I like spiritual stunts. Stunts are a little cooler than miracles, they say or symbolize more. Miracles are like similes, stunts like metaphors. When i was a kid i liked stuntmen–Buster Keaton was a favorite who did all his own stunts. Here are a few of my favorites in the bible:

Favorite biblical stunts: Daniel telling the King what he dreamed and interpreting it to him. Not just dream interpretation, but telling someone what they dreamed! That’s a cool stunt and gift. Daniel and his friends were also given the gift to understand all world literature, and Daniel himself to understand riddles (a handy tool!). Cool stuntmen! Enoch walking off the earth with God, without dying. And of course Elijah’s exit was very dramatic as well! And symbolic of the prophetic. Jesus on the mount surrounded by The Law and The Prophet, Moses and Elijah! That must have been a cool sign to see! Philip the evangelist suddenly “appearing” in Africa—another of my favorite biblical stunts.

But I suppose the Resurrection is the greatest stunt on record, metaphysically changing everything, and ushering in the beginning of a new type of creation. What He was up to beforehand, during and after death reveal everything, and may win the greatest stuntman’s award in scripture! Making breakfast for his friends in resurrected form afterwards was cool also of course! This unparalleled death defying stunt wins Him the greatest spiritual stuntman ever award!

I love stunts, would love to do a stunt person’s guide to the bible.

Recognize people as you pass them daily, recognize their beings in love, it could change their lives. Look at them in kindness, smile and greet them from your eyes; bless them from within, and mean it. Kindness is the tone of the next world, which is already pressing in, it changes us and them in small silent ways. For kindness ushers Love in. And God is Love.

Reading more about and from, as I try to stay within, Sabbath as a daily, even hourly practice these days. Feels needed now more than ever, in our cacophonous times. Here’s a quote I liked this week, from the many great meditations on the subject. For even useful speech comes from rest.

“When we stop, and rest in God, the world and ourselves are made more whole. This is the reason for the commandment of resting in Sabbath often, always even, or especially in times when we are usually meant to be plowing or harvesting, we are commanded to stop and recognize our dependence; it’s for our good to learn to trust, that the universe is not held together by our efforts.

For, Sabbath forms humility. Sabbath like Peace is a place inside of God. It’s a location we need to often visit, in order to know our home, and our own names, and be useful outside of ourselves. Action flows from rest, when best. Apart from Him, we can do no lasting good.” Nice reminder today in study.

Our identities also are found inside the Sabbath space in God. There, we are whispered our names, so that we can whisper to others theirs. So Sabbath is where identity is found and forms.

Sabbath, resting in Our Source, is a very practical need for our times.
Sabbath from our efforts regularly, nurtures, grows and even proves trust.

Trust that if we don’t implement it all ourselves, it will still happen. Sabbath proves trust. It recognizes by our cessation from self effort, that there is something higher which is healing things and keeping them in place. Sabbath is a practice which leads us deeper into trust.

To admit need, is the start of healing. To rest in the Source of healing, is the process of becoming whole. Sabbath is the practice of being sanctified.

This is why we are taught to rest. Sabbath says yes, weekly and daily, I cannot perfect the world by my sheer efforts, I cannot heal myself even. I am meant to tend, but not control; to partner with, but not produce results from self effort (apart from Him, we can do nothing; conversely, to the degree I am in Him, I can do all things! That’s the principle. It presumes we are resting in God, before we act). Being in Sabbath is then a precondition for all healing. And Sabbath reveals our level of trust.

Sabbath is a breath in each week, a crack which lets the light in, into our day, or even each hour, which says we are dependent Partners, we are contingent on something better and higher than us, and that we trust one another. We need, this practice of pause, for The Light to break into us and shine out through us.

From that breath of meeting and communion comes all action. Reality, at least in true christian spirituality, is relationship, in which we rest in the Other, and do only what we see our Friend doing. If we are not at rest, we cannot see. This is the breath all our accomplishments come from. To rest is to return home. “I in You, and you in Me, and them now in us.” As Jesus put it in one of his last prayers for us. We are caught up into that prayer space, into His intimacy with The Father. That’s where Sabbath is located.

