The way of the prophets is to hold that gap between the way things are, and how they are meant to be in Him. He assigns people to be aware of that gap, and feel the lament of it. And to pray towards the wholeness, the reconciliation of all things into their true nature and fullness in Him.

There is a constant lament in there. Between again, what is, and what should and will be. And you live there, and try to be priestly in praying that gap. That is the role of prophet. As well as encouraging people and things towards where He is taking them. If you are called as a prophet, you will have this constant gap lament.

For you can see the context things are meant to be happening in, and where they are.

We can only encourage others to the degree we can see them whole, and in their futures. The only way to do that is to see them by and in His Spirit. We speak from that space. And that is where our labor and fellowship with His suffering dwells.

Poetry of being in today…

today, i talked  Soren Kierkegaard with a local priest,

caught a paper airplane in mid air, and threw it back

tagging a local  daughter’s neck and said, you are special

thanks for throwing that plane my way-we were kids again for second.

i also saw a hawk, which landed on our tree, and

i walked my dogs in wonder of them, and their ways…

i looked into a friend’s eyes with true care and wonder, and meant it,

and felt the wind on my body, mostly my neck and arms, and paused

considering where it came from—the distance wind travels.

It was a good day.

Favorite quotes today: “Yet our concern is not how to worship in the catacombs but rather how to remain human in the skyscrapers.”

“Religion consist of God’s question

and man’s answer.”

“The night is the time to cry out.

There is darkness in the East and smugness in the West.

What of the night?

What of the night?”

So, let’s not waste our nights, as we are in one globally.

As we are in a sort of collective “Dark night of the soul”, it matters what we do at night!  Enjoying reading “I asked for Wonder”, from Abraham Heschel today!

“What we talk about when we talk about love” Raymond Carver

  Praying for my many Muslim friends locally and globally today, and trying to treat others as I would want to be treated. To love others, as I would want to be loved. In other words, trying to be a good student and friend of Jesus in these turbulent times. To emulate and participate in His Heart for one another.

 Praying also for the current and future David’s (those leaders moving in His Ways-both men and women) as they seek God’s heart and speak in the clarity, and boldness of truth these days. We need some MLK’s now, and some Dorothy Days. For, The law of love still applies. Maybe even more urgently now.

  Love is more than tolerance, it is proactive care, depth listening and tuning into sacrificial  empathy for those who are suffering, it is un-rejecting others in a proactive embrace from the heart, among other things. ( I Corinthians 13 lists the rest of what love implies; let’s actively conjoin with those attributes and attitudes of Christ in our times)). Let’s move in and dwell in the ways of Love’s ways today.

  Let’s open the heart’s harbors, allowing Him to tear down the walls of division (within ourselves and our world) and be models of God’s overt overture and boundlessly sacrificial and incarnational love in our particular chapter of the long story. “For God so loved the world…” and so should we. The rest is history. Let’s love in our hour of opportunity on earth. For the tone of love changes the atmosphere, and re-contextualizes the conversation! Love is our practice, and Love still matters. Anyway, praying for our human family today! As we are all cousins.

Arrived in America to this yesterday. Protest for the refugees at the “passenger pickup”. Not the first time I’ve flown into what felt like a military zone, but still unusual here. But no one was being truculent or belligerent. Still, pretty intense to come home to a militarized airport.

   Still, got to talk to both protesters and local police over dunkin’ doughnuts—the doughnuts and coffee seemed to help facilitate open dialogue, on all sides—perhaps the church should consider doughnuts for communion these days. Still, it’s a lot to encounter while having acute jet lag-like landing in the news ( think i was actually in the news taking photos of it all yesterday).

     I lived in boston for years, and get along with NYC people really well, so that helped.

 Yet, riot gear is riot gear, and it’s unsettling when landing in a nation. Yet, Love always cast out fear!

