My wife, erudite as she is, wrote this yesterday in response to my beholding of our local daughter friend. I just told her, that people need to be seen daily, we yearn to be adored even for an instant, and our ignored parts from earlier in our lives, need to be filled with a loving gaze. The healing power of gazing at one another well, that is in Love, can’t be overrated!

the unobserved daughter
I see you
I see you where you dwell
I see you where you want
I see you where you grieve
I see you where you are unobserved
I see you tuck these inners away
I see you stand and walk with intent
The pace of holding high and competent
(Does she know?
Does she know
her skin, her neck, her belly, her bones, her eyes
are one story?)
Irish, German, African, Mexican
A story in your body, not
your mind, power, capacity
A story in the very thing I made
worth beholding on its own
It exists before me always
You read your story in your children
your work, your overcomings,
the external power,
the politic of you
But I see you as one, as worth the mountain
behind you

Thoughts on growth for you today! I love studying spiritual growth and development. Here’s a simple observation from working with myself and others on the journey of becoming in life:

Simple counselor’s observation: what’s not up to date in ourselves? What needs to be lit into the present season of our lives? What needs to be confessed, into thanks, into fullness… What child like parts need to become adult still in us? The whole self is meant to be in a constant maturation process. We are becoming full fruit, or whole houses!

Sometimes we have to go back and recover lost seasons, to be fully in our present one. To confess and cleanse unoccupied rooms or chapters in our life’s journey.

To update our lives, and return to places which still need healing, in order to catch the whole self up into the present and towards the future. We can only shine from the parts of the house which are already inhabited!

It’s valuable to clean the whole house as we go! Finding some dark rooms in our pasts, helps light up the whole house now! We want the whole house of ourselves shining on a hill, and portable in Love, into the valleys of our callings.

What rooms are still unlit in us? How can we bring Light there. And enjoy discovering each newly lit room. Let’s light up the whole house! To retrieve and restore rooms in ourselves in Love is the first step to helping others also integrate their inner houses!

Why confession still matters, even if you’re not catholic! It just helps in being human at the end of the day! It creates an atmosphere for intimacy. I even find that prayer itself has to start with confession if it wants to end in communion! To confess is human.

“The upright person is their own accuser!” Great quote came across today. I’m learning to live this hourly in my life. Each of us are such broken expressions, let’s assume we need to confess! I’m probably wrong in areas I can’t even perceive, a confessional orientation teaches.

Everything begins with confession. I know the protestants don’t like confession, but the fact is we sin even in our dreams. Daniel’s prayer pattern was to confess, into thanks for forgiveness, into Praise. That’s still the pattern of daily practice. Jesus put this in the “Lord’s Prayer” so we wouldn’t miss it!

St John also taught us that those who think they haven’t sinned, do not yet know Him. AA, or anytime of true recovery restoration process, begins with i need help, i’ve messed up myself and others.

Confession puts us in an orientation to begin healing. I like this idea also of it is easier to start by judging your own house, than attacking other’s. If you want to make your own house whole, start with direct confession. Even to heal generational wounds, we have to begin with confessing the wrongs of our grandparents—we have to stand in their place and be little priest.

But on a practical daily level, none of us is yet perfect, so we probably messed up even if just in our thoughts. Confess, be thankful for forgiveness and enter into Praise. Old patterns of truthful living.

Forgiveness is still the healing balm, the heart of healing really, and it begins with simple confession. I’ve not done a single counseling session without that being true. We can’t heal, if we don’t confess, and forgive ourselves and others. Just a basic thought today.

“The upright person is their own accuser!” Nice. Start with ourselves! I assume i have not done you right fully, or not even treated myself as God would. I ask to be convicted of my own wrong doing. This is the way to begin to be occupied and therefore able to occupy others in LOVE! Confession is the opening key towards the endless room of Love!

Also assuming you need to confess works in marriage and relationships as well, if you haven’t tried it! I know confession is old school, but it’s still a daily practice worth considering! Plus, we are living in such a defensive culture (everyone defending their own actions constantly), why not move in the opposite manner or spirit! A confessional attitude is certainly the opposite of the spirit of these times!