Many people are starting to consider Sabbath as the essential practice for our cacophonous times. Finding Sabbath in Him, He who is concerned but never stressed, is a very basic human need now. So, let’s rest into action. In our very restless times, finding daily rest is an essential spiritual practice.

It’s not just to rest from external activities, though that may help facilitate true rest, but it is rather to enter a part of God which is resting in Himself. It is a spiritual act. Perhaps, the most essential sign that we are truly becoming human.

Kindness goes a long way…between cultures. At my local pub today, an egyptian couple, who spoke little english, and had never been to a beer burger joint, comes in and asked: what’s good…

“You want something outside the bubble? One hoppy IPA coming up, and some sweet potato fries, i’ll even throw in some jambalaya and crawfish!”… JV (he tells me the name stands for Junior Varsity, cause he never made the varsity team in life) the owner and general father figure of the place since 1971, made these people feel comfortable even if they didn’t speak English, and hadn’t had a burger before. Kindness translates.

Today our local pub boss, was talking to an Egyptian couple who had never ordered cheeseburgers. He made them feel welcome, and described the difference between a regular burger and a cheeseburger without being condescending. (It’s mainly about the cheese!). A retired Waco sheriff, He’s been working burgers since the 60’s but broke it down in understandable terms to this lovely couple, in a way which was not only condescending or cynical, but made them excited to try Wagu burgers at a local pub. “Well, do you like cheese, if so I’d go with the cheese burger friends.”

When they asked for a beer, he looked back at the wall which has around 30 types (mostly local) Instead of being a beer snob about it, old JV said…”well, do you like em light or dark, up or down, thin or tall. You like hoppy or bodied. I got just the one for you. Try this….he brings out a good local IPA. The girl’s smile, as she took her first sip, was worth my whole day. It made her so happy that someone would make them feel welcome and help them navigate Texas culture.

JV, self confessedly speaks, southernese—a rare west Texas dialect version. And calls his place more a tavern than beer joint. “I like to think we have an invisible fireplace someplace in here; people feel hearth when they need to.” But both apply, and it has that kind of neon-beer-sign lit ambiance which holds memory and people’s names over time on small brass plaques. Some even on the wall, as well as several presidents who dropped in for a beer and burger. It’s a type of community really, with a built in sense of belonging. A sort of pub church. And as there are two seminaries nearby, often it feels just like church, but without the formality.

We’ve gotten to know one another over the years. He’s quick with a joke and has enough one liners and tales to fill several books. But the main thing he’s got is kindness to strangers, which, at the end of the day, we all are. “I’ve never understood racism, as we are all mutts here, and everyone needs to eat and talk from time to time.”

Several of the regular patrons of this pub have died over the years I’ve been coming here. There are plaques on the wall for each, with little stories about what they loved much, and what food they tended to order, or their favorite beer. “Walt loved softball, shiner beer and blues, and never missed a Sunday here.” People need places where their names and stories matter, and are still remembered somewhere, even beer joints can form and hold community over time. Maybe especially, places like this.

Last week’s JV story was about a pig which got hit on the highway up near Waco. The pig ended up landing in a poor man’s front yard. The poor fellow comes out, and sees dinner sitting there on his front yard; but the fellow who hit it wanted to take it home. So they called the local sheriff to decipher the matter. She was a short mexican lady, and suggested that they cut it down the middle, so both could have some; or they could take it down to the local homeless shelter and share it with others. Immediately the poor fellow opted for the shelter. So she knew he was the one who really needed the pig, and had a heart to share it. She also knew that he ate at the homeless shelter. Sort of a Solomon moment.

One day, JV said to me, “You been married along while, so she don’t mind you peeing in the yard, but gotta keep that toilet working in the house. Gotta keep the lady happy. Marriage is constant investment, but the dividends are eternal. And in the meantime, you got a yard to pee in.”

JV also calls everyone brother or sister as they leave, and was the first to start calling me “Big D” after Dallas, when i first moved back here to Austin, Texas. Made me feel respected and a type of Texas belonging. He still calls me Big D even on days I feel very lower case in myself. Kindness is longer than a Texas mile, at the end of each day.

Today as I left, JV promised to “keep the light on, and the fly swatter readied.” My kinda pub. All spaces are metaphors or stages through which to exchange the restoration of humanity through kindness, at the end of the day, we are just people trying to be people. It helps when someone in charge is kind though. It ushers in grace. And that place is made of Grace.

