Quotes from Sabbath, and a few from Brueggemann on Sabbath as moving in the opposite sprit of the times. Sabbath is the best active response to the spirit of our times! It is moving in the opposite spirit of our times!

To rest in the midst of the restlessness is best. Rest is the estuary of our voicing. If we don’t speak from the part of God which is at rest with Himself, our tone will mis-represent Love. Of course, Sabbath also blesses us with the fruits of the spirit, but that’s not it’s primary aim. Sabbath is the wellspring of God’s Love.

Sabbath is not passive, but an active internal decision to trust and abide while everything pulls us outward into the wrong frays or arguments.It returns us to the origin of our voice, so we recall our words, and their tone again. Returning “home” often, as Henri Nouwenn used to put it.

Rest is good for the right use of our words as well. As language deteriorates in our times, finding daily inner sabbath is a way of healing language itself. Not just using it in what psychology would call a “reaction formation” sort of way, but letting our words re-attach to our hearts again. Speaking from the heart. So we can be apart of a higher conversation, rather than constantly reacting to todays hot topics.

Anyway, studying and practicing-trying to dwell in-Sabbath lately, in a culture of constant nowness, as an active move in the opposite spirit of our times.
Reading both Heschel’s “Sabbath” and Brueggeman’s book on Sabbath simultaneously.

Practicing Sabbath or true Peace is resting in an actual “place” in God.
Thinking more on how subversive Sabbath is. To rest in God, is the opposite spirit of our times, of increasing frenetic daily hourly reactive activity. To enter Sabbath says I trust.

To stay in, dwell in actual Peace (God is always concerned, but never stressed!), is the essential practice for our times.

To rest in His Resting in Himself, is to be home with ourselves and others. As Breugemann teaches to abide in Sabbath is subversive in our times! And absolutely essential. For how can we love, if we ourselves are not in Peace. Peace gives us room to see, and chose love’s orientation and words into each situation. Then we can guard our tongues and plant life not death in others. “In Sabbath is joy, directed only to God, but overflowing to others.”

In an age where language is often cheap, manipulative, or careless, or lacks the density of truth, and at times is deteriorating, we find that Sabbath is also the well of true words to draw from to bless one another towards Life. In a time when language itself is deteriorating, as Heschel pointed out, finding it’s source is even more paramount. Finding the source of our words before we speak, has become a very necessary discipline in our time, and is part of moving in the opposite spirit of our times. Entering Sabbath daily is an active subversive act, and helps heal even language itself.

Dwelling in and around the subject of Sabbath these days…it’s still such an essential practice to get into that “space”, perhaps especially for an spiritual extrovert like myself. To learn to come back home, as Nouwenn would put it, is basic now. To not live in a type of “reaction formation”, as physchology would put it, but rather and active response grounded in Love.

Living in and from Sabbath is subversive now. It’s an active form of moving in the opposite spirit of our times. After reading Heschel and Brueggeman’s books on Sabbath simultaneously again, I’m beginning to see it as the central spiritual practice needed now. For it leads to Love being offered in Wisdom, and in the tone of the fruits of the Spirit.

So much clamors for our attention, or forces quick responses. When we instead retreat into Sabbath, and then act or speak, it changes the atmosphere.
It’s practical to enter into “that rest”, and live from it—even daily.

Sabbath is not passive as Walter taught, it is an active and required response to our times. We often think of rest as withdrawal; it is just the opposite, it is an active intentional grounding in our Source, in the space of Peace, not just the ideals of Peace, but the actual spiritual metaphysical space in God, for the good of the whole, including ourselves. We are of course, transformed by Sabbath, but more importantly, we become a blessing to others.

Not passive but active Sabbath as a response to our times. Otherwise, we get lost in the cacophony of daily clamor, and live reactive rather than proactive lives. We also lose touch with what is ours to speak Life into. We don’t know which is our part to dialogue with; information without love is rhetoric, or worse propaganda.

