Tending shoes…

My dad had the same shoes and leather kit (in a cedar wooden box with a shoe horn for polishing!) all my life. Dad knows how to tend things over time!

I’ve tried to keep my grandfather’s pocket knife sharp and useful over the years, as a result! Not to mention his two fedora hats I inherited.

Tending things well is a practice of appreciation and thanks. Seems especially important in a disposable culture, in which we must replace our cars and computers every few years.

If we did that with our relationships, we’d really be in trouble!

A gift which keeps giving in every field for at least three generations—like an apple tree (like my distant cousin Johnny Appleseed tended) or anything else we get to tend across time-has memory and worth. We are temporary caretakers down here.

As they say in Texas, “If a person can tend one pair of boots for a generation or lIfe time, he might be able to manage a ranch, eventually.” Nice local parable. Anyway, enjoying trying to tend a few things well this season.

It’s never about the things, it’s about teaching us to care for what is given to us freely in life, as they say. Tend well, so you have more to give at the end.

Or, as my Cherokee ancestors said: “Tend the fire until it’s about to go out, and then teach carefully the next generation how to keep it burning. So everyone stays warm.”

I learned that much from watching my dad take care of his shoes.

My New Year’s practice:

Studying the crossing of the Jordan part of the big story this week, reminded me to recall our own stories in times of thresholds or crossings in life, as a practice each year.

In this story, the waters roll back to the city of Adam (origin city-great symbol! Look all the way back to your origins when crossing into new chapters! For, He knit you in the womb and knows the whole story–ask Him to reveal your own story to you, especially in threshold moments!), and echo of the other side of the journey at the Red Sea. Made me think how at New Years it’s good to recall the story, looking for these, motifs and central symbols in our lives-the seams of our narratives.

I like to pick three symbols from my past year which felt true and came into better relief; and then consider how I can edit and refine them in collaboration with Him, this coming year! Helps me see the narrative thread in my life, and whom I’m given to love around me.

In this little moment of the Joshua story—love that the priest cross first and that there are symbolic rituals before the general body crosses over. Symbol precedes fuller incarnation. In the book at least, God seems to always symbolize Himself first, before fuller incarnation. What, is He an artist or something!

He saw and sees art in everything, including us! I like working on the symbols of life around New Years.

There is always this pattern of recalling, remembering the long story, before a new chapter is opened. List His wonders, as David is alway telling us. Remember all the grand instances of His faithfulness, and then half the Psalms go on to endlessly list them! Good reminder around New Years, to pause, selah, actively recall the wonders from your past year, and walk into the new in the hope which is stirred from that hindsight-view of faithfulness.

Find the narrative, be thankful for the editing, and see where the story leads next. Love doing that just around New Years each year. Honor the story which is being told through your life! And of course, The Story Teller, who is pronouncing His Poetry through us! Ephesians 2:10—that path prepared beforehand to be our way! We are His master stories! Love that truth. Life is a meaningful creative narrative! Good to recall the story around New Years in thanks!

Looking back isn’t nostalgia for the past, it’s being thankful and assured by the long story, it’s motifs symbols and themes.

This new years, I’m making art about the past two years, especially the parts where Light overtly broke through, and made me and those around me more themselves, better humans, and disco ball reflectors of His Love, in my case. Thankful to see so many glistenings and glimmers, flecks of obvious Presence which I’ve been graced with this past few years. God must like not just love me, the story tells me.

I’ll paint and write them out for my holiday! Bless your musings over your years and stories as well friends! And whatever rituals make you thankful for your life’s stories. Let’s keep being written, and recalling the lines between the lines in the tone of thanks. Joyous reflective New Years to you all friends!

So, here is my short New Year’s blessing on your stories friends–the stories we are, and are becoming! Thankful to be in the grand narrative with you all!

My New Year’s practice:

Studying the crossing of the Jordan part of the big story this week, reminded me to recall our own stories in times of thresholds or crossings in life, as a practice each year. In this story, the waters roll back to the city of Adam (great symbol!), and echo of the other side of the journey at the Red Sea. Made me think how at New Years it’s good to recall the story, looking for these, motifs and central symbols in our lives-the seams of our narratives.

I like to pick three symbols from my past year which felt true and came into better relief; and then consider how I can edit and refine them in collaboration with Him, this coming year! Helps me see the narrative thread in my life, and whom I’m given to love around me.

In this little moment of the Joshua story—love that the priest cross first and that there are symbolic rituals before the general body crosses over. Symbol precedes fuller incarnation. In the book at least, God seems to always symbolize Himself first, before fuller incarnation. What, is He an artist or something! He saw art in everything. I like working on the symbols of life around New Years.