To quote Louis Armstrong, life is but a dream! Or Shakespeare for that matter….
I’ve had so many dreams of flying, but recently more on landing well! I love flying, and am very agile mid air, and I often levitate as well in my dreams, but nice practicing landing on my feet this season!
Smooth re-entries between realms is helpful in life, even after prayer. Since we all live on several levels simultaneously, especially as artist-we are always ironic participants in the daily drama in one sense. That is we are both players in and aware of the drama of life itself.
Good to be practicing landing between worlds wisely and well, at least in my sleep recently! We all practice different things in our dreams.
It’s even theorized that animals also recollect memory, and try to make symbolic narratives out of them! I know my dogs dream-perhaps only in black and white, but I doubt it, knowing God the little I do. It’s interesting to consider what’s happening while we sleep. We symbolize, when we are not at the helm.
The receptive parts of us want to make narratives! Stories.
We recollect memories and sort them, interpret life, and sometimes get new insights into it, as we dream, and as we consider them the next day. The prophet Daniel wrote down all his dreams, and some of them turned into scripture!
Lately, i’ve been flying mostly in mine! And learning to land more smoothly. Fun considering that half of life, when we are less in charge of things! I love symbolic communication-our art while asleep!- and that’s most what dream is. Fun flying lately in mine! And learning to land well.
I’ll practice it in waking life as well! What we learn in dream, is to be applied to waking life, in Love! Happy dreaming friends! Buenos sueños mis amigos! and Gode ​​drømme! Dobré sny! And, חלומות טובים in all languages! Bless your dreams! Some people are learning to fly, i think i’m learning to land! We learn so much when we listen well, even to our own dream life! God whispers there, and speaks His native tongue!
As Roy Orbison sang: dream on! Even in our broken syntax we are beautiful complex poems! And dreams prove it! Bless your dreams friends!

More on Love. When someone ask you to write an article on love, think twice, it may take you a lifetime! Here’s few notes towards an article about Love.

I can’t stop thinking about how central Love is to being human! And how can I keep from singing about Love…it’s the Core of Reality! And also, what gets us through the daily grinds, we all face constantly! If, as St John tells us, “God is Love”, we are in trouble if we don’t know that metaphysical space we call Love.

I’ve noticed that the amount I love others, relates in exact measure or proportion, to how deeply I allow myself to be loved by God ultimately, but also other people. My receptivity to Love creates my productivity in it to others. Love your neighbor as yourself, sort of assumes you have allowed yourself to be loved; the commandment to love others, then takes on another light. I can only love you, from the part, and to the degree or measure I’ve let love in. So in one sense, we should be practicing being loved, as much as loving. The spiritual practice of receiving love is underrated! But if I can’t receive it, how can I give it! Love is a litmus test for your beliefs. And it burns red daily on the parts which are true to what is Real.

Either way we have to get “in” love, as that’s where God always hangs out. That’s where His Being resides. This is where the Son and Father are still talking, even if you don’t believe it. This is why He is always found with the poor and homeless. They make God’s love obvious, overt. Love is where Reality is. People are afraid to talk about love, too sentimental, or simplistic, too much talked about and not from (which is true), but God’s not afraid to talk about love. Every book He wrote is a love poem! As are we-his Love poems! And Love goes out of its way to pronounce itself!

i think we still get embarrassed by a gospel of love. But we can’t really hide from it either, though we have a built in proclivity towards hiding. We also have an innate need both to be loved and to love. Might as well be loved, so at least we are useful in loving others! If love still embarrass us, as it did our original parents, who cares, we still desperately need it daily. Just thinking about essentials today—one is obviously, Love. Be loved, that you may love.

Felt like telling this story, because i was living in it yesterday:
//
Yesterday, in a small well lit cafe on Haight street, which I’ve been hiding in for years, I was reading a book about how to write stories, “On Writing” by Eudora Welty, when a short story happened around me. Outside, they were shooting a film.

The Japanese girl beside me told me she had just gotten out of serious surgery this morning in which she almost died, and felt today was her first day on earth. That this was her first supper. So she was savoring each bite, as if it were her first.

Then a famous comedian walked in and everyone lit up. He came over to her, and told a joke, then returned on set outside. She preceded to tell me, over great mediteranean crepes, that she had designed a kimono, showing me endless beautiful photos on her phone of her crimson kimonos, that ust before her surgery, she got to show her design to Michael Khor’s in a private viewing. This is the second day in a row, i’m meeting famous people who like and see me, she said.

That it was her mother’s dream that her daughter would design traditional Kimono’s in a new style, and that someone would notice and help her. It happened, and then she almost died this morning. This was the first day of the rest of her life. This was not her last supper, but her first, she said.

