From an article i’m working on about art:

There is this implied transcendence with art. It makes you aware there is more than meets the eye to everything. That’s part of its role, to suggest that there is more around us than is literal, or merely utilitarian—to remind us everything is also resting inside a poem. That taking out the trash can be prayer. (And prayer is itself a similar activity to art).

A thing or simple activity is more than itself. Art reminds us that. Or, as the comedians reminds us a pocket comb is also a plow for farming, in the right hands and imagination. Seeing the possible layers of meaning of each thing is part of what art sharpens in us. In this sense, it offers a fuller interpretation of the world around us. That’s another part of its role.

To know there is an enormous room everything is in, brings hope that in fact, this is not all there is. And these days, if this is all there is, we are in trouble! So if the surface is depressing, we probe beneath it to find more layers, and that brings hope. Making art is an act of hope, especially in times of tumult.

In this sense, art does more than ritualize collective grief (which is does and needs to be doing), but it offers hope by showing us the larger setting of the play, and therefore other possible outcomes.

Art also implies transcendence, or as Paul Tillich put it: “A symbol participates in The Reality to which it points.” Art offers a portal or gateway into something higher.

The act of art also, models trust there is something to hold me, once i let go, as L’Engle (“Walking on Water”) put it: “To be an artist means to approach the light, and that means to let go our control, to allow our whole selves to be placed with absolute faith in that which is greater than we are.” That vulnerable tight rope act, models hope for others, and that artist becomes a living sign.

Lastly, art is a basic part of being human. We lose a dynamic part of being human if our lives are artless, if we do not dare collaborate with God. Again, as L’Engle puts it, and I’ll end here: “Thus we lose our human calling, because we do not dare to be creators, co-creators with God.” (Reflections on faith and art)

Meeting local artist friends in evening….

And then, in evening again
we open our studio garages inside
and let one another in.
the skateboarders start trying to find the best hill to descend,
and there is that thrill of seeing what we have all been really
doing all day.

This friend’s been sculpting again in Mahogany memory boxes meant to carry all types of past stories,
or something even now cherished-some key which still matters, fits each lock
this friend tonight shared his treasure boxes.

Why do we wait til evening to show our secrets?
Why not share together all day, as birds do…in mid-air dew exchanges…

Still, and in stillness we do say to one another, finally,
here is what I’m really working on in life.

But it takes so long to say so to one another.
It takes many evenings, at least.

Yet, the wood of one another’s secret labors, is so smooth
your skin melts in its hand, and knows itself.

“i tried to listen to the wood and space here to tell me
what it wanted to become. Where it was
on its journey, and where it wanted to go.” my friend told me tonight.

We tried to steward things forth into their unique becomings…we
continued…

This friend whispered this evening, “the unseen labor is where i live.”
Not a bad address, i thought in myself.

What we were really working, on is akin to listening well
i think,
or at least honoring what was, what is, into what will be.
We are stewards of the unseen narrative of things.

Still, this evening’s glow was particular in my friend’s garage studio
lit by lanterns which he designed to match evening glow of sunset.

Wherever we were, it was worth noting, forever.

My friend’s boxes had three types of wood (each, in course, representing different seasons of his story, different weights of glory), each
carrying a different rhythm or density of memory, an inner pacing;
he then taught me this evening, as the sun started to make
us silhouettes,
each wood’s capacity for holding what it knows-
mahogany can do this, pine this, cedar another, oak a longer story-
what each is able to do (or contain of being)
or, what it was meant to do, once in listening hands
once, it finds itself, that is. Once, perhaps
a father cares or we receive what is already there
waiting in wood.

Once the right hands touch the wood, it knows itself
as we all somehow do, who we are, and what we are meant to do.
Things know themselves in the right hands.

Or as he put it, as things have room to become
they do, remarkably well.

Maybe this one, is for a skateboard for these kids
i suggested. He laughed. A good way to make quick memory of wood…
rushing down the hill in their descending glories
trying to glow before they crash.
But that’s another story, for another evening or day, perhaps.
This evening was simply about opening our studios
to one another in hope
and seeing my friend’s treasure boxes,
which somehow we all are.

Thoughts from today’s prayer hike: little/long homily from da hills!

