Art and church can share a roof! That is one of my life’s thesis!

Studying the church’s art history again! Back when the imagination still mattered in expressing ones relationship to and with The Divine!

In college, i studied art and religion, but specifically comparative art from within the christian mystical tradition. I’ve always liked the creative expressions of the church over time.

Fun once again, probing into the long art history of the church this season! You can read identity from how it symbolizes!

Recently been getting into eastern orthodox symbology as well as Armenian branches of the church–was fun being in the land recently and getting to see so much rich art history in the churches. Many are now run by catholics, and various forms of orthodoxy, and most of the art history of the church is still legible in that amazing land!

Fun re-visiting the endless big story to retrieve treasures from her long story!

Love song to a city over seasons…

Certain cities you fall in love with when young, and then return to your whole life, through many seasons. This has been one for me.  I’ve had birthdays here starting at my 30th all the way through my 50th; that many layers of memories.

Recently, i went through the pandemic with her, visiting her often like my mother during cancer. This city and I were lovers, now we are old friends, or more like an old couple in a park together. Thankful to see signs of hope here, and that her story, though paused for two years, is beginning to write new lines again. Our stories never end. Glad to be sharing new chapters of life with her again today!

I know so many of her neighborhoods by heart, having spent days and nights in their cafes and parks, beneath her bridges writing poetry with homeless friends, and on her hilltops praying for her life over and over again.

Glad her Spring is returning, and her hope for all those who have found themselves havened by her Bay. All us dreamers who have over the years, found ourselves havened by your way, pray hope for a brighter return oh diverse city of my friend St Francis. May you be healthy again, and may your homeless walk again, and lift you up, and may your parks sing again, and may everyone, even nomads like me, praise God beneath your trees while passing.

Thanks for havening me back then, and then growing up with me, so we can sit again unmasked in your parks and just read or write a book and be together friend. I love you lover and now old friend. Keep shining, we will need you again! You are a sign and symbol of something within us which keeps desiring to glow on.

What we broke in life

can be mended

what we cared about

can still be loved

what we truly desired

can still be attained

and what we dreamed of

is already becoming incarnate

for our names were here before us

waiting to be worn, just by us.

An artist is known by their fruit in season! Let’s be fruity now!

A tree is known by its fruit. An artist by how they serve with their art. A person’s heart laid bare and made known by how it responds in traumatic situations like ours.

As I watch how my art friends-both people and certain cities-are using their gifts to offer hope and care into this global tragedy, i thought about the gift of the artist–in some ways less tangible, but which is capable of changing hearts and renovating the global imagination! That’s no small gift. And it’s needed now. Symbols and art can be healing. And sometimes the priest has to pray first for the good of the whole!

What can an artist or artistic symbol making city do, but try to symbolize hope, empathy and solidarity with our global family who is currently suffering. Isn’t that the artist’s moral duty–to use their unique gifts to serve and love others.

Nice when a person or city chooses to use their unique resources to do so! For symbols are also a type of heart currency of the imagination, which we can invest in the healing our neighbors.

Each family member has it’s gifts to contribute, let’s contribute ours–to all my creative friends and symbol making cities! Let’s be fruity and bear good fruit now, when it’s needed most!

Let’s be the opposite of propaganda, let’s be fine art for one another! And offer our gifts freely to those in our family who are in need. Even if all we offer is the fragrance or image of Hope, let’s at least play our part in Love’s grand drama, which we are all in! Art makes a way for Love. to enter! Let’s be the palm branches the donkey walks over to enter the city of God! Or the guiding signal projected on the sky, or the hopeful graffiti on urban walls, which help people find their way to safety and haven, and back to family, which we all are.

My sister is a medical trauma intervention doctor. I’m an artist. We need both right now! Clear symbols of hope, empathy and solidarity can guide a person to the find the hospital.

Other’s can offer housing, some financial resources, but we can offer symbols of living Hope and empathy. Let’s at least do that much in this grave hour. Let’s be and make signs of Life.

I swallowed the Sky (One I’m working on slowly and rockingly)
I sat there as a boy on my kid stoned patio and just watched it all-i saw moon, stars, stone and my own skin’s reflection,and chose to connect them all into song. Even back then. Beauty and identity were my favorite unsolved complex compound words. We were in tandem back then-the Sky and I. Everything i saw well, i knew by name. Love’s unbroken lens is like that. Still is. I was on my grandfather-hand made red rocking horseand trying to corral it all. To corral the sky is a kid’s dream i had.Even then, i knew starswere meant to be imprintedon our skin. That heaven and earth talked clearly,That life is incarnate, at least. Meant to be lived and loved.That all people were lovers by the end. Stones and moss were also included in my childhood dialogue with Sky. Nothing is meant to be left out of our story. I had no idea that the sky would come inside useventually. But it did. Eventually, that isi swallowed the Sky. We all eventually ingest the Torah. As wiser ones said.But it takes time, and gazing at the Sky for a longwhile as kids, rocking and looking upwards.