Gabriel my friend who runs the restaurant, and is always watching over us all, came over and said this girl had a special light in her, and that he could see it even from across the counter, glowing.

Steve Carell then returns and starts making jokes with everyone as we eat. Gabriel’s wife gets him to do a hilarious video for one of their daughters, which he happily complies with, and nails it.

Then two homeless friends, I’ve known for years, come in telling stories of hanging out with Robin Williams, and they quote his whole monologue verbatim. The famous comedian chimes in adding some flare to the collaboration. For a moment, we were all one, and all stars dead and alive, equally shining in our specific stories, and broadcasting our gifts into the banquet of the ongoing improvisation of life.

After it died down, i went back to my book and read: “The writer themselves, studies how to write about life really well-that is with Love and Grace for each character-while actually simultaneously learning to live well, to be a character in the novel they are in. Writing develops empathy with our humanness and ultimately, if its great writing, we end in the tone of Love towards everyone, including ourselves.”

Nice little short story of confluence and convergence yesterday—sometimes we are both writing and in the endless story, even as it is happening. Some days are short stories!

Just stewarding the cadences of the day today.

Yesterday, in a small cafe on Haight street, which I’ve been hiding in for years, I was reading a book about how to write stories by Eudora Welty, when a short story happened around me.
The Japanese girl beside me told me she had just gotten out of serious surgery this morning, and felt today was her first day on earth. Then a famous comedian walked in and everyone lit up. She preceded to tell me, over great mediteranean crepes, that she had designed a kimono, and just before her surgery, got to show it to Michael Khor, a famous designer, in a private viewing.
That it was her mother’s dream that her daughter would design traditional Kimono’s in a new style, and that someone would notice and help her. It happened, and then she almost died this morning. This was the first day of the rest of her life. This was not her last supper, but her first, she said.
Gabriel my friend who runs the restaurant came over and said this girl had a special light in her, and that he could see it even from across the counter. Steve Carell then returns and starts making jokes with everyone as we eat. Gabriel’s wife gets him to do a hilarious video for one of their daughters, which he happily complies with, and nails it.
Then two homeless friends, I’ve known for years, come in telling stories of hanging out with Robin Williams, and they quote his whole monologue verbatim. For a moment, we were all one, and all stars, equally shining in our specific stories.
After it died down, i went back to my book and read: “The writer themselves, studies how to write about life really well-that is with Love and Grace for each character-while actually simultaneously learning to live well, to be a character in the novel they are in. Writing develops empathy with our humanness and ultimately, if its great writing, we end in the tone of Love towards everyone, including ourselves.”
Nice little confluence and convergence yesterday—sometimes we are both writing and in the big story of life.

A kid-like poem about the sky and I:

I used to try and corral the moon and stars as a kid (on my red
wooden rocking horse, i did). On our stone patio, I’d rock, back and forth,
staring, almost glaring, at the sky, as if it were a challenge or a dare.
Now,
i just enjoy letting them be-moon, stars and me. Gazing, finally, we see into
each other deeply, and that’s more
than enough to know and love
one another, forever. The sky and I, at least.

A writerly piece for you today, just for fun, about Jesus and a nostalgia for church steeples: “Sitting with Jesus in the church Steeple” (Hope you enjoy this little piece regardless of your background)

Spiders and webs in the steeples, we were sure about that as kids. I used to have the master key at my dad’s church, and would sneak up into the steeple. Baptist steeples are enclosed and the bells are recorded. That always slightly bothered me, but when you got inside, there was a sonic bathing warmth to it, that still seemed sacred to me.

I used to go up there alone and just sit above the sanctuary, and consider all the unseen spaces in the building, where few but deacons and janitor’s went. Those are still my favorite places in church buildings really. The unseen sacred, where all the silent prayers gather without our making of meals, ice cream socials and service after service. Spaces where the invisible church hides out, and knows itself.

When i lived in Europe, i would also try to find the little prayer chapels, saint rooms, and places of refuge where the older ladies would come in and say a silent prayer for someone lost. Something about those spots have an atmosphere of truth in them. You can almost smell it.

When we all switched to house churches, and bowling alley churches, and coffee house churches, i still missed the steeples and prayer chapels—the unseen crypts of the church. I got it, don’t get me wrong, the Kingdom is bigger than our buildings, so is the church. Yet, in a house, there is no where to sneak off to and just be. Someone lives in every room, and there is a present story in every nook and cranny. The unseen usually shifts to the rooftops, or some place no one thinks to go.

