Art as prayer…
Another practice i “do” is to actually photograph as an act of worship or prayer, that is as a place of meeting God. That’s generally how i make art, and even if i don’t love the art afterwards, i have communed, feel loved and seen, and allowed others to overhear that conversation!

Art as an act of prayer is underrated! Or just not practiced often enough!
We usually create to express, but when we create to meet and be transformed, something else happens in the process!

The content is about the meeting as much as the subject! Van Gogh had that. So no need to make overtly religious art, just meet God as you create, and it will be spiritual! Then, the audience gets to overhear your spirituality, which to me, is over half the point! In this sense art is priestly!

Someone asked me, why does art matter in terms of spiritual growth? Here was part of my answer:

From a Christ centered spirituality, i would say….
Symbols are embedded in things around us, and the symbolic/creative is part of who we are as humans!
God made it that way. They are one dimension of His communication with us—both in nature and others. We are symbolic creatures, and that is part of what is being conformed to His Image. And God is constantly communicating in and through the symbolic dimension!
To even say we are “images” of God, is a symbolic statement.
So God is symbolic, and we are symbolizers also. To baptize our imaginations with the rest of us, is part of what is maturing into the fullness of The Head.
Our imaginations are included in sanctification!
This means we will see things more and more as He does. Our perceptions will become more spiritual. Growing in spiritual perception is a very basic part of our spirituality, for it allows us even to see one another more through His Eyes!
So our creative dimension is basic to ethics and interpretation! The art part of us, is also being renewed daily, and brought into better alignment with the creativity of Our Creator. You see that many have trouble interpreting the times or even the news, some of the problem is a poverty of imagination, or an unsanctified or being renewed imagination! It’s been neglected in discipleship, or spiritual formation for way too long, but is an essential part which should be growing spiritually!
To become symbolically literate is part of discipleship. If we really want to be “baptized” and baptize others into all three Names—The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit. We must let our seer and symbolic dimensions into the story!
Jesus told Nathaneal when they first met—“I saw you beneath that tree friend”. Jesus could see. And in many other cases revealed that He could SEE into the hearts of men, and judge their motives.
This is another part of spiritual perception. We call discernment.
It is seeing in order to interpret rightly. Again, art or our creative dimension of who we are, is part of interpreting rightly.
Many people see art as superfluous or a leisurely activity. I see it as a fundamental part of being human, and a part which is desperately needed to be being renewed daily in Christ. Let Christ into your imagination, and you will be blown away.
Jesus, as a Jew, used concrete symbols around Him mostly, but He was always getting upset with his students that they were thinking too literally! Do you really think i’m talking about fish fellows? He was guiding them to a more whole or spiritual perception of things. We need to follow His lead. As His Father is a symbolizer and communicates through the creative strata of Reality!

Artist are apostles of beauty, which proves that God still loves the world, despite us! Beauty is a testimony. The fact that we still see a sunset or piece of art as beautiful, proves we are still human, and worth saving or healing. They carry not just blind hope, but hope in clear view of the facts of suffering! And that makes good art, and becomes a sign for the whole. Optimism without hope is idealism; true artist offer something higher than that sort of romanticism, they offer an indicator towards what St Peter calls “living Hope

Roots! Study the roots to discover or uncover the potential fruits!
Good studying the history on all sides this week, as we roam. Reading a book this week on the roots of Zionism! Good helpful study when considering current events!

There were of course two streams in early Zionism: religious and secular. It’s good to understand and distinguish both (Hertlz’s and Kook’s ways) both in deciphering the times now. One represented by someone like Rav Kook, saw a the Jews having a spiritual mandate over the land of Israel, including the West Bank.

The other borrowed more the european idea of nationalism, and Marxist state building, and european ideas of nationalism, which were so popular during de-colonialization period, thinking in wanting a homeland nation for the Jewish people. They converged eventually to form the state of Israel. But for very different reasons.

Rav Kook of course, was known to be kind to all of humanity, and specifically non practicing Jews. Many of the religious Jews didn’t like this. They felt only God should establish the land of Israel, not nationalist.

