Ever thought about why we praise?

In the bible, I love their law about not eating the fruit of a tree until the fourth year. It was a model for spiritual development. A child cannot yet teach, until their fruit is mature; they must grow in study and stature, before having fruit useful to others. On the fourth year, the fruit was sanctified, or often sent to Jerusalem. Then after the fifth everyone could eat the fruit whenever. I like that model of maturation. The Jews were onto stuff.

Baruch Hashem–bless The Name! (Baruch-to bless; Hashem-The Name, it’s their name for God which transcends and surpasses all Names; i might call it The Namer—bless the Namer of your names! One of my favorite blessings, bless the Identity that your identity comes from! Our Father, The Namer of Names!) We find our names by praising His Name!

As one rabbi said, it’s not that God “needs” our praise, but we need to praise Him, to recognize our dependence in thanks often, i.e. throughout the day and night. Praise God. Baruch Hashem (bless the Name). The older i get, the more I find myself praising Him for everything, even breath. Every breath is a treasure which should be accompanied by praise. Praise often. This becomes more obvious as we get older! Praise is a way of life once you experience its fragility enough times!

Praise Him for the identity of all things!

We even are meant to praise for having identity, for not being the same as one another, for having differences. Identity is a high praise, as our unique identities reflect who God is. When we praise God for identity, we overcome racism and many other hatreds. Identity is a gift, and it is good that we are not all the same, and must learn from one another. Praise God, you are not me, but we get to know different parts of who God is through one another.

Identity itself is a sign and miracle and part of how God chose to reveal Himself, we are expressions, and expressers!—through many races, types of personalities etc. He is a God of distinction who highlights identity! The new creation is not one big blob. It has unique distinct identities! Praise God! Baruch Hashem we’re alive to express another day! And be worn out on the town.

Still believing in angels!

The other night i had a friend who told me he still believed in angels. And that every time he hears a great song, he believes in heaven again, and a spiritual dimension down here as well.

This fellow was native american, and felt the loss, especially in the church of a larger view of what life is-the magic, he called it. People don’t believe in magic and angels anymore, and it is killing them, and making their lives boring, and leading to more wars.

Why do we have to wait til just before death to believe in a spiritual reality again?, he asked me. Great question. And some of that must be that we lose that child like imagination as we become adults. Or for christians perhaps we’ve come to believe that art isn’t helpful to our missions. That is somehow superfluous and a luxury, when all the while it is a core part of who God made us.

We stop being creative, and therefore we lose part of our humanity and sight. As Madeleine Engle wrote. “We lose creative sight, and so no longer can see life, one another, ourselves or God accurately. Christ came to enter and transform and integrate, the whole person, including our imaginations. And that changes everything. Even how we interpret ourselves! Art also teaches us true empathy for others-without that, how can we love our neighbors in meaningful ways?!”

My answer to my friend was: I still believe in angels, because I see them all the time!

That should be normal for us, especially you Christians, he replied! I concur.
When our imaginations are awakened and baptized in Christ, it will be the norm.

Maybe “feeding the poor” involves us overcoming a poverty of the imagination as well! So we can better be His Images while here! His poetry He is trying to pronounce! Maybe we misrepresent the gospel and God by having a dull imagination! After all, our creativity is part of what Jesus died for and wants to heal! His creativity is entirely integrated with who He is, as ours also should be becoming! Maybe, in short, like Jesus, we should still be seeing angels!

Learning to be in your season of life!

How are you aging? Each season of life requires another surrender to become.

Talking to a friend last night about the two childhoods of life—the beginning and end, and how they are meant to inform the middle part! “We lose our spiritual imagination we had as kids, and unfortunately often don’t regain it, until just before we die.” That’s sad.

Henri Nouwen used to talk about the two childhoods of life—one at the start and the other at the end, where we are completely dependent on others again.

How can our two childhoods inform and motivate the middle part. He said, i still believe in Santa Clause and angels maybe even more so now in my 70’s. I don’t know why I ever stopped believing!

When I was a kid the tooth fairy always came, and then i stopped putting teeth beneath my pillow. I lost faith. Later when i had several aha moments, i realized my imagination had grown cold towards the spiritual dimension, and as a result i lost a sense of meaning. We need both the right and left sides of the brain and heart to stay motivated throughout all the seasons of life!”

This fellow actually put rocks which looked like teeth beneath his pillow, but the tooth fairy didn’t come. His interpretation was that she clearly discerned that these rocks weren’t teeth! He still has faith!

I often look at aging as living out each season or chapter of life well. And being in the one your in! Not competing with your previous ones! I love watching artists age because if they are wise, they won’t try to do what they did when younger. They aren’t in competition with themselves in that way. They are content with the season of life they are in, and working to be more fully in it! To shine from there.