There is always this pattern of recalling, remembering the long story, before a new chapter is opened. List His wonders, as David is alway telling us. Remember all the grand instances of His faithfulness, and then half the Psalms go on to endlessly list them! Good reminder around New Years, to pause, selah, actively recall the wonders from your past year, and walk into the new in the hope which is stirred from that hindsight-view of faithfulness.

Find the narrative, be thankful for the editing, and see where the story leads next. Love doing that just around New Years each year. Honor the story which is being told through your life! And of course, The Story Teller, who is pronouncing His Poetry through us! Ephesians 2:10—that path prepared beforehand to be our way! We are His master stories! Love that truth. Life is a meaningful creative narrative! Good to recall the story around New Years in thanks!

Looking back isn’t nostalgia for the past, it’s being thankful and assured by the long story, it’s motifs symbols and themes.

This new years, I’m making art about the past two years, especially the parts where Light overtly broke through, and made me and those around me more themselves, better humans, and disco ball reflectors of His Love, in my case. Thankful to see so many glistenings and glimmers, flecks of obvious Presence which I’ve been graced with this past few years. God must like not just love me, the story tells me.

I’ll paint and write them out for my holiday! Bless your musings over your years and stories as well friends! And whatever rituals make your thankful for your life’s stories. Let’s keep being written, and recalling the lines between the lines in the tone of thanks. Joyous reflective New Years to you all friends!

In school, we used to have a little workbook called “word-ly wise”. Here’s a little word wisdom, i’ve been considering..

Letting words form first…this, from someone who talks constantly, even in their sleep (ask my wife)…words requires time in the womb of the heart in order to be birthed well-that is from the deeper well. Holding things in our hearts, let’s the birth come at the right time.

Don’t speak, until you have something to say, my mentor used to say. Simple good advice, which I’m still trying to practice.

Let the words form in your heart before they roll out of your mouth, into the world. It’s ok to say, i don’t have that fully formed yet, i’ll get back to you when i do. It will be a bigger blessings then for us both, and more simple and articulate.

Not an easy practice in a very now oriented, and at time, word poor world. The pressure to pronounce things before they are fully formed is dangerous, but also ubiquitous in our days. “Let silence, find her words.” as one monk put it.

The cuff is never a good place to speak from. The heart is better. Get centered in Love and then speak. Be the voice of Love, as Henri Nouwen would put it.

From my musicologist friend tonight: to be a learner over and over again!

“The real masters are humble, not in competition. In any medium. And you can learn rather than be in competition with them.” My older musician friend tonight. “By the time you are a master in your medium, you have nothing to lose, and everything to share. And yet, you are slightly isolated in your mastery.”

Nice thought from my musical genius friend tonight, who taught for many years, and is a master teacher on several instruments, but is still a learner from those who have gone farther and further into what music is.

“Handel couldn’t learn from Beethoven, or Bach, because of his own insecurities. Who knows what would have happen if Handel would have moved from master to student at the end!” Great quote, i will remember.

Can we, regardless of our skill level, in whatever our fields of interest and calling, still find those further out in the Forest of knowing than us! And be children or students again!

Let’s learn from one another’s areas of mastery friends! Let’s be humble enough to come under, and be inspired by those in front of us, in whatever our fields of becoming are ours!

“Pick a few things-people, places or things; creatures, cities, or even, nations- to love well until you know Love for all things-that is until you have embodied, Love’s orientation towards life, including yourself!” Love comes into and engages through particulars.

Remembering one of my art mentors today!

In college, i lived with an amazing Jewish artist from Argentina, Julio. In addition to just enjoying learning life from Julio, I also sort of became part of his creative family. We did all sorts of creative workshops together, and arts gathering at his amazing art house he made in Virginia. I lived in this arthouse for many years. It literally had a tree growing through the center! But more importantly he taught me to see the symbolic dimension of things around me. To not settle for the surface of things-“to see through” as he used to put it.

Julio taught me to see the symbolic level of things—the collage in everything. Every person can teach you things. He used to bring a little frame to the table and lay it down, and ask me where the composition was in the grain of wood on the table. He helped me find the art dimension in things, even once, putting a glass log he made in a normal stack of wood until i noticed the anamoly. He used to say you have to hunt art like a tiger in all that is around you. I still appreciate what he imparted to me. How to see art all around us in everything!

He has huge mobile sculpture works all over the east coast (and some in Argentina), and a great abstract Noah’s Ark piece as a permanent installation at a school. Interactive glass animals, which kids can spin around and interact with the ancient story, be active interpreters in the old tales etc. That was his way of teaching.

Great artist, as I said. At the end of his life he was working mostly with collage. We would look at his collages for hours, until i could see them. Some were found objects, he simply saw and framed, and rescued from the trash, so we could see, discover for ourselves, it’s inner potential treasure, as he would put it.