It’s still a complex set of motivations for statehood. And it never fully dealt with those already living in the land, such as the Arabs—the Jew’s semitic brothers. (Both sons of Shem)

Of course, everything was heightened by persecution in Europe and the holocaust being the worst example. Jews needed a place to go also after Russian polgroms. This was about 20 years before official zionism, but laid its foundations.
These were the first aliyah to come and try to settle the land. They were generally students who decided to make collective farms. They had borrowed ideas of Marx and european nationalism. They failed but made a pattern for future zionist settlements.

It’s interesting to think and consider both the secular and religious root systems in Zionism to more sharply discern core motivations, which are still working themselves out over there.

I’m also reading a book on Arab nationalism. Every rock you turn over, in that area of the world, there are more than one caves beneath it. Good historic excavations this week though…keeps you searching for Love’s Way in the midst of the middle east, as elsewhere!

The frankness of the middle east is refreshing!
Well, at least we got to hear everyone’s opinion about America, Trump, europe, the de-colonial process by england and france- and the rest-from all sides.
Not a bashful region or land on any side! Generous in its opinions and food! People say what they really think. I like that about the middle east in general. “The bullshit factor is low here.” as one friend put it. I find that part of the region strangely refreshing. Although the bitter roots on all sides are hard to sit with. Forgiveness needs to fertilize the whole land!
Still there is humor and everyone has to share the same bathroom at the end of the day. When you travel now, it’s like being a movie screen for everyone’s best and worst projections! If the screen itself is made of Love, the image becomes less distorted! That’s my hope anyway.
I’m getting used to Loving in all directions as I roam. As a counselor, its a deeply lodged anger issue, and lots of confession, forgiveness and grieving to come!
Our guide was sure to point out each blown up vehicle which were still siting around in the wadis of that land. Every story was equally as complex as the one before it.
My internal interpreter, sort of liked that, and felt useful and needed again!
I like complex people. The problem with epic people, is that their wounds are often also operatic! Healing takes time, and lots of listening on all sides!
“If you can heal one family (take those two brothers!), you have mended the world, or headed it towards wholeness.” as one saint put it!

Marriage as spirituality!

The very first question to ask is: Where are you meeting God this season in your own life, and where are those closest to you meeting Him? Can you negotiate your own spiritual growth with that of one another? How can my partner’s spirituality become something I guard and glean part of God from. How can marriage become part of our mutual growth into new parts of God seasonally?!

Has your marriage become part of your spiritual growth and meditation on who God is? How can you honor and make room for the new parts of God you are encountering, while also making room for the spiritualities of those closest to you? How is marriage about mutual spiritual growth? A deep and useful meditation today!

How is my growth effected and infected by yours?! How can we grow in Him simultaneously in mutual respect, and deeper, trust, of Father’s formation in us both, in unique seasons and ways-simultaneously! In short, how can my wife’s spirituality become a place where I get to appreciate and perforce love, more of who God is, and how He forms Himself in us both.

While you are growing also spiritually, how can you learn to tune into the areas your partner is spiritually growing.

The first thing i want to say is your relationship with God changes in medium seasonally, but then you have to allow your partner’s to do the same, and stay in sync with one another, even when in uniquely styled seasons, something remarkable happens—you become a living temple of His Creativity in formation together! You are both in your own new seasons with God, and empathetic to your partners. So you get to encounter both parts of God at once!

This is not unlike in ministry, or basic counseling, when you are able to see where God is forming Himself in the person you are caring for, even though it’s not the part of God you are currently meeting or being formed by. The privilege of counseling is getting to see the complexity of Father’s simultaneous formations in so many people!!! You get to be blown away by His simultaneous formation, transformations and incarnate Love downloads into each all–at once! You never lack trust again, that He cares also for your tiny and beautiful life’s path!

You get to overhear and oversee so many parts of God when helping in authentic and tangible way, so many others. In this sense, ministry is a simple privilege of seeing so many parts of God at once! Marriage is similar! Marriage, as St Paul taught us, is a great mystery and wonder, and yet is one of the highest symbols worth incarnating! Highest art, requires the most sacrifice by nature of it’s definition!

That is a great challenge. But is also metaphysically, doable. One of you may be in a study season, while the others is in a ministry to others season. How to keep meeting while spiritually growing is a core key to spiritually healthy marriage.