Writing requires a lot of pacing, in both senses of the word. I end up getting up and walking back and forth often as I write, searching, and even sometimes praying, for the next small group of words to come. Some intimation or hint of the next sentence.

I’m writing lots again lately, and trying to remember how to write well-to steward words authentically in and into love intentionality again. Farming language in kindness. Thinking of Aristotle’s challenge not not just make good art, but understand what makes it good. So you can repeat it, and teach it, and make it better than how it arrived. (“Poetics”)

Stewarding language, how we use and listen to it, is fun and a needed discipline in our times. To read the times well is aided by a love or words themselves. Love discerns the inner tone of words.

To plant excellence in others-words of life not death. To plant the seeds of the words you carry well, has always been a high value for me. For the words to match and carry the life of the content–ie that the language is not prostituted for the message, but actually reflects and carries it. I hate propaganda. It’s the use of art to get across your message. I think the art should contain the message. As Paul Tillich put it, “The symbol, to be true” should participate in the Reality to which it points. That still feels true to me.

The church hasn’t always been great at using its creative symbolic expressions in this way. Often, she used her art as propaganda instead. This mis-represents God really. We do use language, but it’s not meant to be used, it’s meant to be overflow of expression, and flow from our ongoing conversation with God. Something which is connected with core identity. The medium should express and be formed by the content of our heart’s relationship with God. Language in this way becomes the tip or surface of an enormous iceberg.

To amplify the best parts, or where the light is already settled or present in conversation or writing, to throw a spotlight on the gold, so it shines in full effulgence of understanding is how we learn communicate well. To listen to words as we speak and write them, is one way to match our inner content with our outer expressions. It’s part of becoming one really, or more integrated. So it’s a type of spiritual practice to write, really.

To find where God is already having a conversation and enter and expand there. Writing feels like a practice like that to me. It starts with listening, and expands into having overheard, and moves on to edit into clarity so others can see or hear also. It’s a very humble and humbling activity really.

So much happens simultaneously, without us there. Yet, word is always speaking, even in Silence. In that sense, you are tracing the unseen or unheard conversations beneath and in the midst of things daily. It’s a form of recording the background of life, and bringing it into the foreground for a moment or two.

Language is also fun to carve in, swim in, and play with, and to listen through into understanding. Just the urge to speak and express alone is a miracle of life. Then to consider how it works, is just a joy for me. Having fun writing again!

Fun writing and studying the art process at the same time anyways.

In college, i used to help international students in English composition. Then taught English in Jerusalem to children. I’ve got a collection of word books: etymologies or word stories, and then tons of grammar and composition books. My mom was a British Literature major, and we used to have to memorized lots of poetry, especially Shakespeare, but also most of the Romantics. I think i got the point, that words matter, they carry a certain density, when composed well.

And at times, language can even transcend itself, and form other worlds worth walking around in, and getting to know. Word-smithing is a lost art, in our times of millions of words a minute, all with equal attention; to use and discern which words matter most daily, becomes a sort of spiritual practice for me. I still find language fascinating, and a nuanced en-toned medium. What you say, and how you say it, can be life or death on a given day.

That we like to symbolize and shape our thoughts in words, still interest me. That words can still be used authentically is a small miracle.

Most people find that boring, but as I get to bore into words and writing again, I get excited by the nature of how to shape thoughts well in word, into art expressions, and greater clarity of communication. Little words which form their own constellations or spheres of meaning. Language itself is a symbolic activity. And I love symbolic communication. We write in dream talk, we make symbols even when asleep. Anyway, fun getting back into writing this season. As my California friends say, right on! I think i will.

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I remember my life as a series of dreams really. God spoke to Daniel in both dreams and visions. In dream, i was told to do all the major things in my life. In a dream, i was told where to go to college, what to study there, when to live on the road, when to go to Austin, Prague, Antwerp…dreams have been the most consistent form of communication outside of art for me. IN dreams, things occur symbolically—symbol to symbol. Symbols always feel like the most direct metaphor and form of communication. Metaphor as Aristotle defined it: as the ability to see the inner relationships between things, to see their implied narratives. I love dreams anyways. Just thinking how strange it is, they occur when we are asleep like little hidden sayings we can ponder all day.