Trash is always potential treasure if seen well, as we all are. His was a redemptive view. Or, a vision of life which included hope for wholeness, if we could engage enough to discover it, call it forth by seeing it well, and become more ourselves in the process. “You can only see something, to the degree you are willing to engage and make it what it is.” That’s one i wrote down. “Everything implies an inner narrative!” was another! Some meaningful things stick with you.

But all of his art, required the viewer to make the imaginative leap of associations and to create or find, or become, or at best, be transformed by the inner narrative of the art.

His art forced engagement to know. “To discover life around us, we must engage actively in resurrection!” Was one way he put it. I still like the idea of resurrecting people, places and things around me, as part of my active stewardship or repairing or reconciling things to themselves. Making things more whole.

I still like collage and abstract art for that reason—it forces the viewer to engage their imagination in order to know and encounter the art. At it’s best, abstract art or collage like Miro’s, or Julio’s, teach us to find treasure all around us, even in the grain of a table, to find and form the narrative in collaboration with the art, and every day life. It engages our imagination as we encounter the art. We become collaborators in seeing! That’s one thing Julio taught me.

God set up the world to be collaborated with, into fruition. Part of stewardship is a active creative stance towards what’s or who is around us! To dance with things in order to bring them forth! To deeply encounter other in order to activate us both!

And, I still hear Julio’s voice offering me life advice: “You have too much balloon and not enough potato.” Although, i think I’ve come to balance the two better at this stage of my life. Thankful for older folks who took the time to invest in my heart and imagination over the years, and helped me see the loving layers of things.

When i did his funeral, i felt his mantel settle on my shoulders! Thanks for being generous with sight and heart..

He died of a brain tumor. Just weeks beforehand, he was making abstract sketches based on the X-rays of the tumor. That’s someone who can see the art in things! Thanks for teaching me that Julio. I still see art everywhere! Julio was one of my art parents. Just honoring him today, with no agenda but Love.

Honor your art parents, so that the creative flow may go well with you!

A mutually encouraging couple is powerful!

Encouragement between partners brings and bridges in, Love’s rain and reign.
Choose to encourage each other as a spiritual practice, or practical practice!

Try to see and name the best of one another daily, until it is amplified into being! See the other as their best poem, and try to pronounce that! Help co-borth it into existence! Use your words and attitude like that-to birth the best of one another into shining! That’s what we can give one another! And a couple which does that, will keep glowing over time!

Edification of others, is often for our own good, but it makes a better representation of God in the end-which may be one of the main points of marriage, collaborations, alliances, or life in general. In our marriage and collaboration of becoming, my wife and I try to practice encouraging each other—not always easy—as we know one another’s shadows well, and can easily articulate them.

But when we do instead, choose to name His opinion of one another, or at least seek to name it from the heart of Love, something bigger than us shines! A better art, steps forth! A better representation of us both!

I also think, actively encouraging one another is more creative and courageous than pointing out flaws! Take more courage to be, to en-courage another! And it brings us all towards our real names. Let’s build one another up, rather than tear one another down! For the sake of at least being good art!

God is my drug!

God, you are my qualude, my cocaine, Your Love’s my drug of choice-
my way to get high…
and when we do,
i just want to love those next to You
i want to feed the poor and help those in need
to learn true need; i want to name each creature in love
and help them get high in You!
You are my drug Lord.
You are the thing i want pulsing through me at night.
You are the one I’ve chosen to be possessed by.
And when i do, i just want to love those next to You.
And love all the difficult things you do, like me.
Pump yourself through me until you are my very blood.
Then shoot me up until i am all the way in your Arm God.
When I’m high with You
all i want to do
is be just like Thee! Shoot me up Lord until it’s true-
until i run blue in your forever Blood, my Love!
So keep me high in You Lord. So we can fly!
Lord I’m High on you again each evening!
Let’s go low in Love again friend
Pump yourself into all the veins of our hearts Lord!
Until we are renewed in the needle of You, my God!
Pump us through Your Veins until we know our true names!
We too, want to be Your drug of choice!

What are the symbols of your life?

My new lead question in counseling: what would you say were the four major symbols of your life. If you were a novel, what would be the themes and recurring symbolic images?

This tends to lead to thinking about your whole narrative and what images are associated with your core identity! Reconciling and integrating identity is my passion!

So far, this question has led to great conversations! Thinking of the major symbols of our lives helps us piece together our stories!

Sometimes, i ask people to paint the images, or just sketch them; others times to journal them, or write a poem. Regardless it’s about gathering our symbols into one story—it’s about integrating our tales! What symbols have repeated throughout your life since childhood? Good way to find our true stories! Each of us, such great stories worth gathering and editing forever!