Texting on mouse removal on a Sunday! I’m sure the Rabbis have much to say on this, and how to do so while staying in rest, but i did my best! Having read the Talmud many times, or at least the cliff notes…..
Texting my wife today, about how to get a dead mouse our cat killed and dropped on our front porch (first breaking the central commandment to not murder, and then having the audacity to test the Sabbath–alas this cat!); how to get it onto a shovel and into a box. Alas, the things we find ourselves doing on a Sunday! As one comedian said: “Never mind if God exist, try finding a plumber on Sunday!”
As I texted…the UK already perfected the broom to box method…..and i have to deal with this issue weekly. I’ve become an experienced mouse getter ridder. And as a priest, i bury them in Peace! Ok, i can text someone through this! Experience can lead to wisdom!
I’m like Allstate (the insurance company), i’ve seen a thing or two! Or at least, buried a lot of creatures over the years.
Of course, it’s not easy to bury the dead in Texas; had to bury a dog once in Winter- alas, the earth isn’t forgiving no matter how many prayers you say, you pay for the burial in sweat and tears! Where i grew up in North Carolina, you just need a shovel and a little hutzphah and there you have it-a nice hole in the red fertile soiled earth-readied to hold the waiting (as they say there!). Not so in Texas.
This earth has more resistance, it’s recalcitrant, and you have to be a bit more steadfast, intentional and willful! I suppose it develops character or back bone, or at least back muscles! And back aches, from experience!
The things we get good at are not always pleasant.
But as Robert Plant said when i met him on a plane once, “as you get older, you will be doing more and more funerals and less weddings, so get used to it. And have music which when sped up works at weddings, and slowed down, at funerals” Practical advice that stuck with me.
I look forward to the period of earth history where the cat lays down with the mouse rather than kills it and brings it to you, or, a day, they just play around as friends! The Millennial reign years couldn’t come sooner for me! I’m ready for nature and nations to be in proper order! So, i can hang out with elephants!
And children will play with Cobras. And i get to pet tigers (which i’ve always wanted to do!)! We aren’t there yet.
In the meantime, as a counselor, i can only offer my best advice from experience, and a listening ear. And text my wife through getting rid of a dead mouse!
But text coaching someone how to get rid of a mouse is still an odd activity, especially on Sundays! I’ll look up the ramifications!

From the Bible turns out not to boring series!

Re-reading the book of Revelation today! One of my favorites! Requires your mind and heart and imagination to leap between the lines into this great cosmic but practical drama, which ends the Book with a great vision! We’ve been reading lots of fairy tales, but this might be the truest and most peculiar tale ever.

And John liked birds, angels, thrones, creatures with many eyes, and imaged Jesus in more dimensions and manners than any other book. A white robed, bronze footed Son of Man (from Daniel), a rain-bowed enthroned King, a Lamb with seven horns and more…if you traced just that image alone through the whole book, you’d have a great collage, which rattles all “Sunday school art” of Jesus, off the walls! A diademic, multi-faceted portrait!

John liked eagles too! (Which makes sense, as that is his symbol!) Loving re-reading Revelation! Filled with scrolls opening and horses flying off the page; locust with human faces and scorpion tails and hair, angels, thrones with glass seas, and eagles which talk! My kinda book, and requires you to use more than logic to enter. You gotta show up to read this one!

Imagination and spirit required, to read this last book in The Book! Must be a favorite with artists! As it’s symbol forward, or the symbolic is in the foreground. I suppose people have had trouble with it, if they just approach it with reason alone, or only look for time maps (imagination works a bit in and out of time!) but those people probably didn’t read fairy tales as kids!”

Like this quote: “I looked and I heard an eagle crying with a loud voice as it flew directly overhead, ‘Woe, woe, woe…’ it said! The writer in a type of trance, looked and heard, and the eagle talking, predicting the coming woes! Great moment in the drama! And, of course, the eagle’s warning still applies!

John saw stuff! Great book if you get bored, and if you like really true fairy tales! It’s framed as a revelation of Jesus as well! So you know it’s going to be interesting!

My wife and i have been reading “Wrinkle in Time” out loud at night to keep the muscles of our imaginations in shape. This one’s a workout!