My church musician friend said today:

“Please rise already Jesus, the musicians are exhausted around Easter. We’re doing Handel, this weekend, but feels like it wants to be Bach-bit deeper resonance. Needs more nuance for people to enter into the deeper parts of the story, to attain the whole thought.” Musicians at Easter.

Church musicians have the best sense of humor, by necessity. I told him, He did rise, so we should be alright. Even though our rituals have yet to be perfected, and you guys are overworked. My Jewish friends are more relaxed as there’s less sonic hoopla around Passover, at least in terms of music. Maybe deliverance songs are easier to play than resurrection ones. Both seem tough to me though.
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When the table lights up! The world changes. The conversation changes into another hue. If you have that gift of lighting up the table, take care of how you steward light.

“The table lit up, when you showed up, a friend said today, and I love your hat.” I’m glad my hat could bless. Those moments matter. They support the duller moments. When the table lights up. Maybe I want to be one who lights up the table, or maybe I already am one of those glow lights, or candle bearers.

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As a photographers son, you learn to see.
As a pastor’s son, you learn to care for souls
As an engineer’s son, you learn to see 3 dimensionally.
Still, spiritual intelligence informs all professions.

I love interviewing and just being with people, listening into their hearts carefully, and honoring their stories. I used to work with elderly and dying folks—most of what i did, was just listen well to amazing stories! Somehow, just listening in love, brings so much mutual healing. People are worlds, worth encountering forever.

Often, when we are safe to unpacked our tales, be seen and heard, which is half of healing, we unfurl the nuances of our blessings to and into one another, in the safe container of listening and beholding one another well together. Depth dialogue is the place of healing. Each person needs to feel heard forever, every story worth telling eternally.

This fellow today, was coming off of teaching a younger lady to take great photos. Teaching her how to see the essence of daily scenes. “To hunt for the essential moments of a scene in love,” as he put it.

He’s worked with everyone from Dan Rather, Bob Costas, Charlie Rose, and other American and international interviewers; just last week, he interviewed Wayne Gretzky (the sport’s star), an autistic child who teaches others to play sports, then did a interview with former president, George W about his art. “The autistic child taught me the most.” Teachers are learners, which is one thing i’ve learned from listening to them over the years.

People blow me away, all they carry, and truly are. “I’ve had to put my memories in files to recall them all,” he said today. This fellow is a camera man for multiple networks over the years, with two sons, both of whom are artist from a new generation. “Their much faster than me tech-wise, but don’t always get the inner meaning of things, or have the patience to note it’s wisdom, or know how to find what really matters about each story. So we teach one another.”

He said, “I protected and encouraged them, encouraged their creative sight, and told them each day, I loved them, and meant it. They felt loved and safe. That’s the most rewarding experience so far in my life. He also told them how to find the implied narrative behind each photo they take. Care about what is really going on in each moment. Each person and tone. And see the photo before you take it in Love.” Nice line, and maybe this week’s favorite quote i overheard.

He enjoys most, at this season of life, imparting to younger people what he’s learned, and making their way easier and swifter. The generations rock when they serve one another in Love. His oldest son keeps telling him to write a book because he likes to teach. Even as we were sitting together today, he went over to instruct a young man how to play better pool. People are cool.

And this man is a great story teller, knows when to hold back on details, and when to add or intone them to create flow, texture and ambiance, or draw you into specifics which reveal the whole. He get’s how symbols work, that is. And how to connect with his audience. I learn so much by just listening in respect today from this fellow. People, when encountered well, really are the crown of creation, despite ourselves.

This fellow, has been the camera man on interviews with the most important world leaders and thinkers over the past 40 years of so. Nice to get to chat, and mainly just listen to him today. What a treasure chest. And, as I get older, each conversation becomes more and more sacred. And each generation’s gift, when carried well, blesses the whole story. Nice gift conversing with this fellow today.

I love studying the creative process itself:

Looking at the creative process itself a bit today, as I prepare for some creative workshops, making sure I have room for each part of the process in my workshop…I tend to like the hovering, and lighting up part best, then naming, and sharing it aspects (in my workshops we share our art as gifts or art responses to other’s art)—but we need to dwell well in each part of the art process from hover to publish for the experience to be effulgent and transformational.