Another area I’ve been looking at, is how people who are more spiritually mature or in their callings, are to relate to parents who are younger spiritually, or stunted or not yet growing. What is our responsibility to them. I have so many friends my generation who, unlike me, have parents who are younger spiritually than them.
How are they to work with that in life? The same question would be in you had a non-believing spouse, but it is just as hard to have parents who are immature. How do you balance keeping on your calling’s path while not able to relate to your natural parents.

Jesus sort of said intense things in this area. Who are my real brothers and sisters mothers and fathers—those who are doing the will of God!

The idea of spiritual growth has become popular now, which is good i think. If we make that real. Is Jesus actual life forming in new ways in our hearts each season. Are we letting Him form the part of Himself He is sharing with us this particular season, or are we leaning backwards into parts of Him we already know?

Are we aware of what part of God our partner is learning in each season, and actively supporting that part!? This is huge, because for many of us it is hard enough just to figure out where we are growing with God, much less tune into where He is growing our partners or families. Yet, prayer is key here. And asking our partner—hey, what part of God are you getting to know this season, and how can i support you in that? Two vital questions which bear fruit!

In the coolest way, as leaders, we get to both be in our own season of growth, and aware of how God is growing others. So we get windows into both parts of God. If you are counseling a younger person spiritually, you see and re-appreciate the father heart of God and how gentle etc He is. You yourself may be simultaneously in a teacherly or knowledge season, and growing in His Truths. Yet, you realize that God is working with each person seasonally.

SO where are you meeting God this season? Where is your partner meeting Him? And where are those you are called to love and help meeting God? What conversation is He already having with you and them. Enter and expand that. It’s always already happening, as God is active and alive.

For some there are stones to be rolled away to free up spiritual growth. If they are in a healing season, then help them confess, forgive and plant new life in those places. Do it through prayer and caring relationship. You will be getting to remember the part of God who is the Healer!

All seasons are mediums through which to get to know newer and unique parts of God. You see this is St Paul’s life—he had traveling adventure seasons, and ones where he was writing in prison. Or talking to world leaders. Each season brought new parts of God into contact and reflection with his heart.

In closing, part of spiritual growth, is finding where you are meeting God each season of life! It’s progressive and there is a pattern if you continue to grow up into the fullness! It is the same for those around us who are committed to growth. God is revealing new parts of Himself to each of us seasonally.

When I got married, God motivated me by telling me i would now have access to all the parts of Him my wife had access. That excited me, as I’m motivated by getting to know more parts of God. Marriage for me became part of my spirituality! I’m motivated by growth! And helping others grow. God knew that. And the woman, He gave me had so many parts of Him I had not yet met!

So in addition to telling me that marriage was also fellowship with His suffering (which was funny! not a typical type of motivation to enter something!) He said, it will allow you to grow into much more of Me! That’s all it took for me. I was in. If marriage can become part of mutual deepening formation of the Life of Christ in our hearts, marriage is a great thing! If I can know more of Him who first loved me, then I’m in.

I had a vision of her veil opening, and me having access to so much more of Father God, and she had a similar experience—i will now know Him as pastor and carer for so many nations and peoples…we both have gotten to know so much more of God through marriage, than we would’ve known alone. That in itself is motivation for spiritual marriage. And for sticking with them!

I’m motivated by creativity and spiritual growth in general! Both of these are available in marriage when we meet God through it! I think lots of marriages “fail” because each person doesn’t tune into what part of God He is downloading into their partners! The privilege of that new part of God coming into them, goes un-mid wifed or husbanded! This is a tragedy and creates isolation between one another.

But if we get a more accurate picture of marriage as co-birthing of God in both of us, in unique seasonal patterns. One may be in healing, another in growth of knowledge or carving Kingdom into their fields of interest—but both can stay mutually amazed by the God is forming in both of them in unique ways simultaneously! Marriage is like a vision into the complexity of The Father’s parenting of us all simultaneously!

When I see my wife, i see God forming unique parts into her this season, and she can see the parts of Father coming into me, and we are mutually amazed by the complexity of the Father’s formation in just two people! Imagine if we did that with the world! Seeing all people as meditation on the thoroughness of God’s Love!

