Been thinking lots about the value of praying before speaking….
Especially in counseling others, it’s important to pray lots before speaking into someone else’s heart! Otherwise, you are just speaking your own best ideas, and that is rarely enough!

“Prayer comes before speech.” Anne Wenger

Anne Wenger was a local saintly woman where i grew up. I knew her for many years, she taught me, but at the end of her life, i used to visit at her house for prayer. She often used to tell me she would practice thinking with her heart in prayer before she spoke. Don’t just talk off the top of your head, speak from the heart, she would say to me. By heart, she didn’t just mean emotions, but more like your deeper inner self—the center of a person.
It was a prayer practice for her. She knew i was also a “fast talker” or babbling brook, so needed to learn to pause before speaking, so i could speak from the heart, the place in His Heart. Silence is a necessary practice for babbling brooks! Think before you speak, they used to say, but her word was deeper, pray before you talk.
We would pray for hours each visit. I remember her particular concerns for her family and others, because we prayed together often. You tend to learn what’s really on another’s heart when you pray together. That’s one of the fruits of prayer—true intimacy.
Then we would talk books and life. She loved books, and left me many when she died. But we always started our times and ended them in prayer.
At the end of her life, she prayed two pages worth of words over my own life. They’ve been a guide ever since. But i also remember her simple, pray before you babble talk she gave me! Prayer also teaches patience on many levels!
I’m still learning what that saint was trying to teach me way back then! Prayer precedes speech. Good practice still.
The saints never stop teaching us! And it appears we are never done learning and growing up! And, I’m still a fast talker, but i think i pause more often now before i speak. I hope so. Selah!

They were right, my elders, a simple fall flower arrangement, or a good talk with an older couple who have been married for 53 years this weekend, cooking and communion, and considering well what’s yours to tend and learn from each day, appreciating daily beauty, are still the things which matter and sustain.

Those different forms of Beauty last. Great watching the local game with this older couple! I learn so much from just being with those who have gone a long time in the right direction! There is an aesthetic to living well. Appreciating longevity and the cumulative wisdom of things, people places.

Made me think about these Napa wines they sent to me this week. Knowing the fires going on there, having seen the smoke last week, makes me want to savor, with friends, each time earned bottle.

I joined a california wine club years back, and they send me the most unique ones from the region, small family start ups usually, and they always have the dust of the cellars on them. Often, they talk about the time and seasons in their notes. How weather effected varietals. How seeds grow over time.

How much time it takes to make a fine wine, or a good marriage. This couple both loved and liked each other, it was fun watching them enjoy one another and the game. Like a sip of the fine wine of life!

Plus, this lamb i grilled last night felt just right with this cabernet and the cooler climes this week. Grilled apples, oregano, things which have been here a long while make me happy. And of course, my wife over many seasons, also is a major source of joy and inspiration for me.

I hope we have 53 years or more together like this old couple, and still like each other! I think we will! I like aged things! I’m attracted to wisdom. And, I’ve always been obsessed with time, and wear many watches set on different global times! Keeps me aware of all that is happening at once.

The local cooks:

Talking to these guys from local restaurants today—one french fellow, the other from here, another from New Orleans, they love cooking, but also feel the pressure of the industry globally. How to have it all prepped and cook well, have a sense of place, and then go play a gig at night with your band-have a life, in short.

How to balance life in short, in an emerging global city, and keep it real, seemed to be what was most on their hearts. All great cooks, a passion for composition and fresh relational ingredients, but also working 70 hour weeks, so it’s hard to maintain relationships and quality of life balance. Good to learn from the young, and taste their passions!

One is the main chef at this french influenced local restaurant. Looks good. Plus, they all have catholic backgrounds and are curious how their faith interfaces with their passions. Good place to start a conversation! Finding calling still matters regardless of your medium.

Do you still like to cook? I asked. What do you cook for yourselves at home? How do you work with garlic? What spices do you keep fresh at home?

Yes, i do like to cook at home my new friend said, but now i have an unlimited palette, so it’s hard at home to find all that i see which needs to come together. I feel like food is spiritual.

Interesting thinking about how one’s spirituality intersects with cooking well! Great topic! Enjoyed talking to these guys today. Look forward to visiting their restaurant: Politique. I learn much from those younger as well as those older! We are all just people at different stages of life in the end.

What I learned from living in Jerusalem. To listen well to the city, rooftops and moonlight help. The city breaths at night, after everyone is sleeping. Then it’s just falafels and soldiers. Once you make friends with them, you can take in all the flavors and scents of the day in Peace, and consider things.

I also learned lots of living history, and where all the conflicts are at now, how long the arguments have gone on! And, as I was teaching english to children-both jewish and arab, to watch the kids to see where change is possible.

I learned lots more from living in that special city, but at least that much. Everything important can be read through children and how a city holds moonlight! The cupped white stone roof tops of this city, hold and reflect her whole story!