Nice place for a prayer walk today! Great place to pray for this very ethnically diverse city to symbolize dignity and creative collaboration or even, companionship or friendship in love, among all types of peoples. In times of great division, nice praying for unity among the peoples.
Things always start in prayer because it’s where you see from. You see Jesus always sneaking off to the lonely place of prayer, before “doing” things.
Today, kept seeing a vision of unity with the splendor of diversity as a starting point. If we can’t spiritually imagine one another as a human family, we can’t labor to incarnate it.
Nice to have a nearby high place to pray from today (love this hill and neighborhood of great racial and generational diversity), and listen, which is most of what prayer is for me. (That passage where we meet Samuel, coming down the mountain….so many mountains of prayer and exchange in scriptures…)
Maybe this particular city is meant to creatively teach/model about ethnic companionship and spiritual familyhood.
This specific city has always historically spoken of diversity and collections of ethnicity, but maybe it can also speak of the family of humanity now. Not just tolerance, but being family, cousins to one another. That seems to be one of the highest metaphors, and needs now-that we see one another as relatives, all of us globally!
St Peter got up, early on, and gave a simple word of welcoming the other nations (ethnos and people groups all all sorts!) into a spiritual family! Even at pentecost, it was the beginning of the message (the confusion of tongues or division of languages was reversed, or began to be so!)—all these different types of people were invited in! That hasn’t changed.
Welcome back home all you who were exiled foreigners, which is everyone, is one of the core messages of the gospels. We are all strangers and foreigners, and all welcomed back home. That really is good and needed news.
And it seems, that at least with Jesus He went out of His way to find the most foreign foreigner to welcome! Whose the one everyone hates the most, let’s make sure they get invited to the party, was the way of His Heart. That’s so basic. Anyways….prayer helps us incarnate this living orientation towards others. That’s one of its gifts for our own transformation of heart. And know, that racism is really at root a human heart problem. To change it, you must renovate the heart. And prayer starts with the heart!

Sacred exchange happens in high places so we can see what to be doing in the valleys. Prayer offers overviews. Geography symbolizes these rarefied communion spaces. It’s also good to go up high, when it is very noisy in the valleys!
This is why people build altars there, or rituals of exchange between what is above and below (studied this in cross religious studies in school! Fun anthropological study actually about religious use of symbolic spaces). It matters what we do on hills and mountains. The sermon on the mount is still the center of the NT in my opinion, but anyways…what i was seeing today, was something about what it means to be a house of prayer for all nations, which is one definition of church.
How can we symbolize that in our times, and be part of that living temple (or prayer chapel for one another) of welcome!
It was fun praying my way into it. If we ourselves, as St Paul taught are a living temple, then we are also a house of prayer for all nations! A high and safe place of exchange and encounter with the Divine! Isn’t that what priesthood is?! Where human meets divine through symbolic activities?
One of my favorite topics of study. What true priesthood really is! Right now, we are priesting for more than racial reconciliation, we are priesting towards seeing one another as actual family.
Prayer is also often the “scenic route”. I always am surprised by flowers along the way there. Today felt like a sky wilderness up top, traced to in floral explosions of life. Hiking is cool, prayer hiking is even more richly textured with meaning! I love prayer hiking! I learn so much in prayer, especially in high places. Wisdom seems to dwell on rivers, ridges and rims! And on the heights!
Anyhow, just sharing some insights from the heights today! Blessings….sorry for the length, but prayer is a long trail and trial at times, but, maybe all of life is just a prayer walk in the end. At least, it makes hiking more meaning-filled! Glad i went on a prayer hike today, gave me some hope for our times! Now, i really know what to be praying about!

So, Let my little words, meet Word in mid air then, and be happily informed, grounded and contoured, edited by this unseen encounter. And let my angels, much less other people, be not bored by my sonic explorations. I know that half my prayer is stumbling into what i’m (then Your) really praying. So forgive the introduction God, let’s skip to the good part. Thanks friend again, and also thanks for non stop talking to me over the years. If You, oh God, were not a babbling brook, I would not have learned to swim at all! Glad we talk all the time, even in my sleep! (Yet, my poor wife!) Amen.

A few more visual mornings poems of different tones from this month, but all of us still in dialogue with morning light…even by the end of night. I could stare at morning all day! I like the way morning light equalizes and highlights us.

CS Lewis, in “The Weight of Glory”, spoke of this idea that if we really saw one another in our glory we would be shocked, and treat one another with reverence—good meditation for these days! Of course, as St Paul taught, we all have unique constellations and styles of shining, of radiating or reflecting glory!

Even shop windows hold worlds! It’s healing to see things in more of their actual glory! At least it’s a good practice, and made easier by morning light. Looking from and into the heart of things, overcomes all forms of racism, which is based in fear and judging by appearance.

Glory outshines and displaces hatred. When we see another person’s true glory, we can’t hate them. This has always been true. Shine on people! Let’s uncover the light from one another bushels, so to speak! Art can help us see the glory in common things and one another. It’s not a luxury to do so, it’s a necessity! Especially now.

the world is sheered in wonder still…
a little morning world for you today. so much is implied about life in a single instant. even bushes are replete with worlds to behold. in the small is contained the tall universe sheer with wonder. in the small, the wide world hides! so many seeds plant themselves in the unseen. blessed are the meek things. the stars are hiding in the bushes each morning…and one another’s opened eyes.

It’s breezy today
that is, the trees are talking
the language of the invisible again.
I’m just listening.