Anyways, what I’m gleaning from these two keen and heart felt thinkers:
There are two essential functions or results from entering into and living from Sabbath as a practice now: knowing when and how to speak, as Sabbath is the source of true words, we rest, in the part of God which is concerned but never worried, in order to hear, in order to speak life words; and being havens for others, we rest in order to know how to love others.

Wisdom requires us to live into and from Sabbath. So “entering into Rest” must become a core spiritual practice now. Listening into speech is the way. Listen before we speak. And of course we listen in Sabbath.

Listening deeply into Love and then from it, is the greatest gift we can give one another now. Kindness is born in Sabbath, and we can’t live without that tone now.

That’s what I’m getting from these books, I’m reading on the practice of sabbath now. To practice entering into Sabbath, is to heal our language, and to allow us to be lasting blessings to others. This is especially needed in our times. Peace to you all.

To rest in an actual piece of Peace in our God, is the higher ground. Find that spot in space and be released into another form of freedom to be. Freedom as you must know by now, is proper interpretation from Love in Him, and we swim in Him and know. So, this our epistemology, we show outwardly, is based on the ecology of His Being, which guides us into freedom, and the neglected, unreflected areas of His Being in us–ecology, sociology, the basic biology of being, not to mention the treatment of our own bodies as temples. When we are kind, we become, and care for one another. Kindness knows other. So we see. He was meant to be in all areas, un-restricted. Allowed in. But we because of wounds, reject Authority, we don’t know what it means to be occupied, contained in being. We reject all authority and as result we loose our authorship, in the face of false writers we sing…yet we, need the Author and Finisher of our faith, despite the faces which erase our contours from the line. So stay in Time–sanctify time and space both, as we are meant to do. Take both and make them a sacred sanctum of forever, while you still can. While time last…and we still have our names to hang His own… For Peace is a space in God, not a set of ideals, but a source of voice. Peace is a room we all need to enter and live in zoom from. Peace is not a suggestion, but is bathed, and our bath in Love, which is only possible from above. We channel simplicity. Complicity with what is Real. We conduit the simplest message ever–God so loved… so we are loved, so we love, sewing love… and we rest in the Sabbath of that knowing of the patterns of sewing and reaping, seeking and weeping, until the fruit explodes into being..the sabbath of that knowing, which never ends again and again… until we realize it as kin. Until we form into His Form, and start to become sons, daughters, One, living lights shining so bright that even the stones in us, start rolling and voicing shimmering and reflecting their own storied light. We are rolled away stone songs, meant to be breathed through…we are types of joys meant to be pronounced, nuanced from another world. Yet, we are afraid to be sung. Timid songs rafting in winds unseen, to hard for us to circumference. But we know, we were meant to be sung, so we cling, as best we can to Something which makes us as big as we are; or were meant to be. Until the Sea of His Love steadies us again.

I like spiritual stunts. Stunts are 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.

I like stunts, and these were some of the stunt people in the bible. They’ve always been little key holes and heroes, into another world for me. When I was a kid, Buster Keaton (who did all his own stunts) was a hero, later the fellow who walked between the world trade centers (portending 9/11 years before; symbolic stunts are the best; and the symbol always precedes the fuller incarnation later–ie the Levites crossed the Jordan before the general body! Artists still cross first; for the stuntman is a sign of what’s possible!

But these scriptural ones, sort of blew me away. I would love to do a stuntperson’s translation of the bible, emphasizing the Nathan’s (David’s prophet), Nathanael’s (Jesus’ student, the first to call Him, Son of God!) etc…Jesus told Nathanael the type of tree he was sitting under before they met. The fig tree was symbolic, of course, as well. Jesus never wasted symbolic details–walking on water was cool, but teaching someone else to, was cooler.

Moments like these are shockers and openings through which to peak into the grand narrative! Miracles are cool, but stunts are more involved symbolically. Stunts teach us that of course, God can do miracles, but He can also do them in a way or manner which interprets and transforms everything and everyone involved, and proves the whole story. He doesn’t waste His stunt people, nor His Stunts.