The creative process in a nutshell: hovering over chaos, lighting everything up so you can see the elements, separating, naming and delineating the elements, seeing how they all relate (discovering the narrative), editing them accordingly, and sharing or publishing.

Each part can be creative, and requires unique attention and skills. And you really can’t skip any of the parts, but each person tends to be drawn to one part of the process more than others. At least in my experience. Fun prepping to facilitate each stage of the creative process well.

More on love

Love’s the only way to know things. We can’t even interpret things without Love. And believe me, we need to know how to interpret things now. Love knows. Love brings understanding. Love is our hermeneutic, or method of interpretation. St John taught us, that we cannot even know one another, apart from Love, for as He put it: “God is Love.”

But love is also practical. Love is making things whole, or more truly themselves. Love is then the healer in every direction. It heals us, as we offer it to others. It heals them, or makes them more whole to the degree we are truly inside of Love. Love is a place in God.

St John taught us that we can even tell who people are by their love. And whether they are in life. Love is the key to discernment.

We can’t understand the daily news without being in Love, and we can’t discern another’s heart or bless them apart from Love. Love, as St Paul put it, is the highest “way”.

Love does more than assume the best, it calls it into being in one another. This is why heaven is made of Love. Love is an active orientation, and places us inside of God. Love is a metaphysical space in God, as is Peace. We are told to abide in these parts of God’s Spirit. Love is therefore the highest commandment—to know God is to love Him, for He is made of Love. For God so loved the world…

Love sees you into your brightest spot. As we love, we are ourselves transformed. Love is not an ideal, it is a metaphysical space in God, we are commanded to dwell in. It’s the actual living poetry of His Own Being. All other true poetry comes from that place. It is the estuary of song and being. The origin point of all that is Real. Love is our home already and forever.

I sit near my friend Curt today. It’s a darkly blue lit local pub, but with lots of life, all sorts of nuanced sparkles, the way a pub gathers community over time into each evening–in that golden azure neon beer lit sign sort of way; where everyone is equally shaded to be and become, and able to finally speak their truth.

We are both pastor’s sons, and both have known the strengths and weaknesses of the church experientially, existentially, and in terms of seeing which part is which–discernment, they used to call it. In our case, telling the difference between Jesus and His church, and somehow still loving both! Both of us approaching it as artist, seers, dreamers, symbols and symbolizers, those who want to believe in the inner glory of each hymn we sang growing up.

His dad, a famous old testament scholar. Mine also a sort of hero of the faith. So we recognize what it’s like to be sons of greatness, faith greats, and still have to find our own ways “in Him”, our own spiritualities in order to know, even ourselves. It’s a unique challenge. And neither of us is bitter about it. More like Johnny Cash, we just want to sing a few great songs well!

We can tell when someone, a new leader for instance, carries intellectual truth mixed with a true heart. We can tell if their theology is revealed or just soul learned. We can sense the music of other’s soul’s. Perhaps we have some sort of discernment, gifted and earned over time, and still caring, or simple Grace. Yes, at least that. I’m not sure. But, we are both musicians by heart really.

Musicians, us both, in the sense of interpreting things through the inner tone of things-knowing them from depth, tone, the melody of being, encounter from within. Sensing where God is in things. Where He actually is, and what is the good soil of planting the right note or seed in His tone and pace.

Yes, that is true, ok, i will listen. That part is God, that part is his or her own wound; got it. I receive the part which is true. And needed water! We both sense the inner fluidity of water in people, and which parts are parched. Maybe we inherited that sense-either way it’s inescapable.

I’ve helped many pastors sons not to hate the church, but to find Jesus nonetheless. To forgive her shadows, and labor for and with her Light, in other words. Since, He hasn’t give up, why us. Or at least to not throw our The Baby in the bathwater. But curt is different. He cares about music, and still likes the church. He chose to love what Jesus loves even if he didn’t. The music of the church.. And church history through music. He was a choral singer as a kid, and watched the church go through stages of musical evolutions. Some more or less relevant.

Turns out though, you end up loving what your Friend loves. If you find Jesus, you end up liking what He likes. He still loves the church, and so do we, despite herself, and despite ourselves. I suppose that’s a particular type of Grace, or maybe God just feels sorry for those who grew up entirely under the church’s roof. I myself was conceived in a parish house, and have listened to over 5013 sermons over the years, and counting. Curt’s journey has been similar.