   Glad to be home safe. Our times are intense. But so many opportunities to be truly human and bless one another with inner peace. I should start an airport ministry, human global crossroads interest me. Like a collective succoth where everyone is equally vulnerable, and in need of kindness in the eyes.

   Lot’s of great conversations with vulnerable people at the airports of the world these days.  I spoke with my regulars at that airport—shop keepers etc; they are all well, and not living in fear. But everyone is concerned, mostly for others. Good sign. Met some syrian friends at the cafe. Plus this older british couple sitting next to me at the diner made things much more cheery. They had seen a thing or two in life, and still had hope.

   Thinking this morning about the times of Saul and David as a lens for now. The whole story has many teachings for our times. More on that later! Praying to be like David in the tale, and for more David’s to emerge—those after God’s heart and ways! Of course, the people demanded a Saul, but God had a David in waiting! That’s hopeful also! Helpful little landing meditation.

 I’m in europe for this election intentionally for perspective. I hope they let me back into America after all this. I am a Jewish hearted, Irish and Cherokee blooded, celtic Moravian, anglican charismatic baptist, so we shall see!

 So far things haven’t looked great for all my people in history!

 Well, at least I’m an artist and counselor—that should count for something! And I know people in high places!, though most of them are angels, which isn’t super practical until later!

 Aaron, the priest, pursued Peace. Aaron’s most notable personal quality is that he was a peacemaker. His love of peace is proverbial; Rabbi Hillel said, “Be disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace, loving people and drawing them near the Torah.” According to tradition, when Aaron heard that two people were arguing, he would go to each of them and tell them how much the other regretted his actions, until the two people agreed to face each other as friends. We need some Aarons right about now!

 The man photographing the cathedral at dawn from a rooftop with his dogs!

 Couldn’t sleep from jet lag, so was awake at dawn today. Saw a man on a roof, across the way, intently and intensely taking photos of a cathedral across the street. Then I noticed his dogs were with him on the flat roof. My kind of morning activity, so…

 To the man taking photos with his dogs on a rooftop today—thanks for being who you are today, for observing when no one else was, from a high place, and for getting up before dawn in the in between just to capture today’s particular approaching glory.

 You’re my this morning’s hero. And me and my angels saw you! I even tried to take a photo of you taking a photo, as I often do in my dreams. Thanks sir.

  We live by example, even when we think we are unobserved while observing, or should I say, appreciating the particular glories of daily life, and hoping them into place with our expectancy and love’s vigilant gaze. If none of the photos turn out, I’ll make a painting of it to remember you, and that type of rooftop faith each day requires.

What I often do at airports:

 At airports, I often like to go sit at several gates to see what type of people are going to particular places.

 I do this almost every time I have extra time at airports. I go and sit with the Greeks going to Athens—always lively and interactive, sitting very close and all talking at once; i go find those going to Brazil, so colorful and talkative, almost a party at the airport.

 Yesterday, i went to the Tel Aviv gate, and i just felt like myself. Everyone addressed me, talked to me about the weather there, and assumed I belonged there. I even stood in line to get on at the end, lost in conversation with this older lady about everything from God to the price of pomegranetes. I almost got on that plane, until I realized I was supposed to be going to Brussels.

 It’s still one of my favorite activities, to act like you are going to that place, and think about what type of person would go there. To sit in and with the different tones of cultures! Each culture waits differently. I like observing how each culture does in between, says a lot about who they are.

Deep thoughts by Derek! Take what blesses you…leave the rest.

Why listen well now? Excerpts from an interview I was doing this week on what I’ve learned from counseling people during these recent days: (just raw notes, if they bore you, read something else, or take which parts touch your hearts!)

 Been counseling lots in the wake and transition of these elections, refugee crisis, and many other global shakings we are all in the midst of, as a human family, and wrote down some observations so far…they are long, and might be boring to some, but still felt like sharing some insights I’ve had so far during all this global tumult going on. Really a crisis in interpretation, among other things. And I’d like to put forth that we interpret well, by listening well-that is, in Love. Felt like just putting some raw notes and observations out there as we go, to keep the real conversation going, as so much of what we see seems inchoate or hard to interpret these days. Loving listening, still matters to me, and seems to bear the best long term fruit. So here are some thoughts, i’ve been having.