The bible isn’t boring actually, it’s filled with spiritual feats-true magic-useful metaphysical acrobatics, and great spiritual stunts which lead us into the Life and world of God! Or at least, toward it!

Maybe that’s the purpose of stunts. Anyone can leave their body, as one friend in San Fran used to tell me, but what are you going to do after you are out of body. Mystical experience itself doesn’t determine spiritual growth. What does is if they are done to usher in Love.

That determines whether you do a spiritual stunt or not. Jesus always did His mystical stunts to reveal Love. Water to wine-to teach about history and transformation, and to prophecy what he would do with humanity (among other things); walking on water, to increase his friend’s faith etc. All His stunts were motivated by serving, inspiring, calling forth, and blessing others. That’s the motivation for true stunt people!

Jesus of course being the greatest of spiritual stuntmen ever. Entering what He had created, as part of His Own creation! Entering His own dream, and re-writing it with the blood-ink of His Own Love. Ok, that’s the best tight rope between worlds ever. And why? To reveal God’s Love. That stunt changed everything forever.

When young, i watched that french fellow walk between the world trade centers, and was stunned. Later I watched those buildings fall, and was shocked. I recalled that symbolic stunt, one young man dreamed up. Then thought of how long it took God to dream up incarnating into His own creation, and how well executed it was. That changed my view on the value of pulling off a great symbolic spiritual stunt.

Most of mentors were stuntmen of one kind or another! Walking the metaphysical wire between worlds, halfway in heaven, halfway on earth, and singing that liminal song of in between. They were all artist teachers, but also liked to do their own stunts, or like Chuck Berry, drive to their own shows. Stuntmen are cool, especially if they are kingdom stunt people. Then there is a higher and longer ranged impact–art which blooms forever!

My testimony is replete with stunts! Some of my own spiritual stunts: talking a man off a bridge in french tongues, just being at 911, having been told to go from England to America to bear witness to it; getting to have divine appointments with many celebrities through the years, often getting to speak words of life into them at key moments of their spiritual journeys; and many more. I’ve enjoyed participating God’s stunt life! He’s always got new ones up His enormous sleeve as well!

A friend at my local coffee shop notices that I like getting my wife iced mochas each day, and asked: what would bring you joy? A joy project? I see that you like giving her joy daily…

My wife get’s joy from me getting her daily iced mochas from our local coffee shop. Her form of joy is an iced cafe mocha daily, nice.. and it does bring me joy to bring her joy; but i pondered his question, as he made her drink today, since he seemed to sincerely want to know my own ideal joy bringing activity, and, so after a quick thought, I said:

Mine, would be to ride on a 50’s motorcycle (preferably an “Indian” vintage, or royal enfield) across europe, during spring or fall, starting in Calais, en route to Jerusalem, with lots of cameras attached, praying and stopping along “the way” to do documentaries of each person and creature i met, and making photo story books and short films of all I encounter.

With maybe also some water colored paint guns on the sides of my bike, to spray each nation and city i passed through with their true colors, leaving a pattern of life across the old continent to see by…blessing cities and lands into their true images and colors, or at least forecasting them through art!

Then, framing the stories and film and photos well in the global cities i stopped in, especially ones with a gift of graphics and printing remarkable books; and sending them as art gifts of encouragement and honor, back to each person and place I met.

Probably also, producing and editing them at night, over a campfire while eating fish i caught that day…then ending up in Jerusalem, reading poetry at night on that city’s specifically glowing, rooftops…in that white stoned moonlit domed world, which is my inner home…

Ok, her’s is much more affordable. Less logistics involved. And blesses daily. I think I’ll keep getting my wife cafe mochas from our local coffee shop. But kind of this fellow to ask what sort of thing would bring me the most joy! And, a nice thing about creative folks, he took me seriously, and started thinking of people I could collaborate with to make it happen-strap on cameras and paint guns…but, as he said, your wife’s joy is more affordable. Good practical artist, that fellow; keeping me ok and thankful, with my daily joys.

Also, made me glad that I can bring my wife joy in small, flavorful, daily ways. Everyone has their own style of joys….mine, however, may take a lifetime to choreograph, execute, and to live out.

