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More on why Love still matters!

05 Sunday Mar 2017

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     From an article I’m writing on “Why Love still matters”:
Love is required to see and interpret life accurately. Love finds beauty, and the true nature of other, and calls it forth. For Love peers into the true nature of things. Love clarifies perception, allowing us to interpret things more clearly.
 The relationship between love and aesthetics hasn’t been properly named, but love is essential in seeing both art and nature well.  We see things rightly when we love them. And when we see things as they really are, we will love them.
 Hope is based on what only Love can see! We see things accurately, to the degree that we love them. In this sense Love also makes things more whole. Love heals what we see, as it heals us.
 Hope is not a denial of suffering, but it is a seeing of what is on the other side of it, as we look in Love! We are too selective with our love, maybe we are afraid of encountering other-or being transformed ourselves, by depth encounter! Love sees both. as it is, and as it will be. Love beholds things into wholeness. This is why Love still matters.
 Spiritual perception helps guide things home to themselves, and this occurs through Love. Love is our hermenuetic!
In this sense, learning to love is life’s highest art form. Love calls forth true identity. Love overcomes all forms of pornographic vision for it allows us to see other for their intrinsic value, not in terms of our own gratification. Love never fails. Love has no ending—as St Paul taught us. Love still matters!
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Raw notes from recent evacuations:
On another note, this happened this week. Got evacuated from a coffee shop which was attached to a Jewish community center. The Jewish community as a target…hum…this is getting more obvious!! Less subtle, more direct.
Twice this past week I was personally evacuated.—so here’s my vent. Sorry, but I get tired of racism. It’s ugly and has no art in it! Racism has no beauty and lacks intelligence, based in fear and interpretation based on appearance, it is also rooted in pride, and at times, as an artist i just get tired of it’s stupidity.
 Getting tired of getting evacuated! Happened again today.
  More Jewish community centers got bomb threats today in America, in this case, very close to where I was having coffee with friends. I was near two Jewish community centers visiting artist friends today when the block was cleared.
 Enough already. Let’s pray harder and be smarter. We’ve already lived through this a million times.
Praying, as always! But also frustrated.
  Bomb threats are a coward’s or teenager’s approach to conflict. Instilling fear rather than working through anger towards intimacy-like you have to do in real relationships! I’m just a counselor, and artist, a tender soul, and a fool, but I get tired of seeing this too.
  Plus, we where all evacuated in the middle of a good coffee conversation! Who knows what great art could’ve come from that conversation we were having today! Healing begins with forgiveness, even across generations–let’s at least start there!
 In counseling, we used to call this projecting and acting out, rather than “owning” and working through your own issues. These are basic human problems. I just wanted to finish my coffee with my art friends today, but this projected hatred keeps interrupting the flow of Love’s Way, and Love’e’s endless conversation. Starting to irritate me.

Light

05 Sunday Mar 2017

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  It has been written that the church is both the salt and the light. Let’s make sure we are the Light part as salt well friends! In Genesis, God said, let their be light, by which He could see things. Light delineates so we can put things in order.
   Light brings sight and understanding, allows us to delineate. We need both light and salt. Let there be light! Of course, Christ also called Himself the light of the world. We, in Him, are to carry and shine that light outwards endlessly so others may see! For in the Light was also the Life! Let’s be in Light friends!
   As the Light increases in us, in our times, we should be shining brighter, making things clearer around us for others to see. We should be helping interpret things well from this Light. Light matters. Let’s move in light, to make the contrasts more apparent, between the ways of Life and the ways of Death. Like Daniel we are to be helping interpret the king’s dreams, and to guide the other seers to see. Like the Levites, after the restoration in Nehemiah and Ezra’s times, we are meant to help people understand their times in the light of the word. Let’s be Light. Let your light so shine before men, that they too see and know and therefore Love the True God who is couched in your hearts. A city on a hill, and light not placed under a basket—we are the light as we shine in The Light.
   We know we are in a high contrasts time—and that both light and darkness is increasing and being made manifest. So let is be light reflectors, and those who make His Light more overtly obvious. In His Light is His Life and Ways, we are those collaborating to usher that Light into the world, so people can see.  Let there be light, then we can delineate and name and bring order, just as God was doing at the creation.
We know that the Light is increasing in us in our times.
  We know that this is a time of greater incarnation of the Life of Christ in His People; so we must get used to shining brighter in our days. -be part of the dawn already breaking into mankind’s hearts.
   We live in a time where Christ is drawing closer into His People—He is eclipsing things on  another level. What began as re-formation is now moving into a depth incarnation. We are being baptized more deeply into His Name and Life, and His Light.
As the Light increases so does our refinement, Because God is Light and in Him is no darkness. The Light came into the darkness…

Re-reading Aristotle’s “Poetics” all about art, and also life

04 Saturday Mar 2017

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I would boil down his basics to three orientations towards life: to see things as they are now, as we wish they were, and as they will one day be. Most art falls into one of these three basic life orientations.
We tend to look at things: as they are, as we wish they were, or as they will be. And we interpret from one of these three perspectives. The prophetic, as Heschel teaches us, tends to speak into the present from the future—so looks at what is, based on what it will be, and speaks from there. If we judge based just on what things are now, we tend to lack hope. If we judge based on what we wish things were, we can get a bit blinded, and deny current suffering (redemption is not possible if there is no suffering, as one great theologian taught). If we judge with a vision of what this will be, and speak into its present towards its future, we start to drawn things towards their destinies!
These categories are from Aristotle’s poetics. He felt art had these basic three orientations. But I would broaden it, to how we interpret life in general. I would put it:
So, we tend to interpret things from one of these focuses:
As they are, as they should be, and as they will be-prophets see backward from will be. Faith sees from the future into the present. It interprets based on vision of the destiny of the other. And speaks from that future space into its present to draw it towards that vision of wholeness.
 Yet, we each tend to see in one of these ways. These are different ways of interpreting life.
Faith gazes backwards from the future into the now.
We tend to interpret things by how they are, what we wish they were, or a vision of what they will be. This is true of art and life.
 Prophetic Optimism is not blind. It’s based on a vision of what we will one day be, and it speaks as if already true-which calls us forth to incarnate that vision.
Dialoguing with his book on art.