That’s one of the great gifts of life long marriage! Watching Him form us both at once. Of course, we must pray for one another and see what God is forming in us, so we can help facilitate that growth; and the parts of rarely similar. Usually, for us, for instance, He is forming nearly opposite parts of Himself in us at once. That creates great trust in Father God to form Himself in us both.

A bit of personal mid-dashing around the idea of Kevanah, or spiritual focus in life from the Jewish tradition!

Kevanah from the Jewish tradition is a helpful concept of spiritual intention when living life, and especially when doing spiritual practices daily. A bit different than “mindfulness” (or more buddhist approaches), it involves bringing your whole self to your daily practices, in order to meet God through them.

I’m finding it helpful, and echoed in pure Christian practices as well. Bit like some of the church practices within the contemplative tradition, but more focused in some ways. It ask us, where in your own heart are you praying from; can you find Only God through your spiritual practices- reading scriptures or helping others, feeding those in poverty or taking out the trash?

Are you in contact with God there-through the daily activities of life!? And are you bringing your whole head, heart and body into that encounter! Good question, especially for those who do many religious practices daily. Are your rituals an actual meeting place with The Living God?!

Spiritual growth in Judaism: To approach things with an attitude of Kevanah is to approach things as if God were already there, and wanting to meet through them! To pray, or read Torah, or help the poor as a medium of meeting God, is a basic tenet in true spiritual practice. To meet God through marriage, taking out the trash, walking the dog, washing dishes or reading Torah, requires Kevanah, and inner attitude of the heart to focus on and seek the Face of God through your daily activities!

God’s already there at the cafe today; God is already there while taking out the trash; God’s already there in bible study, prayer or religious activities; God is already there in listening well to a person….finding that spiritual intention to meet God through all things is the key. God already there meeting you and your wife in unique ways each season, revealing ever newer parts of Himself to you both.

The Jews teach that first, when spiritually younger, we need to learn to hear nothing else but the Shema (their daily prayer) then later, after years of this practice, focus on the full understanding of each word. Focus into fuller incarnation! Good pattern for spiritual growth. Encounter towards deeper understanding of God!

I like that progression from intention and focus to knowing and understanding that happens within the Jewish map of spiritual growth! Devotionally read the word into intimacy with The Word!

St John echoes this in his blessing for the younger spiritually for overcoming by being in the Word, and the elders for knowing God. (I John 1-3) I commend you younger ones for battling in and through the word, and you older ones for know The Father of all Words and languages, brother John tells us!

Nice meditation on the art of Kevanah today. This word has to do with spiritual focus and intention and meeting God through whatever practice you are doing-prayer, scripture study, acts of goodness to others etc. Kenenah is the inner orientation towards the practice. It reminds one of our dear Brother Lawrence’s touched book, “Practicing the Presence”, which also has this idea of how to innerly orient yourself to each daily activity in order to meet and therefore be transformed by God. How to make common activities holy!

And everyone has written about it in their tradition—from the Midrash to Maimonides and up through Martin Buber, who applied it also to viewing art! One of my favorites of his thoughts! That we could meet both by making and viewing art from an attitude of Kevanah! He might call it holistic engagement with our spiritual practices. Trying to find and meet God through them.

Thinking again of Jesus’ words to the fellow who asked Him what the most important of the Laws were: “Love God with your entire being, and then love your neighbors as yourself!” Or, “I only do what I see My Father doing.” As Daniel, the prophet, He had set His mind to gain understanding!

Nice that there is a tradition of this type of spiritual focus within both Judaism and Christianity! St Augustine would put it, “Love God, and do whatever.” Meaning, if we find and meet God through all we do, it will become holy! There is nowhere God cannot be met, if we have the right heart focus!

God is meet-able in all we do, but it seems to require kevanah! We must choose to focus our intentions, will and heart. As Dallas Willard, the protestant minister who wrote much on spiritual formation, used to teach, Grace is both passive and active. We do something in our spiritualities. We put to death certain things, we lay down the old self, we take up the new creation and bring to the Cross the dying false self, as Thomas Merton might put it! Spirituality is not passive, and requires a certain active spiritual focus.