Van Gogh and me, a lifestory! Van Gogh and I, and a guy named Noah:

I first encountered Van Gogh in a closet. Someone had put an old print in a corner of my parent’s closet. At the same time i discovered it, i was friends with an older artist named Noah, who did mostly abstract expressionist pieces. One, i remember, was called “The Face of God”-it was a black and white cosmic piece. I liked Noah, and I immediately liked Van Gogh’s work as well.

One was more representational than the other, but both spoke to my developing heart about a larger reality, a higher ground. I’d always seen angels and mystical things, so I knew the tree was more than just a dogwood, that it also symbolized Trinity itself, in the case of the dogwood tree, had always seemed obvious to me.

Noah killed himself soon after i discovered Van Gogh in the closet, and it was very sad for me. It made me wonder about the artistic pursuit of seeking truth and God. And it made me want to make a haven for artist, even at a young age before I could even shelter myself.

Later, i started a ministry called “Noah’s Other Boat”. It was for the Noah’s or life seeking artists who were pursuing a truer center through art. But the metaphor also included all the discarded things God wanted to preserve, as the animals were in the bible story of Noah.

All those vulnerable creatures, God wants to preserve from the floods of destruction, dissipation, and dis-integration on every level. To provide a place of safety and integration, a floating studio of healing or making things whole again.

Of course, Van Gogh also killed himself. I think if I would have known him, we could’ve talked it through, but one never knows. Still his art has more life than most people ever live.

When I went to Arles, and visited many of the other places he painted, I could see what he saw there, and how he wanted to share it. A kind generous soul really.

But there was no Noah’s Other Boat for him, outside of his relationship with his brother Theo (their letters are gathered in “Letters to Theo”). Their correspondence is so tender. I still read it for inspiration.

Anyways that boat went with me all the places I’ve lived: Winston Salem, Richmond, Boston, Albuquerque, San Francisco, Austin, Prague, Antwerp, Paris…the heart of that boat for artist and the discarded has never stopped floating in me. Probably never will.

Artist are like spiritual astronauts, and it’s not easy being green, as Kermit said, especially if you are flying between realms, i would add. Artist are also like knife sharpeners under water! They deal with keen perception of where mystery dwells. They like the prophets live between worlds, and bridge heaven and earth.

I used to draw this little man walking a wire between earth and heaven with music as the sky between. It was one of my first dottles in a sketch book. Over the years, this little stick figure has returned and the map has gotten more clarified. I’ve added saints and angels for instance, and rays of musical notes. I’ve added cities and even smoke.

But at the end of the day, we all have human heart problems which need to be solved so we can live well, and continue with meaningingful lives.

Recently when the great fashion performer and designer Alaxander Mcqueen died, and then more recently Robin Williams, I had that same feeling in my gut as I had when my friend Noah died. How sad there was no boat to carry them home. If only i would’ve known, i could’ve at least given them directions to the ark! King David was an artist and he knew the direction. And how to live near the ark. I hope I’ve learned better how to live near it.

Artist, not unlike ministers, tend to struggle most with finding a meaningful context. Entertainment isn’t satisfying enough, neither is celebrity. Both offer forms of validation, but not of the heart, as you can see by the number of suicides, or burn out. There must be a higher context for the arts, and for ministry on that note- something more spiritually grounded, I’ve always felt. The Ultimate ground of being, must be somehow livable, and able to connect to in a practical fruitful way.

We also often need a better philosophy of the arts, or better yet, a theology of the imagination. I’m still working on mine, but we need a context, for our creative quest-ions. “Artists wrestle with Reality itself.” That’s a tough match, so guidebooks along the way are welcome, as are havens from the floods of dissipation as St Peter called it, around us. Beauty is medicine for ugly times, as someone wiser than me must have said by now. So it the endless quest, highlighted by artists, for what is Real, essential, absolute, what really matters. Saints monks and artist overlap in this pursuit. Some make it to the gate, other’s turn back, some walk all the way in, and find Love and true self acceptance.

Anyways, Noah’s Other Boat is still afloat! And, it appears, needed now more than ever.

“The way to know God is to love many things deeply.” Van Gogh, the pastor turned artist!
In college i helped edit a book called “Van Gogh and God”—great little book on his personal spirituality and how it came to express itself primarily through art. Just came across a copy today, by one of my professors and friends Cliff Edwards.
He also wrote a nice book on the Japanese poet Issa, who is one of my favorite nature lovers. Even loved flies that haiku poet. That was a man who could see through things. (https://worldstudies.vcu.edu/people/religious-studies-faculty/edwards.html) Here’s a link to my teacher. Good man, well studied but it led him towards humility. He’s also a great book artist! Makes huge sculptures with old books! Or used to when i was there.
Also Dr Edwards was always available as a teacher and as a person, and has a contagious curiosity about where religion and art intersect which got planted in me! Thankful for real teachers in life. They are helpful. And still studying artist’s spiritualities and where art and faith conjoin and intersect. The inherent relationship between true identity and creative expression is one of my life topics! On a personal and city wide level. How culture is meant to flow from core identity, interest me! And how to restore this vital connection or true image, is part of my own healing journey. Thankful for guides along the way today!
Van Gogh wrote to his brother Theo (“Letters to Theo”) about painting from the “absolute self”, to paint the essential nature of things. Interesting quest! I like what artist think about! They become great teachers of how to interpret more deeply.
I’ve had a long journey with Van Gogh, having gone to Arles and many of the places he painted over the years, and seen most of his works. Such a vibrant heart, who made great art.

