiritual circle to grieve in, by articulately expressing your own, and really honoring each person and experience which entered, as having meaning and matter—every person, a poem worth beholding, pronouncing. Powerful stuff. The healing aspect of priesthood. With her, of course, she is also grieving lost artist from her own generation; she is holding a vigil for the special ones, which i relate to. The lost levites. Nice, and instilling read so far!

A friend of mine said to me today:

“Living well in the midst of tumult is a sign!  It’s not a denial or escape from suffering-we live with our hearts-eyes wide open, and do our best to alleviate the pain of others- but we become a sign that it is possible to have full life in the midst of darkness and tumult. We become portents of things to come, which are half-way already here through us.”

Reading old charismatic literature tonight-love this quote by a very old retired minister:

(seriously, he knew where to sit!)

“I’m hanging near the Stream, in case you wanna find me. I’ll be there. The Stream of the Holy Ghost, and His host, and that sorta Life space. Ain’t gonna leave this spot until He comes. I’m in the first Peter continuum!

Again, for practicals, if you do indeed require a meeting or desire to commune, that is if ya need to talk or even chat beyond this passing, fleeting doom, you gotta come to The Stream of true Being to be with me, so we can meet face to face, where it’s truly at, as people in His Glow do and are meant to meet! As for me, I’m mostly sitting under angelic umbrellas.” (quote from Reverend Shoehorn, pentecostal by birth!)

Soil, Sight and Skin—rediscovered!

Just re-discovered this entry in one of my old notebooks. (“I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now,” to quote Dylan; and yet, nice insights from when i lived at L’abri, a spiritual community in Switzerland) I was thinking lots then, about where traditional Christianity was lacking or not tuned into the Divine conversation at the time:

“Soil, sight, and skin. Three neglected areas of Christ lordship and our partnership with Him, or open dialogue with the Divine understanding. These are areas, we haven’t entered the deep and practical dialogue yet, and pressing areas of concern and burn.

Areas of understanding our relationship with the earth, the healing of how we see (perception, art, symbolic—there is a poverty of the imagination in the church) therefore, interpret and know (sight is related to knowledge, if we don’t see right, we don’t know well); and our relationship to our physicality, our bodies (what to do with our tents, as one teacher put it).

He is Lord over every dimension of Life, every area. So, He is waiting to be dialogued with in each of these vacuous areas. These are also gap-zones where the vacuum gets filled by many things.

In the area of the earth, new age and paganism enter, in the area of perception, pornography and advertising and commercialism (disguised materialism); in the area of our bodies, “mass supermarket- yoga” and other partial forms of integrating mind and body. Christianity has still not properly dialogued with these three.” I must have been deep back then! Nice to discover, at least I wasn’t asleep spiritually, and was “minding the gaps”! Are we dialoguing actively and articulately with these three areas yet?

Considering Parables

Thinking about Jesus’ method as well as His Message, which He was—in His case, the medium really was the message! He’s talking about planting words of truth, even as He IS The Word and The Truth! Gotta love it. There’s a self irony in Jesus’ Way!

And then, this little parable is all about planting the Word as little mini-farmers!

Anyways, just re-reading the parables today. Just the fact that symbolic stories were the way Jesus taught to people in the outer circle is cool and kind. Not just stories, but symbols.

Symbols draw people into the Reality of what they symbolize, as all good art does! Riddles, puzzles, parables—what an interesting method to draw people to spiritual understanding. Someone said the purpose of art is to drawn people into Real Reality!

Not abstract truths, but metaphors which called them towards…something which puzzles the everyday habitual mind (as clowns came out, in Hopi culture, before the chiefs, to get the people ready for wisdom!), and attracts the spirit towards some deeper reality.

He shocks, shakes, calls awake and forth—listen! Pay Attention, if you have spiritual ears, hear this…then He precedes to deliver the message in symbolic story. Fascinating!

Love this particular parable-a gardening farming one; (Jesus used farming, finances and fishing metaphors most often—all very down to earth!).

This sowing or planting metaphor reveals our typical obstacles to spiritual growth. Could meditate on it forever.

Jesus is in a boat on the water as He teaches. You have a Master on water teaching! Water=message word, mystery; and the people are still of the flesh= land shoreline, but the ones who are seeking, come to the edge of the shore. The whole metaphor is pitch perfect.

Then He starts teaching them about their obstacles to encountering the Kingdom (and describing the Kingdom itself as that which is reproductive and fruitful), and to spiritual growth-he does so, in a way which draws them towards overcoming them, at the same time as training His disciples with Him.

The three basic obstacles to spiritual growth: bad soil, no roots, cares of this world. So simple and true. He uses stones and thorns as symbols of types of blocks, and really breaks the inner meaning down of each type.

He articulates each type of block to growth. And at the same time, He is training His own students through the experience. He, breaks down the riddles and puzzles-the symbolic expression for them later on the water.

Then, He rebukes the storm, again training them about what is about to happen—understanding how to take charge over things which are being rebellious against His Nature, and He keeps teaching by symbolic actions!

Then, they arrive on the other side, where, immediately, a demonized man needs deliverance. He was preparing them to experience what He modeled!  Great passage. The whole trajectory of the story has teaching in it, and is itself a symbol! Modeling it as your talking about it, real Mastery Teaching. This is how to sow-look for good soil! Here are the things which will block the growth of what you plant.

Even if you hate religion, these parables rock! Jesus was a good teacher. Even if you just consider how people learn and grow. Enjoying studying them again.

Take care of how you hear—what you listen to, and how you take it in! Take care of how you symbolize and teach. Understand the resistances, and be wise. All just in one little passage. Jesus rocked and rocks.

evening light:

each part of day, has its own particular glow

that part of day, we call evening, when even our noisy jets, overhead,

glow in their long streaked stretches towards something….recall what

 the gulls have been doing at sunset forever…especially this one-

reflecting, as we do, with their wings and sound-calls of something like lament.

feathers tumbling through light…

which, we, somehow, try to emulate…

(or it happens, regardless of us, unless we’re not willing)

So that, if you look on any particular sunset

into our busy skies, all you see

are fuchsia and gold streams of glory, us.

trying to re-enact something above us,

even with what we leave behind

which still-glows without us.