The writer of Revelation also gives a blessing to those who read it out loud! Makes sense. When you hear it read, you can see it better!

This book requires a fully engaged imagination to know what’s happening between the lines! I like art that requires more than logic. When i enter a building, there is the engineering, but there is also how light falls and fills each room-ambiance is hard to measure. This book requires reason and imagination to interpret! And has a unique tone. And i love tone, as a way in! Someone defined tone as, “An authors orientation towards the words!” That works for me! I always read for tone, and for what it meant to those who read or heard it then.
It’s one of the most cinematic books in the Book! Re-enjoying today! Read well friends! If you think the Bible is boring, read that book with an open mind and imagination! Wow. Love art that forces you to engage creatively in order to know the “from” it’s talking “about”! All language is a portal, as they say, but this one is a keyhole in the Sky!

Or as one theologian put it: “A true symbol, participates in the Reality to which it points!” That holds true with this fine art–the bible’s epilogue! Both bookends of the bible are pretty cosmic! Fun swimming in the ending this week, regardless! Why is this not cinema yet? They tried pretty well with “Noah” I thought–another great meditation! Why not Revelation! It’s got everything!

You don’t have to be religious to enter this one! This book is weird, interesting, scary in a good way at times, and filled with hidden pools of wonder to dive into and fish from! If you don’t like scuba diving or swimming or fairy tales of any sort, then the waters may be hard to fish. But if you like art, you’ll like fishing this huge pond! It’s fathomless. A nice ending on The Great Book!

When interpreting, as Rashi, the great Medieval jewish Rabbi said, fish the surface first (plain meaning, he called it), then pick a spot and let your sinker sink to find the hidden meanings just underneath. With this book, the bottom of the lake is on the surface, so you can see, to me, more clearly, what your fishing for! And this body of water, is definitely worth fishing!

Doctors and poets need one another….

My sister is not distracted as she drives to work. Thank God she’s like she is- focused on the goal; i want doctors to focus.
Me, on the way to somewhere, usually talk to a thousand people, pause and look at the stars which are still out, lingering in stillness of morning sky, the shape of people’s hands in certain light, notice a dog or two and at what pace people are walking them, and how the light is falling on them as they do. And ask everyone, how they are really doing, and wait to hear their real answer! It takes me a long while to even go get a coffee for my wife!
Alas, a poet has a hard time getting from here to there, but they do notice the journey, and bless many along the way! I hope. But we rarely get paid for these intangibles in life!
And yet, i wouldn’t want a poet being my surgeon. They would get fascinated by the shape and color of the organs as they cut. The lighting would need muting, music playing…don’t do surgery by candles, unless you must, it’s a nightmare!
Each of us has their own unique gifts meant to serve one another with!
I’m glad for surgeons and for poets. We need both. One, on the front line of physical, the other on front line of the metaphysical. They probably are meant to work in tandem!
But, it’s hard to pray and drive at the same time. And, please, never do surgery with your eyes closed! I need that kidney!
It takes so long to get coffee for me, just ask my wife; but thankfully, my sister gets to work on time and saves a few lives. Perhaps, i get to save a few hearts and visions, along the way. We’ll see how doctors and poets dance together in the end, I’m sure. But until then, doctors and poets need one another! Let’s work together friends!

What Crows know

Crows only have one song
which they repeat constantly, all day long-one hit wonders
in their black iridescent suits;
unlike true songbirds who humbly learn from their
parents to imitate a 40 song-at least-repertoire from
the best of the birds around them. Still, crows-
they know their own song well enough
to be crows, which may be enough as a solo artist to make it.
They know squawk really well. And scatter,
at the end of each painting-as Van Gogh knew. And, like their cousins
the grackles, how to take french fries off a picnic table
while you’re not watching. And how to steal
cat food at night. And to serve at least Edgar Allan Poe’s poems with
their singularly unique squawking flight.
Crows know, at least that much.
Ok crow, squawk on. Maybe
your brazen glory will win the day.
But, i’m for the songbirds for the distance,
And the sheer entertainment alone. Still,
One song, sung well, consistently can make
A mark on our days-for sure. Thanks Crow.
I’ll promise not to scare you off as quickly, next time.

Only that sea knows love….

My art response to Rothko’s simple painting today:

There is sea, sky, and
the unseen swirl between
two worlds,
two lovers…on an edge
between- that
is,
us
all.
That
kingdom
is always
in our midst;
(war and love commingle)
but too
Rarely edged awake, or just
seen.
much less
lived in.
For only
Love
can live
there-
by that
Sea.