Otherwise, we are just acting out hollow religious practices. Even the Reform Jews saw this, and felt it was a distraction to have to pray in Hebrew if you had another native language. First learn the heart of prayer is aiming your entire being towards God, then learn the prayers itself. The prayer or Torah reading is a medium towards and encounter of The Messenger, as Buber put it! Nice meditation today, and focus!

As religious practice alone does little for us. But practice with spiritual heart intention—i.e. with the whole being turned towards God as you do, in expectancy of meeting Him, is another matter. It becomes then a transformational tabernacle of meeting for us.

Their concept of kevanah is really helpful. It could be compared to some of the historical christian practices such as lectio Divina etc. But the essence of it is to focus one’s entire being on God as you do things. Jesus said something similar in summing up the Law—Love God with your whole being—heart, mind, body; and then love others as yourself. He knew kevenah!

How to bring your whole inner self into outward actions is a useful thing to consider in these scattered and scattering days! With a sort of collective global attention span problem, it’s good to think about what the Priest Henry Nouwenn would call, “coming home”. We do our part, and God is always there, and here doing His! Grace is still a collaboration. And our job is to enter in with spiritual intention!

Fun study today on how to read or pray with spiritual intention from a Jewish perspective:

Let me end with Moses Maimonides, the Jewish medieval philosopher’s, wise words on the subject of practicing Kevanah, or spiritual intention with one’s whole being (fun reading those who try to teach the un-teachable!):

“The first thing you must do is this: Turn your thoughts away from everything while you read the Shema, scriptures, or during the Prayer [the Amidah], and do not content yourself with being devout when you read the first verse of the Shema or the first paragraph of the Prayer. Wait til you actually sense the Presence of God. Then say thanks with your whole being. Close it, and re-open it.
When you have successfully practiced this for many years, try in reading the Torah or listening to it, to have all your heart and all your thought occupied with understanding what you read or hear. After some time when you have mastered this, accustom yourself to have your mind free from all other thoughts when you read any portion of the other books or the prophets, or when you say any blessing, and to have your attention directed exclusively to the perception and the understanding of what you utter, and the One who utters it then through you!”

Notes from devotional readings today!

A little meditation on Psalm 50 today: Is God really hungry? Love that question He asks His people in the poem. God’s tone is tangible here! He’s definitely talking to humans–folks like us! And Asaph captures it! Does He really need our religion, the tabernacle then later the temple; do they contain Him who made the very wood and stones used for their construction….Asaph as a priest, could probably see when people were being phony with God! Or had slipped from true relationship to hollow religious practice.

I love this poem by Asaph who was one of David’s choir leaders. It’s sort of a corrective for overly religious people who have lost the heart of their spirituality. The tone is great. God is even being funny. In someways, it seems like it’s written to the choir—or priest. God says, look. I don’t need your religion, your animal sacrifices. I made all the animals you sacrifice to me! My favorite line: “Do you really think I’m hungry? If I were, I wouldn’t tell you!”

That’s God being cheeky, maybe not facetious, but at least ironic, and corrective of religion. Do you really think I need your sacrifices? He ends on a more hopeful note—be thankful, because thanks prepares a way, actually into God!

Great Psalm, and the tone is hilarious. Other gods did evidently get hungry, need child sacrifice or fruit sacrifices; or, were capricious in their needs like the Greek gods—but this One is saying, look priest and people, do you really think I’m hungry! I love it when Father gets cheeky with His people.

It may be a corrective for overly religious priest or folks, as Asaph would have smelt hypocrisy and religious spirit a mile away! Look, all your sacrifices are great, they orient you, but I made everything you are sacrificing, do you really think I’m concerned with your religious practices. I’m much more concerned with your hearts, that’s where i want to write my Law or Ways. You read the law, but don’t ingest it, or really live by it! Jesus said the same thing much later.

Anyways, I like it when Father is funny in His rebukes! Very down to earth! And I seriously doubt He is hungry! But we certainly are! Had a nice spiritual chuckle reading this one today! Thankful it was written. Let’s keep it real folks.

Just hiding and shining out down here, it won’t be long til we are all home. And know and can pronounce our names. Or rather, let them be pronounced.