I still like church buildings, though I know they are not the actual eternal church. I like architecture that makes us look up and beyond. Architecture teaches us to see the unseen. Structures which cause and call forth pause, and even praise. Windows which look in and cause us to look out and up in another light.

Even the metaphors of the sacred were meant to be taught by the buildings. And all the religious wars were fought through architecture of the sacred.

I like the obvious cross shaped altars and sanctuaries, but I still get drawn into the backstage rooms, where monks pray and homeless get fed. That seems to me where the real church often happens, and I like to be exactly where Jesus actually is now in the building. I mainly wanted to be where Jesus was, still do. Sometimes in a cob webbed steeple, sometimes enjoying ice cream.

Is He hanging with the deacons in the alleyway behind the church. Is He with the youth sneaking a cigarette in the parking lot. Is He with the elderly woman who is just enjoying hearing the bible read. Or the old prayer ladies who pray for the preacher weekly while he is delivering His word.

As a kid, i always found Him hiding in the steeple, just listening to it all in love, and occasionally coming into the service, when people were really hungry for His presence. I liked being backstage with Jesus as a kid, and I still do, wherever He is even among the spiders and webs up in a baptist church steeple. Jesus is still ironic in that way.

I’m giving some talks on the imagination and spirituality next month, and have been doing a few video rehearsals for a talk I’m facilitating next month on the restoration of the imagination in people and cities. I’m going to put up a few here, just for fun, as I re-explore this life theme again! These little rehearsals are helping me hone the basics on the relationship between our imaginations and our spirituality. One of my favorite life topics.

Being the son of a minister and an artist, I’ve worked on allowing my spirituality and my art to come under the same roof. How our art and spirituality are meant to relate and integrate, has always captivated and contained me. To find an authentic context where the two can converse freely, has been one of my lifeworks.

Enjoy my serious side, it’s rare. Quite serious this fellow! And yet (as Basho, the japanese poet used to say, and yet…despite himself, he’s got something to say). Probably preaching to the Christian choir though on these. At least the in house artists.

For those outside of a christian frames, sorry if the language is an unnecessary stumbling block. It’s important to find the right Stone to stumble on in life! Hope the language is not to narrow or vapid, or insular, to hold the gold, as they say! I’m speaking to a group of artist who happen to be christian (or their spirituality is centered in Christ, i mean, not just the culture of christianity or the art world’s; Christ Himself, turns out to be a bit different and larger than christian and art cultures), so it’s framed accordingly. Rehearsal videos to follow!

Lots of christians don’t think of the imagination as central in their spirituality, but i do, because that’s where i first met God. Since, then, i’ve tried to figure out why that part of being human matters, and can be a place of meeting and transformation. I studied arts and healing partly to figure out how art can be a place of healing ourselves and one another. Still circling around that theme years later! I’m still trying to bring art and the church under the same metaphysical and mystical roof, so to speak-the House of God not made with hands!

The basics of my talk is about the imagination being larger than art and the church: that it’s a part of being human, part of how we know, a part of Reality itself, and part of what is meant to be engaged in a loving transformative relationship with God who is One, and is making us one or integrated, including our spiritual perceptions. That, as CS Lewis said, our imaginations are meant to be baptized and engaged in the sanctification process, or process of being made whole. The imagination is a meeting place, not a factory for Jesus propaganda, but a tabernacle of meeting and being transformed in the chapel of intimacy with our creativity!

Looking at the human need to integrate our imaginations into our spiritualities, especially for christians who often struggle with a poverty of imagination. Or un-engaged creativity. The theme of bringing the whole self into relationship with God.

Our imaginations are also part of how we know and interpret things. So we need a baptized imagination even to interpret today’s news well. And to overcome a pornographic or narcissistic view of the world around us. It’s part of how we know, part of being human, and part of what we bring into the banquet of a friendship type intimacy with God, who created it all, as a sort of autobiography!

Anyways enjoy my rehearsals, as I try to get to some of my passion topics in life! I think I’ll probably just facilitate a conversation on the topic rather than tell people what I think, as invitations, are often better than lectures, but these little videos contain a bit of what I’m thinking as basic or essential, towards a theology of the imagination from a christian framework.

Thanks for your patience, as I practice! Videos to follow as i get them up and down loaded! Forgive the long intro, just trying to frame some goodness this season! Hope it blesses you wherever you’re at on the long journey home.