From a poem i wrote in a dream:

He and I dancing down the aisle:
With Him in my arms, and me, in His, the party already is,
or
has begun
and never ends;
Now, i’m just dancing down the wedding line, as a clown does with and for a King.
This aisle is endless,
with crowds of sufferers on all sides. He and I
both absolutely still in one another, with and in, that specific pain and glory,
and knowing our own stories clearly.
Like groomed disco balls sweating, in shimmer, or in a type of mist of some sort, reflecting ourselves outwards, in the sheerness of the shimmer of suffering…still, dancing with one another! I can’t stop dancing with Him, regardless…
In this dance down the aisle that never ends…
what other party would i possibly want to be in!

Once, a great Stone was rolled away
and out came a man of bones and glory
I trust to walk out from that opened grave some day
to live inside that story. Down here, i’m chipping away,
skipping stones, like a kid, on an endless river running from a Throne somewhere. Looking towards the estuary.
But here we are all still made of bone
chipping away stone into clarity; being edited by hope,
our faces will finally come clear like a billboard
at night, by an endless unseen highway; yet,
in the meantime,
the partial dawn of glory illuminates
what is being rolled away, our endless wrinkles of being, our interruptedness.
Where in quietness, we can’t quite say yes yet!
Here, we try
to rise up and walk out with Him, partially lit up by a trail of steps, and yet
rocky and lame as we are, with one eye, on heaven’s manifestation and incarnation, yet
with our feet still made of earth
we slowly stumble upwards…
in the already dawn, which lands on stones in morning light
as they and we all are!

From a book I’m reading of collected Yiddish poems by Abraham Heschel, called “The Ineffable Name of God”, written in Yiddish, when he was young in Berlin. I love to consider what people were pondering when young, it usually yields into the fruits of their later years—the trees which eventually grow, and shade others!

Such passion drips between his youthful spiritually hungry lines. Nice to hear him when he was younger, and wrestling with and for the blessing, aware of both the mystical and the practical needs on earth…but always slightly tearing the veil between heaven and earth! Trying to translate between the two, as am I today!

Or, as the writer on the back of the book puts it: “Like Herbert, Donne, like Blake, he is God-haunted; his lyrics are steeped in the mystic’s longing to tear away the curtain that conceals the divine radiance and (sometimes) God’s tears.” (Best review ever!) These guys are always my favorite types of people!

Trying to read these in Hebrew, but the english is good also. Anyways, I like these excerpts, fun learning from those processing and becoming their journeys through art:

“Trees from all of the forests!
You all know me well
from alonesesses together,
from a love,
from a secret love.”

And this one:
“My songs are organs set in human ears.
Bless me, my spirit
with tenderness instead of might!”

“And may my way through rooms be
like finger-touches on piano keys.
Tenderness, you ineffable name of God,
be my image of God!”

And lastly,
“To keep my imaginings overflowing
with your never-ending image.”

And from a poem entitled,
“God Follows me everywhere!
God follows me like a shiver everywhere.
My desire is for rest; the demand within me is: Rise up,
See how prophetic visions are scattered in the streets.”

Blessed are the poets for trying, for poetry is, in the end, as a medium or genre, about intimate essential relationship, and dialogue with and into one another. Poetry as a genre symbolizes intimacy! That’s what poetry itself symbolizes—the inner life, in close proximity with whatever it honors, knows and loves the most. Poetry extracts and expresses the essence of the matter, and our own essential nature gets formed as we encounter “the absolute of the other”. Poetry is overflow from depth encounter. And is transformative to the level the poet has been transformed by the conversation.

Makes sense, that this teacher would start his journey in poetry and end in poetic theological action, social justice, ecumenism with especially christians, and teaching. For the priestly in prayful poetic encounter, precedes the fuller incarnation and is foundational.” To the degree we meet God, we are able to express Him on earth!” Action stands on prayer and love, as one anonymous monk put it!

