Always play for the angels; and if you’re really bold, play with them! Life is a collaboration with unseen friends above and around us daily!

God is always clapping for us, but we don’t often hear it! Life has applause implied! Grace never stops giving standing ovations for each of us! Well done everyone! Fortunately, the applause is not based on how well we performed. He’s just proud that we are on the stage! Like any good father would be.

Live your season of life well. It makes a way!
My mentor from college days recently told me, as he gets into his 90s, going to bed at night is practicing dying. Sounds morbid, but not in his case. He has acquiesced his soul to God already while here. Makes for good sleep, he told me. I’ll trust that golden piece of advice.
Nice when people live their particular season of life well. It takes away the fear before you get there!
This mentor has written many books on the artist Van Gogh and his spirituality, as a pastor’s kid. His books and life has helped mine immensely. Thankful for those, who unlike Van Gogh, get to age well like fine wine.
Still bearing good fruit in old age is a sign of righteous living, as the Psalm says!
My own father would be another example of that. Thankful for those who go before us. We do our somersaults on the shoulders of giants!
//
People see inconsistently, God sees well constantly. Perform for Him, not people. Their applause always dies down, but He is always clapping for us! And knows us each by name. His Eyes watch us always; peoples eyes often glance to the side. We are easily distracted. The whole show is for Him. Perform as if God was watching your life like we watch a great movie. And make it a great movie!
//
King David could care less what people though, when he was dancing half naked before the ark of The Presence of his God. He wasn’t dancing for the crowd. He was dancing in front of His King.
Always perform for the angels not the audience, as my mentor put it.

Thinking about Moses or any of the prophets trying to drive today, with all they were seeing….

You see the patterns in the trees
The next day you don’t
You hear music in the leaves
The next day you are raking them….
That grief, keeps you looking uo
In case an angel passes through the leaves
Come tomorrow and rustles your sight back awake!

The prophets saw several dimensions occurring simultaneously inside and outside of time. Even Paul, was blinded to see and hear more from other planes. Art is about pulling back the veil enough to see more of what is really already always there. Like Elijah when he saw the great host, or those shepherds. Artist tend to live seeing everything at once. Like prayer for me, just lets you see more of what is always going on around us. Art is mystical in that practical way. But don’t make art and drive. Even when I’m praying and driving, I see too many angels, and keep swerving.
The theater has many layers beyond even upstage! And the lighting tech guys perhaps know this best. It’s not just what’s on the stage, it is all that is happenings around, above and below it, that makes the magic of life!
All my own paintings have animals, angels, trees, people, cities-all occurring at once. Often the animals see the angels better than the people do. But there is always one recurring character I paint. A man walking on a wire with special sunglasses on, who can see the angels and that the sky is made of music.

Where I do therapy?

I do therapy in my car
Under bridges
On airplanes
With strangers
Who become friends.
I do therapy with billboards at night that suddenly are alight
And with smoke stackes from factories up and down
The east coast.
I do therapy with priest and homeless and The Holy Ghost.
I even do therapy in my sleep. My dreams
Are an unseen therapist for free. We watch
Movies together, eat popcorn and just be.
I listen to trains in Antwerp, and am immediately cured.
I watch local birds until I remember my inner name procured.
I listen to the opera of sunset, if I really want to transcend.
In the end, I do therapy with everything everywhere I go.
I listen until I know
I’m see until I glow.
I put a bumper sticker on my skin so it shows,
And paint on bathroom walls (very low art)
We are more than we know-to do therapy
As I go! Let go high and low until we know whole.
I do therapy mainly with angels in my dreams,
But sometimes while playing pool with friends I just met.
Or in the alleyways of the world, where Jesus always show up.
My Healer and I, we do therapy every day.
We collaborate in healing through play!
Just there, a warbler landed near me to steal my French fries-
She and I will be doing some therapy
Just about now.
I do therapy with my wife at night
When we are trying to recall the day, and not fight
And say, to one another again, I know your name by heart, love.
I do therapy with the postman who
Is always talking to himself on his phone
But seems so alone.
I do therapy with my neighbor
Who just lost his parents and is building tents
In his basement. I do therapy.
I do therapy by listening well, until I know or…
Simply gazing in love into someone’s eyes.
I do therapy while trying to save a squirrel
Who got hit by a car. I do therapy in any bar.
I do therapy by riding my bike
I do therapy by loving what I like
I do therapy by singing to myself
I do therapy by trying to bless someone else.
I do therapy by taking out my trash
While singing loudly some Johnny Cash
I do therapy by eating what I please
I do therapy daily on my knees.
But I do therapy.
I do therapy mainly
By remembering I’m loved despite myself and you,
From something I can’t fully know yet, undo, or view
From above. I do therapy by telling everyone the same—
You too are named
You too are named, claimed and adored. And we
My friend, are all in therapy and nothing more.

Where I do therapy?