We tend to interpret things from one of these focuses:

As they are, as they should be, and as they will be-prophets see backward from will be. Yet, we each tend to see in one of these ways. These are different ways of interpreting life.

Faith gazes backwards from the future into the now.

We tend to interpret things by how they are, what we wish they were, or a vision of what they will be. This is true of art and life.

Prophetic Optimism is not blind. It’s based on a vision of what we will one day be, and it speaks as if already true-which calls us forth to incarnate that vision.

In dialogue with his book on art. The greeks had sort of a scientist’s look at art view, and it’s helpful in considering the components and overall orientations towards life and art. Worth a study at least! Enjoying re-reading this basic book on art and life. And considering its implications to how to live well.

some random potent quotes..

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

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“He can see your eagerness to serve. So don’t worry. He’ll help you find your fields!” anonymous monk.
“I see that some leave the path, because they are hurt by other’s weaknesses to the point they forget to forgive. Let me be quick to forgive so I can stay in Grace Sir!”
He is The Light, so be light also!
 Be Light also!
God said to me once, “He would leave the Light on for me, friend!” And I quote! That’s all I need to hear, now I will go again shining the light!
 “It has been written that the church is both the salt and the light. Let’s make sure we are the Light part as well friends! God said, let their be light, by which He could see things. Light brings sight and understanding, allows us to delineate. We need both light and salt. Let there be light! Of course, Christ also called Himself the light of the world. We, in Him, are to carry and shine that light outwards endlessly so others may see! For in the Light was also the Life! Let’s be in Light friends!”
“I’m tired of me, let’s see how God sees me instead! His Version of us is always more interesting and nuanced! Turns out, He’s not tired of the real me, so who am I to protest.”

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

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(“And nature also knew my name, when I showed up in love and saw her.” St Francis)
I wore the morning’s clothes all day today.
And the birds and plants seemed to call my name, as if
we already knew one another.
Soaring over and through all walls together
we spoke of the coming light
of Day with it’s warmth already settling
on all our wings…
 Listening to a priest last night talk about vision leading to hope, leading to Joy, leading to kindness to others..”for the vision set before Him, He endured…” was his passage. Nice! Reminded me that seeing well matters, art is not impractical, if we want to move in hope and kindness. So many metaphors of hope around us if we watch well!
 Anyway today, enjoying poetic walking and wonder-seeing with Heschel (reading “I asked for Wonder”; when God asked Heschel what he wanted in life; he responded. “I want wonder, not success.” God seemed to like his answer, so gave him both!)
 So beholding nature today down here on the earthy earth. Sometimes just beholding nature makes me present and thankful! It’s longer than us, and outlast and flies over and through all our walls. And brings me into Wonder, which re-calls my own name.
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From a journal i found today from many years ago, when i lived on the road between places, on a day when I was evidently living well:
I lived in potential, vision and possibility of life today, and loved it! That space, where faith and hope hang out; that place which vision requires, where we can be ourselves again. I lived the poem of my day! I was myself, and content with that. And I loved you more than I thought possible. I foresaw your best bloomings, and chose to water them into place with an overflow of love.

28 Tuesday Feb 2017

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From a journal i found today from many years ago, when i lived on the road between places, on a day when I was evidently living well:
I lived in potential, vision and possibility of life today, and loved it! That space, where faith and hope hang out; that place which vision requires, where we can be ourselves again. I lived the poem of my day! I was myself, and content with that. And I loved you more than I thought possible. I foresaw your best bloomings, and chose to water them into place with an overflow of love.

St Peter’s spiritual continuum…

09 Thursday Feb 2017

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Meditation on Peter’s thoughts on salvation today..and what it implies: St Peter’s spiritual continuum!
  Playing with my helmet of salvation today. The idea of salvation as the beginning of the process not the end. Came across something St Peter said about salvation, which felt true again. I liked his idea of salvation as a process of spiritual growth, not just a single instant. We get saved, then we work it out, and grow it up, sort of thing. He was really into the spiritual continuum of life into the next, and living accordingly- “for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.” (I Peter 1:9)
  So, having already begun to receive the salvation of your souls, live accordingly; this was for him a motivation for godliness…. He put it like this later in the letter: “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
   He also taught us to have sincere love for one another in the light of this.  “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.” Not bad advice.
 Nice meditation today. Most people don’t like to think of salvation much, but I still find it interesting, as the start of a long process.
 People get saved, then what. That’s just the first step. We get out of Egypt, then the wilderness training, downloading the law (His rules from His Ways) into our hearts, the crossing over the Jordan (the necessary deaths to self) into our lands; then, the occupation, possession and cultivation, the making whole—it’s a journey, spiritual growth!
 “Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
  Love is what we do in the meantime, while growing in His Nature! It’s our default setting until…
  Peter’s basic point throughout his letters is-in light of your salvation, live well.
 Live in the spiritual continuum, you have already entered through Christ. Increase in His Ways, as you go, now that you have tasted (the beginning of the salvation process). Good stuff. A call to ongoing sanctification, or growing up into Christ, growing up into our salvation.