“Most people compete with their younger selves rather than learning the season they are in well-as a result they stunt their growth and others!” Each season requires another surrender into the next level of trust, if we want to be a whole body of work, or allow the whole poems of who we are to be written, it’s wise to be in your season of life.

Let’s learn to be in our season of life, so the whole book gets written!

To see an old person who is ok with being old is beautiful! When we are in the season we are meant to be in, it creates and reflects beauty! You see that it is ugly when an old person is still trying to compete and win the turf and the prize. It doesn’t suit old age.

We are no longer in competition, we are now blessers at the gates. And if you have the right eyes incredibly beautiful. I love sitting with the elderly for this reason. That is the ones who are ok with being old. Be in whatever season of life you are in. Find God there, and be formed. It’s the most beautiful path!

A thing is being beautiful when being itself in its season of growth. Not trying to be other than what and where it is in life! Authenticity applies to all seasons of life! We need not compete with our previous seasons, but settle into the beauty of the one we are in. We were made to develop and grow.

Each season of life requires a fresh surrender into a new level of trust.

It’s beautiful to see an old person fully within their season of life. They can bless in a unique way they could not when young. And not in competition with some younger part of themselves. Find God in your season of life. It helps us all keep going further into the forest. Some of my favorite people are in their 80’s now.

That they are still growing and going where they are at, gives me hope. Don’t waste your seasons of life. “We don’t have to compete with your younger selves or others, we can rest in the season of life we are in!” That’s a relief!

Plus, we get to become blessers at the gates as we grow older. And we know the Source of all the magic! Let’s keep clearing a path in the forest for one another in life!

Spinning around the Lord’s Prayer today…it begins with, Our Father…

“Our Father…” Both ours, and a Father, (so the brother and sisterhood of all) the first two words of Jesus’ prayer. Jesus establishes true spirituality on a fatherhood relationship.

Reality is only knowable through loving relationship, is one hidden premise in this prayer! We have inherited a relational way of knowing. We are adopted into a family metaphor-so we know, through intimate relationship. That’s our epistemology!

If you set up the whole cosmos as a child to father relationship, you change everything. It implies a loving relationship of formation. Not a relationship with a principle but a Person. It’s not a merging, but a relationship. It’s a collaboration! This requires left and right brain engagement-a whole person encounter to know! Not just cause to effect, but parent to child, as the core metaphor of how things actually are.

It implies that the universe is not cold hearted. We enter a child to parent metaphor at the very start of the Lord’s prayer. Not just monotheism, but friendship with a Father figure who is Love, and particularly in love with us each.

The next line tell us to “hallow” His Identity, His Name is whole or to be hallowed. He is One, and is making us one! Comforting start to the Lord’s prayer. The core metaphor in the book is about fatherhood, and entering into that orientation towards the universe. Kids with a loving Father above us who wants relational transformation with us. To parent us in short.

It’s a relational epistemology from the start of the prayer! Great beginning of a prayer! Who you address firstly, and with what level of intimacy, tells much of the story of your spirituality! Jesus addresses Father. That recalibrates the universe into a parent to child metaphor! Still, such a powerful prayer, worth going through line by line in prayer!

Wearing the nations daily…
I love literally wearing the nations, not so easy these days, with globalization, but I’ve managed to still find a sense of place or origin in costume! Wearing a nation to me is to pray for them. And also to empathize—to “try them on”!

We wear to know, as Wem Wenders, the german film maker, put it in “Notes on fashion and cities” (a great documentary about a Japanese artist! Looking forward to his new film on the Pope!).

We wear different metaphors daily. Today, I am wearing Iceland, New Zealand, Israel, Belgium, Japan, Germany, Holland, and Italian (my Pantofola d’Oro-golden slippers, shoes!) ones. Trying to sense what each region does best.
We are all mixed metaphors!

Today, I feel like St Paul (but hopefully less hyperbolic, but hopefully in prayer as much for those i’ve been given to Love)!

I’ve always liked wearing the symbols of cities and nations. Hopefully they all will one day work into one outfit, fit for a King, not me, but a better one!
In the meantime, i’m in dress rehearsal! Plus, I love wearing the nations, to see who has what gifts! Photo to follow, it’s hard wearing so many nations at once, but it just happened today! Plus, wearing many nations, makes the coolest fashion statement ever! One, which i hope points towards eventual collaboration at some Great Banquet or party!

Thanks Jerusalem! I like thanking cities I love from time to time!

Jerusalem, you taught me to Love again despite and in full view of ourselves. If we can love one another where we are both at, anyone can. You taught me that Love is still possible!