I do therapy in my car
Under bridges
On airplanes
With strangers
Who become friends.
I do therapy with billboards at night that suddenly are alight
And with smoke stakes from factories up and down
The east coast.
I do therapy with priest and homeless and The Holy Ghost.
I even do therapy in my sleep. My dreams
Are an unseen therapist for free. We watch
Movies together, eat popcorn and just be.
I listen to trains in Antwerp, and am immediately cured.
I watch local birds until I remember my inner name procured.
I listen to the opera of sunset, if I really want to transcend.
In the end, I do therapy with everything everywhere I go.
I listen until I know
I”m see until I glow.
I put a bumper sticker on my skin so it shows,
And paint on bathroom walls again
We are more than we know-to do therapy
As I go!
I do therapy mainly with angels in my dreams,
But sometimes while playing pool with friends I just met.
Or in the alleyways of the world, where Jesus always show up.
My Healer and I, we do therapy every day.
We collaborate in healing through play!
Just there, a warbler landed near me to steal my French fries-
She and I will be doing some therapy
Just about now.
I do therapy with my wife at night
When we are trying to recall the day
And say, I know your name by heart, love.
I do therapy with the postman who
Is always talking to himself on his phone
But seems so alone.
I do therapy with my neighbor
Who just lost his parents and is building tents
In his basement. I do therapy.
I do therapy by listening well, until I know or…
Simply gazing in love into someone’s eyes.
I do therapy while trying to save a squirrel
Who got hit by a car. I do therapy in any bar.
I do therapy by riding my bike
I do therapy by loving what I like
I do therapy by singing to myself
I do therapy by trying to bless someone else.
I do therapy by taking out my trash
While singing loudly some Johnny Cash
I do therapy by eating what I please
I do therapy daily on my knees.
But I do therapy.
I do therapy mainly
By remembering I’m loved
From something I can’t fully know yet
From above. I do therapy by telling everyone the same—
You too are named
You too are named, claimed and adored. And we
My friend, are all in therapy and nothing more.

That deer knew it last night

Tender things are caught up
In the middle
Gas and fire, and
A fallen martini glass from outside awakes us. One or two
From a party which passed earlier.
Turbulences unseen, windows rattle as planes pass over
Angels soar through polluted skies as flames do-obedient to their nature.
But with their headphones on this time, listening
Only to heaven’s songs.
Still a young deer by herself , still willing to venture, comes near a city-that
Is, my back yard, three feet from my bedroom window,nudging the grill with her wet nose-
Hungry and watching us try to sleep into another dream.
And she walks away amazed
At no grazing grounds
To be found
On a cold night
In autumn.
When even the ground
Is rumbling, and maybe grumbling.
All I could think
When I finally got awake
Was of being at 911-some sort of preamble; and then,
how can I feed the deers
While we wait.
By morning,
All I could think
Was how 911
came just before fall. And how that deer
Knew it all
Last
Night.

Confessions of a scattered artist

�All my scattered notes

Only the angels could gather

I thank God that He is my editor

If He wants to publish them (to make Himself famous, not me),

I at least

Left Him a challenge. And it is no small feat

To leave God a challenge!

Notes on receipts in old cars

Left all over the world

Notes on bathroom walls

Notes under bridges, beneath which I once lived.

Notes spray painted on cars-long since given away.

I know my angels film my life—which has always kept me honest

And “living in front of God” as the old wise people said.

Nothing is ever unseen.

But may God bless my editors as

They gather all my scattered notes—

Mostly written, by now in people’s hearts-

Or on that type of parchment,

I’m sure!

Life is scattered notes written on Wind,

As someone wiser than me must’ve written somewhere by now.

Gathering them is a job for angels. �But, my heart is one

While my notes on life are many.

On knowing too much about others-
He loves Russian history
And has visited all the ww2 sites.
She nearly died last year
But has finally given herself
Permission to be an artist
She had to hold her family
Together and then gave up.
She a single mom is angry at all men
But her son.
He is a cartographer
Who dreams of mapping
The whole universe one day
She a teacher who remembers
Each kids name she ever taught
He’s a cartoonist
Who knows more jokes
Than he can ever share.
He collects ford trucks
Which remind him of his father
He is working night school
Just to spite his dad for not
Paying for college.
She likes to sing to herself at night
He takes too many photos of everything.
She dreams of space travel
And cathedrals.
I know he likes her but afraid to say
I know how many times each person
Has thought of suicide last week.
I know who has tried.
I know all of us have to strain out
All other voices
But love’s, which names us
Daily as we go.

I had my cereal with raisins
And bananas before bed
So I woke up not hungry
For anything but the poetry
Of last night’s dreams.
Last night, I climbed a green wet hill
To meet someone.
On the way I walked through a cemetery with old open mosaleums
With sheep sleeping
In their crypts.
I lye down on one
And fell asleep
Thinking how relaxed they rest.
In my dream
On the way
To meet someone
Up that wet hill.