Music is always playing around us, if we listen well.

Taking The Risk of Engagement:

To the degree i risk engagement in Love, i and others will be made more whole; to the degree i hold back my heart, it and the other’s shrinks. Love calls forth true identity in all directions. We know something—art or people, or cities and nations- to the degree we risk engaging ourselves in Love for and with them. That’s also how and the degree to which we are healed and become healers of others.

Take the risk of depth engagement today! Why not! We are all worth it, in the end. And either way, we will meet God as we engage in Love, for as St John told us, God is Love. And Love is always where God is. This is one reason we are commanded to love the strangers, orphans and widows, and weak. It’s for our own good to do so.

To love your enemy is also to transform them and yourself. Love calls forth identity on both sides. Love always works in all directions. Part of the reason to love the “stranger” is to know ourselves! This is why both Jews and Christians were so adamant about this command—originally, of course, all Christians would have been the strangers intended!

We know one another, to the degree we engage in the relationship. That’s true with God and others. Love is not osmosis, it is active risk pursuit of Loving other to know them, especially those with the least Love extended towards them. I was a stranger and you let me “in”! Let’s let one another “in”! It’s for our own good as well to bless one another. For, it places us in the old Way-the position of Grace.

How art and healing relate—one of my favorite topics! Working towards and article on it! Thanks for your kind patience as i do….just some raw seeds of contemplation here:

What art can teach us about living well; how can we view art as a practice of empathy! How art appreciation relates to healing the planet and one another!

Don’t underrate perception in the healing process! As I see you, i will treat you! If I see you through my wounds, i will interpret you like that. If I see you more as God does, i will find myself loving you, and working towards your wholeness. Jesus saw the hearts of people, and acted accordingly. He did not judge by surfaces.

Most writers talk about being surprised by the perspective of their characters. I didn’t know they felt or thought like that. Something about entering into true empathy with others is one of the roles of art in spiritual development, and appreciation of art. Art is not superfluous to spiritual development! It’s a basic way of learning to be better people.

“Looking at art and beauty well, teaches us how to look at one another better! The practice of appreciating art from the heart, is a spiritual practice which teaches us how to treat one another as those “in God’s image”, which is our most basic human ethical imperative!” From a great book I’m reading on Christian/Jewish dialogue called, “For the Sake of heaven and earth”.

Or, as Martin Buber, the great jewish poet philosopher, might put it, “To the degree I engage others in Love, I will see them as they truly are, and know them into or towards wholeness. I can only know even a piece of art, to the degree that I risk my “I” in encountering and calling forth, their “thou”!

I still think this is true in art and life! To love our neighbors as ourselves, or to love the stranger, (which is a command in judaism, and implied in christianity, as Christians were the originally implied strangers-as were all gentiles)- who in our times is everyone, as we have become so inter-connnected- requires another level of ethical spiritual technology, or formation or incarnation of His Spirit in us, as MLK put it!

Viewing art and others well is one spiritual practice towards learning to love our neighbors as ourselves. Another level of the “heart of Christ” in us! Let’s implement that heart tech! So we can appreciate the art of others around us!

This is how looking well at art becomes an ethical practice for treating others as neighbors and family! In this sense, aesthetics, isn’t just for breakfast anymore-learning to see the beauty of other, the image of God in them, leads to how we actually treat one another.

It’s an imperative ethical practice to see well these days (sight comes before speech!)-good spiritual aesthetics, or seeing others and art more as they actually are through the lens of Love. For, if I see you more as God does, i will perforce, find myself loving you!

To see one another well—i.e. more as God sees us and them-is to help repair and heal (make more whole) our friends, cities, nations and planet. Let’s be participators in that grand reconciliation of true sight, friends!

Let’s be better art appreciators with one another. Sometimes, it just starts with looking at art well, as a practice. Empathizing our way into His Loving Vision of one another. In this sense, art becomes our learning to enter into God’s empathy for His Own Creation! Let’s! Aesthetics are underrated as a spiritual practice!

Learning to look well at art and one another displaces a pornographic vision of life-looking through our wounds versus looking through His.

It heals us, as we look well at art and one another-this is how viewing art can become a spiritual practice, rather than a superfluous luxury activity. To learn to see is penultimate to learning to Love well!

That’s my thesis anyway. We come into a deeper fellowship and communion with His vision and suffering by looking with Him at art, others and life, rather than viewing things only from our own vision. Art, in that way, becomes perceptual communion. We join His Sight of other. And our orientation shifts by conjoining with His!

In doing so, we become better people, art and life appreciators! Looking at art well is a practice for looking at others in God’s image and living well.

This is why aesthetics still matter as a spiritual practice. Art’s not just for breakfast anymore people! Our view, and interpretation of the world around us, is how we end up treating it! So let’s nurture our lenses well! And pick the right ones!