Enjoying Heschel’s young poetry anyways! And fun and humbling trying to translate yiddish wisdom. I forgot how many implied vowels there are! It forces you to read between the lines, so to speak!

Working on some poems today! Came across this confession from a journal when i lived on the road (which was a long while)…to quote Dylan, “I was so much older then, i’m younger than that now.” But certainly, i was thinking about spiritual artistic matters…nice to cull through old journals and small notes…I must’ve been reading Heschel and Buber, and St John, even then…those mystics, willing to tear the veil, be torn themselves, or recognize that’s it’s already torn, that heaven is already touching earth through us! Anyways, nice find…

My home, now a car, like my heart, or even just my body (skin bone stone), and certainly my tiny words-nuanced trickles, leaning into, or like Evan Roberts, bent enough; my cars or ministries, the carriages
of my ridiculous careers…
What are they, but a temporary kinetic shelter for the Most High
to act out His grand and dramatic Drama
(what are we but Sukkoth?!-a tent in Great Wind!)
on my broken stage.

Publish yourself Lord
produce your play through me
make me your own song in motion,
until others can see You in me, I in Thee.
Until i decrease into receptivity like a camera
and You take your best shot through us!

Make me dead, yielded awake and useful in That Way!

Culling through and cleaning out my wallet today…so many accumulated blessings…a collage song really…or a tiny music box!

In my wallet, so many special little notes from friends all over the world: friends numbers and addresses, recommending parks in Krakow, places to eat in berlin, art communities to stay at in Paris (which i did!), best art openings in and small galleries in Antwerp..and so many tiny lists of favorite books and bands, i collected in conversations as I traveled.

One little note and photo from the kind man (he has tender eyes) who sold me his 83 A Barth in Paris (the car, still one of my favorites in addition to my 63 SAAB and 68 Volvo, this rare A-barth, ended up in Sheffield, England along with my heart-long story), his number and picture of his family. So many little collected poems over the years of travel and adventure. I found words written in Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, and many other languages. As I always learn to ask, how do you say this in your language, and then write it down on tiny receipts and note cards in case i need to know it someday. I love languages. Each has their own specialty words, which hold worlds.

My wallet is rich, though i am not.

In addition, I always carry at least four small bills in different nation’s currencies, to remind me to pray, but also in case i ended up there suddenly.
I’ve been doing this for 20 years. I even have old Deutschmark, currency from Czech Republic, Poland, Jordan and many other lands; and still have currency from all over the world, and lots of pre-euro ones. If those nations ever go back to their pre-euro currencies, i’m set.

A friend’s best thoughts or quotes from wherever I’m led, always makes me scribble notes. Favorite books of poetry or quotes! There pet sayings, and best laid plans. I’ve been recording since I was a kid. One friend said, i always had a camera and notebook with me. I think that’s true. Still do. I’m fascinated to record life’s poetry. Some notes from when i lived in Jerusalem, with poems written so small, i can no longer read them. And some rooftop poems from those white stone domed rooftops, which still resonate in my heart.

My little wallet, which was designed by Alexander McQueen, i bought on the day he died, as a symbol of artists who left too soon, (like my friend Noah when i was a kid whose namesake i kept as the name of my ministry “Noah’s other boat”); McQueen, was born on my birthday, and really was a performance artist as well as a brilliant fashion designer!

Anyway, this wallet is like a little mobile collage to me. Thankful for it’s small treasures today, as i clean it out a bit, observing in thanks. Perhaps i should make an actual collage of my findings thus far. It would make a great and strangely textured song. It’s like my little wind up music box i also always carry with me in travels. You just never know when you’ll need it! For there are grown children everywhere, who still respond to the collaged music of life! And those who still gather trinkets which accumulate, over time, towards truth.

My home like my heart, or even just my body, and certainly my tiny words,
and my ridiculous careers,
what are they, but a temporary shelter for the Most High
to act out His grand and dramatic Drama
on my broken stage.

My home like my heart, or even just my body, and certainly my tiny words,
what are they, but a temporary shelter for the Most High
to act out His grand and dramatic Drama
on my broken stage.