More on life lessons from each season thus far:

I still like this idea of thinking about what you learned from each season of life—marriage has taught me humility, that there was so much i had no idea about, that we can get to know someone deeply through many seasons of life is such a gift; and that I’ve gotten to know parts of God I never would have otherwise.

In a funny way, marriage seems to teach us to fellowship with His Sufferings for one another! Though they may not sound like a fun reason to be attracted to marriage! Suffering with and for brings deeper transformation in us.

If spiritual growth is your core motivation, as it is one of mine, marriage is a great method! Not the only, but a effective one, if you keep diving into Love, and His Perspective of the other person He is sharing with you!

But, also it’s almost like you have access to that other person’s part of heaven or parts of God, and that’s astounding in my case. Of course, we have sort of a mystical marriage, but I’ve gotten to travel into so many more parts of heaven-specifically into The Father’s Heart and realms, and practical formation down here, by being married.

And just simply gotten less selfish—marriage forces that, if you stay with it. There’s much more I’ve learned from being married, but at least that much. Enjoying thinking about what I’ve learned from each season of life thus far! Good practice to recount it, i think! Ok, more on what I’ve learned in marriage later, but just getting some rough sketches of all it can form in us down here!

I know lots of people are anti-marriage in my generation, but I see it as one of the most subversive alternative punk options for spiritual formation on earth! It’s the hardest, so must be one of the best ways! It’s like sharpening knives underwater, or many other images. Marriage is still one of the best containers for becoming who we really are on earth! It requires the most “death to self daily”—that alone would make it a noble pursuit!

Ok so someone asked me what did you learn from that season of life? So, I’m writing a little series of what I’ve learned from each season of life thus far! Fun meditation! I’m writing longer (yes, even longer!) articles on another site, but thought I’d share little glistenings here as well just for fun.

The person who originally asked me was talking about when I lived in Switzerland years back and studied at L’abri, a creative christian community started in the 60’s by Francis Shaeffer and his wife Edith. I was told it was a place which could help integrate my arts and spiritual backgrounds. To bring the art world and the church world under one larger roof has always been a central passion for me. I think it started that process in me.

Well, so a short version of what i learned or incarnated there: that there was no area of Life where we could not meet God. That Christ was Lord over all of Reality including the arts and imagination, and every other realm, so we are free to pursue our identity callings in whatever field is authentic to us.

It was a permission giving place in that sense, and one of integrating the arts and church world for me. That creativity was part of being human and so part of our authentic relationship with Christ, so should be dynamic, alive and one of a kind, in that sense.

I always felt like they were meant to be in the same room, and this place and the teachers there gave me permission to do so in myself. Permission to just be and pursue excellence in whatever your heart’s interest was–your inner calling-that was a big gift which came from those mighty mountains in Switzerland into me and many others. I came to see back then, that both the church and the art world were contextualized in a larger spiritual context, which I had alway intimated was there!

That I am an artist and a christian are not contradictory, but work in tandem, one contextualizing the other. And that I didn’t have to make “Christian” art, but if I was centered in Christ, could just make art, and that central life giving relationship, would be implied. That was a big release for me. I had mostly seen art used as propaganda for Christ, or as decoration, rather than overflow from authentic relationship and identity in Christ. Art as evangelism quickly turns into propaganda, and not great art as well.

There were many other things which were imparted there, but that was a big one. God is One so no area of Reality is outside of His Heart’s concern and desire to incarnate with and through us. That was a simple but profound integration in my younger life. I had been to art school and studied at seminary, and wanted to see how to two could come together in an authentic way. Turns out they already were in a larger Kingdom context.

I also learned french surrealist poetry there from my mentor, which was also cool, but that central integration probably has lasted longer!

More things i’m learning in counseling others…

My two new favorite questions in counseling: what is the central truth you think your life emphasizes? What does your life teach? (Try to be specific, not general) That’s probably the part of God you know and reflect, or have already incarnated. It’s also a key hole into true identity! Who we are comes before what we do: identity precedes calling, as they say!

“I knit you, therefore I called you to do…” to walk on that path prepared beforehand (Eph 2:10)

Then, how are you planting that teaching, the seed you truly are?
What’s your context or flower pot? Where’s the good soil for your particular seeds?

Been enjoying starting conversations with friends like that recently.
Another one I like: if it was just you and God on earth-no roles, no people to please or be defined by—who would you be? Essentializing identity interest me! Who are you outside all your seasonal roles in life!

I’ve enjoyed hearing people’s answers to these two questions recently!