When we look at art with God, it helps us see more of how things actually are, or, will one day be. We then, become collaborators in seeing and being healed and healing (making more whole others and ourselves) what’s around us through the depth of our collaboration of sight! See well, to be well.

Everything wants to be fathered!
Each item, technology, plant or gadget, or person or city, looks eagerly unto fathering!
We are each children and potential fathers and mothers, meant to be stewards-potential parents.
We all look eagerly unto fathering! We want to be fathered. All of us.
Even when i look in my kitchen, at utensils and ingredients, they all want to be creatively fathered, yielded into order and identity in kindness, gentleness and wisdom. Everything wants to be fathered. It’s an intrinsic need of us all.
I’ve never encountered anything, which didn’t have an inner desire for fatherhood! We may not trust Father, but we all have a secret desire to be Fathered.

If you want to teach us Life through death, then do; death is just another deepening of trust; or, if you want to teach us through daily living, then do. Whatever the medium, teach us Yourselftoday, meet us through our passing circumstances, and teach how to be with You in everything. The medium is less important than the Message coming into us! Impart yourself through our daily circumstances Lord, whatever season of our lives we happen to be in, so we can be content while becoming who we really are while here!

Help us play whatever our parts are ours now!

I personally pray for EXTRA LIFE! Lord, thanks. I want to, like Joshua in Your Old story, live through three of Your great ideas!

Each item, technology or person looks eagerly unto fathering! We are each, meant to be stewards-potential parents. We all look eagerly unto fathering! We want to be fathered. All of us. Even when i look in my kitchen, at utensils and ingredients, they all want to be creatively fathered, yielded in kindness, gentleness and wisdom into their identities. Everything wants to be fathered. It’s an intrinsic need of us all.

I’ve never encountered anything, which didn’t have an inner desire for fatherhood!

I awoke again to…
Surfers practicing at dawn, on the linda mar cove today, in the Pacific’s winter way-
breaking the fray with our bodies leaning into sea like glistens. So,
i decided to stay with the gulls and hawks in stillness this hour where they alone
live, and just listen well with them,
to the endless waves turning… until, that is, i could really hear and see
them breaking together in some cacophonous unison unseen. Until i could surf them with my heart in Peace.
Until i could call them my morning dawn devotion, already breaking within.

As a photographers son, you learn to see.
As a pastor’s son, you learn to care for souls tenderly.
As an engineer’s son, you learn to see 3 dimensionally, design and implement.
Jesus was a carpenter’s son, and He seemed to figure the bigger context out!
Paul liked making tents on the side of his teaching career…lots of the disciples liked to fish.
Spiritual intelligence forms and informs all professions, and every area of our passions, and inheritances, if we make them places of meeting and being transformed by God.

“The medium is just a means to encountering what really matters.”

Just found this entry today from just after we visited the town Terezin on the Czech border, years back:

After visiting the town of Terezin, years back, and going to that cemetery of locals, jews and christians, with deep red roses hovering over each tomb..i wrote-

Terezin cemetery in fall, even I, could not crack a smile there at all!
Yet, the roses growing over the christian jewish local graves together,
did bring a hopeful scent into mid air. Perhaps wafting towards the Word reconcile;
which opens in silence, eventually, over all our seasons…

Some more gleanings from counseling: some thoughts on healing in ourselves and others.

In counseling aren’t we really seeing the inner narrative of the other person’s journey, trying to help them remove blocks, and offering hope that there are many more chapters in the story! Of course, that takes prayer and insight (seeing where He is in the other person’s inner house, and what He wants to work on renovating next!), but really the story is already going on before you get there; so lots of counseling is about finding the true story, and helping guide the lines out! So the whole poem can be pronounced. In counseling, it is as if we are helping overcome writer’s block in people. Or being written blocks, at least!

Sometimes, we go back to blocked or locked rooms from the person’s past, sometimes we clean and grieve through rooms in the present. Sometimes we jump forward to the future healed space, to gain hope for the present. We counsel in all directions, while knowing there is a whole story already going on in us all. An identity and a path prepared beforehand to be each person’s way! We are trying to let Him into the whole house, so it is illuminated! Often one room at a time.

Some dams need to be removed from early in the river. If you use the metaphor of each person as a river, instead of a house. There are dams along the way through time! Usually the earliest ones require the most work, but also can be torn down the quickest! Conversion does this. But then along the way, there are other dams of various sizes which need to be worked on. I’ve been studying how beavers build, tear down and relocate dams as a metaphor for healing. Fun study. They work in family and community for one!

If you picture your life as a river, where are the blocks or dams? Which ones are you working on in this season. How did ones which have been removed come down in your journey? Notice patterns. Each dam is unique, but has similar patterns—usually, conviction, confession, grieving, and placing some new life to grow into in that area! He usually guides you to those places to work on, through prayer, or just life experiences which make it clear there is a block ready to be removed or dealt with.