I’ve hung out with Curt for many years, his dad was a great old testament scholar. And he never got bitter about the church, but does question where it’s at now.

We finally got a live baseball game as we talked.

Ok, look, the younger pastors are great, but they really need to be in His spirit to make it work. Not too emotional but enough. And super smart. They need spiritual intelligence, which is downloaded, not just book smarts. Anyone can become spiritually smart. He tells me, as he leans back into coding on his computer. He used to work for NASA, and since for the biggest churches.

It’s a hard time to represent Christ, even as fools like us, who had to discover Christ despite Christianity.

Curt’s personally more interested in Greek Orthodox, and the Anglican form or worship which he feels is closer to the Source. Something which reflects the silence of that intimacy with Christ and His Journey. I’m more interested in sheer Friendship with Jesus, and getting to come close to The Father, outside of our current expressions of it. I like all the generations of expression, but some are richer than others. Both of us know it’s true. And desire to do our part in making it so. And there is love between us, which we both recognize as home.

I love people who grew up near the church, and still somehow still feel attracted to her. Or maybe more to Him! We are remarkably, still friends with Jesus, despite our stories. And, still leaning into a larger context of Kingdom for the significance and interpretation of our stories. Thankful for that type of brother today.

It’s nice to meet other pastor’s sons. We have a way into Him which seems to make interesting art, if nothing else. Lot’s of very famous musicians, and artists of all colors, are pastors kids. It rears you with a yearning, as one friend put it. A yearning for something higher and Real.

Curt studied music for many years, here and all over Europe. But he’s always had a heart to somehow serve the church. It might be in his blood like mine. Still, he’s often been more honored in the secular rather than sacred venues.

“A workers worth their wages, and the law of sewing and reaping includes artists.” Curt pipes in again. The lament of the Levites, and yet also the privilege of downloading centuries of praises and prayers.

Maybe that’s the gift of growing up in close proximity to the church, even before you know what’s at her heart. You encounter the cultural building before you meet Her Heart Beat, or Core Identity, but at least you are in the parking lot of the Holy. It’s an easier, if more ironic route to Christ. And He tends to take note of the challenges. You are also able to tell the difference between culture and The Actual Christ, more succinctly and quickly. You can read the fruits of the Spirit more quickly. That’s another benefit of growing up under the cloth.

Back with Curt, it’s always talking over or through the cleft notes of our own spiritualities, bringing sonnets into now, and still keep finding Christ somehow, in the cracks and broken light shimmers, of our stories and the small glories of daily lives.

Some days, it’s enough to be be alive, much less, the sheer melody of the privilege of being alive here in our endless story-the poetry of small moments together. Each one so specific, yet pointing and signing into the Same grand Story, and Glory. With both appreciate the opera of daily life in all it’s unseen nuances. Like two pastor’s sons talking religion versus spirituality, and actually enjoying it.

I guess, we must still believe in more than Jesus, but also His people. Yet, we both now like simple glories. Good conversations. The miracle of kindness in some passing person’s eyes daily. Or just meeting someone else with a similar journey in life.

Curt’s last lament went like this: “The words and language need to work with the lyrics, I studied and taught music history, focusing on sacred choral music; when you take German and Latin and English and try to throw them all into one some contemporary praise worship, something doesn’t feel right. I’ve done choral music in Latin, Greek, and German. It depends on the music. The music itself can reveal the whole thought, prayer or meditation. But people these days want to be so contemporary. It’s nice to overhear the older prayers, though. This friend goes on and on, about all the possibilities–it’s ok to use Bach, but they only let me do so with the ones he wrote in Latin. He wrote most in German, and there is some resistance there. Alas, the lament of the levites, never ends. Still, we get it. The music is the most direct way to enter in, and encounter God, so it’s worth it eventually. It’s ok, to be ancient sometimes, if its still true.”

As it turns out, that particular Glory’s long story, is still present today, in a simple but, evening blue light conversation at the end of a day between us, with the right care, we might all make it; remarkably respelendent story, and a certain type of wounded glory in two preacher’s kids sitting simply in beer light, having a conversation of Grace.