You also taught me to be more honest about where I’m really at, and trust that someone will care. To be in relationship where you’re at, not wait til you have it all figured out. I appreciate your frank Grace Jerusalem. Thanks.

Writing love letters to cities is one of my favorite past times. Sort of like an active prayer. It keeps things fresh between us. Just like with people.

A contortionist prayer (and somehow mine today):

Lord, make your glory contort to shine through me into my exact diademic dimensions today, make me into Your shape, in the exact contours you’ve created me to be.

I yield to that contortion act, that being aligned, conformed to the exact edges of Your image today. I know You improv daily with us, and form Yourself against and with our resistances to make project images of yourself through us daily.

So come and improv through me-let me be your movie screen, your costume to wear, your disco ball to reflect sheer shine, your body to contort through. Let’s do contact improv together today! I’ll listen to your contact point and follow!

Express Yourself through me! Be my inner Houdini! Make me into the shape of You! Let your Glory shape me today so others may see! Let’s collaborate as contortionist today! Mold my body into its actual shape.

And leave me limp and alive in Thee, a reflexive verb, a participle of your Word! Having been properly shaped today, I am more myself somehow, by being bent! As You shape yourself in me, i am rightfully contorted to make room for You. Make me that flexible today Lord! I trust Your contortions in me.

Observations today…from nature, as I walked and watched…
A helicopter hovers above the sea. The gull, conversely, has no need to pause to see. It watches carefully as its going.
Hawks don’t talk, they circle in silence, and suddenly exactly swoop. Ravens squall make a racket, and battle the wind. Both being what they are, however.
Hummingbirds are in another world. I like that about them, and that they choose to visit us occasionally in little flittering flecks of Love’s hovering colors. They teach us the weight between worlds, and the tiny distance between us all.
Flowers contain the whole metaphor of life, and if observed well, release their teachings in mid air to us over time, as will the whole earth, if loved and listened to well. Watching well is part of stewardship.
For each creature is a specific poem about some aspect of God’s identity, and so ours all worth meditating on forever. Yet, the other creatures seem less interrupted than us, but then, we are the most difficult poem to align. Our lines resist editing!

It’s encourage an artist day! As it should be everyday!

A city is a person with a voice. That voice is her artists. When we listen there, we are hearing the prophetic aspect of her identity, the place where God is whispering, or yelling depending on the city.
That’s the part of the conversation you want to enter, as God is already there, speaking! The artist is the heart mouthpiece of a city.
If you stop her voice, she can’t even call for help! And all cities need help.
What she has to say is located there. When we love there, we are blessing the prophetic aspect of her identity.
The part which is expressing what’s going on with her, and the part which people hear-what gets broadcasted-Love and listen there. To read the pulse of a city, listen to her artists!
If you kill, directly or through neglect, the prophetic dimension (not all artist are prophets, but they do participate the prophetic part of identity!), you silence God, as the old saying goes (which isn’t really possible, the prophets will just move-both the receiver and transmitter!). So let the music play, encourage an artist today!

Sayings…

When young how far and wide you can go; when old, how deeply you Love.

Birds, so fragile, but look what they can do!

To know an atlas of you, not just a map, requires Love. Psychology provides maps, spirituality, Love.

I touched a bird today, and knew, i too, could fly.

Angels in my dreams again last night. We were smuggling art supplies through the tunnels beneath Jerusalem, my wife and I. And providing little underground cafes for artist. Great dream, fills like we have already been on that path for some time.

Friendship is like water for the soul. Brotherhood a balm. Sisterhood a veil. Motherhood a cover. Fatherhood like life itself. Family includes all those types of Love.

I commend you young, for agreeing with the truth; you older for knowing Truth as The Father. St John. (The passage from letter to spirit! From rule to relationship!)

Hawks don’t talk, they circle in silence, and suddenly exactly swoop. Ravens squall make a racket, and battle the wind. Both being what they are, however.

Hummingbirds are another world.

Each creature being what it is, is eventually what it will look like. Each, spoken.
But, we are the hardest to align-ie to be conformed to His and our image. Our imaginations must touch, mingle and fall in Love for it to happen-for our true names to be seen and pronounced. We resist that pronunciation with all our might. So we scatter ourselves like a cubist painting. When we yield, we come back together. We return into focus.

A helicopter hovers above the sea. The gull has no need to pause.

Flowers contain the whole metaphor of life.

We do things to learn to steward in Love.

I’m an identity steward.

The way to grow is to be “in Him”. That blooms our names.

Each person contains all of history. Each person holds worlds within them. Christ is the center of all the worlds, reconciling them back to themselves through Himself. That’s integration.

Each person is a name and a path. Both are found “in Him”.

Thank You Lord, for existence. Thank You for what is. Thank You, we are.