Then it’s time to get to the Cross, in confession, thanks, grieving, and then often more thanks…personal grieving take different times and pacing for different people; then, afterwards, listen for understanding of what He wants to plant in that area instead. To get to know Him through healing. We often just make it about ourselves, but actually healing is as much about getting to know who He is, and how Kind and thorough He is in making us more whole.

Certain seasons, healing then becomes our way or method of getting to know God. It may feel selfish or self absorbed at first, but not when we really make it about Him. We have to know what season we are in. But if it’s a healing season, then dive into Him in that place. Don’t miss out, for usually He is preparing you for new life and seasons, and has a clear reason why He’s working on each part of us in order.

You can also tell if someone is healed in a certain area, by if there is Love and true concern for others in that area.

Another thing I’ve learned is if you pull something out, be ready to plant something new in that place! Because it’s good compost for growing things strong! Don’t waste your compost!

Usually God deals with core wounds first, so they stop feeding the dead patterns or smaller wounds later. So if you were rejected as a kid by parents or the world, He often starts with that core wound of rejection, and then works through all the patterns you’ve walked out from that wound of expecting rejection—false defense etc. fear of others, isolation etc…find your core wounds, and let Him work on them; that frees up easier or more fluid healing in others areas of your life patterns.

When you take something out, you need to put something in its place which has new life in it! More gleanings from counseling soon friends! Fun thinking about what I’ve noticed thus far!

Often also you can use some of the materials from the torn down dams for other purposes. You can re-purpose your wounds, or at least loose materials from where they were before, in this sense. Sort of like in the book of Joshua when they messed up the first time in Ai, but God used there mistake as part of his strategy! Once new life is in that place, you can use some of the older materials to build other things.

Don’t waste your trials! Learn how He heals if you are in a healing season. Healing then becomes your seasonal spirituality or place of meeting. I went through many healing seasons, and am sure there are many more to come. I think He got into and broke down my core wounds, but there are so many echoes and other dams which continue to get cleared. The wound is healed first, then the patterns which resulted from them!

I enjoy meeting Him in times of healing. And meeting him now, in times of helping others heal. We are not our wounds, but what is meant to be planted in those places which were most hurt, often does tell us lots about who we really are. Our wounds are a keyhole into true identity! And where we were wounded often reveals or uncovers our callings in life towards others! We often get even more of Him in those exact places or hurt, for these are where we come to know the One who knows all our griefs. To the degree we know Him in a certain area of our lives, we can offer Him and His healing Life to others!

Often having the most ability to bless others in the exact places where we were most hurt.

So you see people like St Paul who really overcame racism, but had that racial pride as a core wound which God had to heal over time. Etc. Our wounded areas often become our greatest areas of His Authority, as others have pointed out. Assuming we allow them to get healed, and are not just acting from bitterness in those area. Un-dealt with wounds calcify into hatred and bitterness usually projected outwards on others.

You see this happening now between races and genders. When the wound is dealt with, as I have seen in some native american saints who learned to forgive, they often have the most love even for those who had abused them. It’s a way of healing. Always ask what is meant to be planted in this place where this wound or block or dam is? Usually just beneath the dam is an important clue as to your true identity and purpose in life.

Racism is also usually rooted in an un-dealt with wound; some lack of forgiveness towards an earlier or even generational abuse. But it requires the same healing process to become free from it. There are of course collective cultural wounds as well—fear or hatred of others then gets systematized. But the healing process is the same. Sometimes we have to go back and be little priest for ourselves and our generations as well to learn to not walk in abusive patterns ourselves.

A healed person in a certain area, always speaks in love, and often has unique wisdom in that particular area! Good to listen well to those who have actually healed in an area, you may want to learn to heal in also! How did it work for them. How did they get Love into that area of their lives. We are always trying to get that Voice of Love and gentle guidance into those areas.

What wounds or dams is God dealing with in your life this season? How can you allow Him in, and start to plant new life in that area, as a way of getting to know Him better? How is He handling that area. What are His methods of intervention? All these questions are not just about getting healed, but getting to know Him more! Healing is not solipsistic if we head at it in this way!

And it helps those around us when we are healed in each area! For, we can then turn and heal others. We have to be willing to heal, if we are to help others heal as well. It’s easy to point out the motes and unhealed areas in others, without dealing with our own. Start in us, then we may be useful in helping others. The first stone to move or throw out is always in us! For we all have fallen short of the glory of our true stories!

Even in our times, you can tell those who have actual authority to speak, are those who have healed in that area (always look for the tone of Love, for that’s where God is already formed and present in a person or conversation). The rest have anger or bitterness behind their words and are actually less effective in bringing change! Once we are healed, we want to partner in healing others. As we are being made whole, we are able to turn and help others become more whole-more themselves! We can only impart what we already contain. Healing then becomes a salve and balm for others in the exact areas where we ourselves have been most broken.