From a pilgram’s journal:
My people, we were instant travelers, sudden streams in the desert. We never thought twice about going yesterday to get to you by tomorrow. We were more than wanderers, we were becomers and we caused people to become as we went….we were instigators of being. And we ourselves were instances of being also. That’s all we ever were, for better or worse. We were water in the wilderness.

Re-reading this great collection of thoughts on art and spirituality by Madeleine L’Engle called “Walking on Water”.

One of my favorite of her many great, wise and well named truths she carried: “Artist are the ones who still see the angels around us! They see angels in the background, which allows them to interpret the foreground better.”

We certainly are in times where you need to see the angels behind things! En-couraging and enlightening reading her thoughts on art and spirituality today!
“If you can’t see the angels in the background, it’s hard to interpret the foreground.” In this sense, artist are interpreters.

Artist are people who still see angels!

In times likes ours, when the foreground is so noisy and boisterous, contentious and fermenting, we need the holy silence of the background in order to walk on. To walk on water that is. Elijah prayed that the eyes of his student would be opened to see the angelic host which were present on the scene!

May we continue to see angels friends! The setting is actually bigger than the stage! Nothing has changed about that. We still live in an enormous room. It is the job of artist to make us aware of its dimensions. Doesn’t the great sonic architecture of music do that directly for us; or a magnificent building which points beyond itself do!

She says about Peter: “As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it. Artist help us remember that we too can walk on water! They heal our loss of memory. Artist are those who are willing to incarnate, more of what actually is here! The chief job of a teacher is to help us remember al that we have forgotten.”

In this sense, artist are teachers and interpreters, who allow others to see that they too can walk on water, or as with Chagall, float above city rooftops!
So many great quotes in this collection of her thoughts on art and faith. Another which felt apropos for our times: “But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos (ordered design) becomes essential.” Fun resonating with this wise woman artist today!

She writes about spirituality and art because, as she says: “My feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable!” Here was a woman with an integrated imagination who could read the skies or interpret the times. Isn’t that more of what we need these days!

This writer’s art and spirituality were integrated. There was no division in her between sacred and secular. The kingdom had come into both areas of her being, so she was free to think about and create her art as overflow of her spirituality!

Nice to be reminded of those who had baptized imaginations! And the result of course, was good art and living. Also, just nice hearing an artist talk about art in humble urgency. Art not just as luxury, but as essential to knowing, interpreting, understanding. Don’t we need such interpreters now, more than ever?! Those who model living between worlds, or seeing more of what is, and walking on water! What a great and needed wrinkle in time she was!

Re-reading this great collection of thoughts on art and spirituality by Madeleine L’Engle called “Walking on Water”.

One of my favorite of her many great, wise and well named truths she carried: “Artist are the ones who still see the angels around us! They see angels in the background, which allows them to interpret the foreground better.”
We certainly are in times where you need to see the angels behind things! En-couraging reading her thoughts on art and spirituality today!

“If you can’t see the angels in the background, it’s hard to interpret the foreground.” In this sense, artist are interpreters.
Artist are people who still see angels!

In times likes ours, when the foreground is so noisy and boisterous, contentious and fermenting, we need the holy silence of the background in order to walk on. To walk on water that is. Elijah prayed that the eyes of his student would be opened to see the angelic host which were present on the scene! May we continue to see angels friends! The setting is actually bigger than the stage! Nothing has changed about that. We still live in an enormous room. It is the job of artist to make us aware of its dimensions. Doesn’t the great sonic architecture of music do that directly for us; or a magnificent building which points beyond itself do!

She says about Peter: “As long as he didn’t remember that we human beings have forgotten how to walk on water, he was able to do it. Artist help us remember that we too can walk on water! They heal our loss of memory. Artist are those who are willing to incarnate, more of what actually is here! The chief job of a teacher is to help us remember al that we have forgotten.”

In this sense, artist are teachers and interpreters, who allow others to see that they too can walk on water, or as with Chagall, float above city rooftops!

So many great quotes in this collection of her thoughts on art and faith. Another which felt apropos for our times: “But when the world is, indeed, in chaos, then an affirmation of cosmos (ordered design) becomes essential.” Fun resonating with this wise woman artist today!

She writes about spirituality and art because, as she says: “My feelings about art and my feelings about the Creator of the Universe are inseparable!” Here was a woman with an integrated imagination who could read the skies or interpret the times. Isn’t that more of what we need these days!

This writer’s art and spirituality were integrated. There was no division in her between sacred and secular. The kingdom had some into both areas of her being, so she was free to create her art. Nice to be reminded of those who had baptized imaginations! And the result of course, was good art and living. Also, just nice hearing an artist talk about art in humble urgency. Don’t we need such interpreters now, more than ever?! Those who model living between worlds, or seeing more of what is, and walking on water!