The value of interviews now as a model of civil and loving conversations with one another!

 I love interviews as a format. I met the american Bill Moyers, a writer and interviewer, and his wife in Paris once-if you don’t know his work, he made most of the psychologist and religious thinkers of the previous generation known to the public, back in the day. When I met him, he listened really well to me. Listening well contains healing, and is a developable and needed gift now!

 On the same trip, i talked a man off a bridge, which may have been more important. He came off the bridge, after he felt someone concerned with his specific sufferings. He felt heard. That stuck with me—how listening well, can save lives.

  I also have always liked the interviewer Charlie Rose (an american interviewer)—there are some of his interviews which reveal the identities of those he is interviewing. But more importantly, he makes a safe space for people to share, even when he clearly doesn’t agree with them. I still appreciate that gift of empathy-“listening with and into another”, allowing a safe room for another to show up. People need that. All of us do regardless of our levels of impact.

 Reading a book now with the great german film maker and thinker Wim Wenders called “Inventing Peace”. Over half of it is in interview format. Still really learn the most from overhearing people just talking, and being themselves. The unformed or instantaneous thesis or hypothesis, we are still forming, and becoming…I think interviews and biographies are my favorite formats of learning and knowing. Intimate interviews reveal the soul. People gifted with good listening. I value good listeners. It helps us all become who we are. Let’s listen well to one another.

It’s a good time for good listeners. To become better ministers of reconciliation between races, genders, generations, and “classes” of people (although i believe we all are granted class as humans not based on outer wealth or appearance).

I’ve been thinking lots also lately of you have to contextualize your own suffering in global suffering to have any type or decent way of interpreting things. I would say if you just contextualize women or racial rights, for instance, just within the confines of your own country or nation’s history, you miss the big human story picture. What in us, wants to value others in terms of gender or ethicity etc. These seem like basic needed ways now; you have to at least take things back to the garden and the nature of human depravity, and the particular patterns of sin we inherited, as a starting point to look at human rights, for instance. The nature and ways of rebellion are in the human heart, and fortunately are able to be weeded out, if we start with ourselves.

I also think people will increasingly look to artist and cultural interpreters, interviewers, and comedians to interpret things in this season. We’ve seen this during the whole election process, in this particular country, when much of the media fell apart, or has moved in confusion and defense, but the comedians and actors, have offered some of the most honest talk about what is happening.

We saw it even a few nights ago with Meryl Streep, though i know what she said is controversial, and I won’t go into politics here—people took note, and I think are looking to artist and cultural interpreters, to speak the truth. This platform for honest discourse, will increase. As could the church’s and faith community’s voices, if it spoke well-in unison- and from the heart, and modeled a spirit of ecumenism, and kindness, now. Not just towards the “stranger” but towards one another. Having a unified spirit and voice, and real heart of love, and tone of love. And the heart’s ear, which it has access to, but needs to use now.

 I also think it is very important to re-contextualize conversations in authentic relationship! Real relational conversations generate authentic frames of interpretation. We come up with new ways of naming the issues, when we are being real with one another. This happens interpersonally, as well as between groups. There are so many fabricated categories of conversation, we have to create new ways of naming humanities heart issues now.

 This is huge, so that we don’t find ourselves moving in prefabricated frames of discourse, as one thinker put it. We actually need to be encountering the persons we are with, and have and create together, a unique language system to converse in; one which comes out of loving encounter with other. I thou—not I-it, in Martin Buber’s language.  This lets us collaborate together in naming, and this is a creative process which brings healing and transformation to both parties involved. When we really have encounters with one another’s deeper hearts, we are both changed! So this type of depth dialogue in Love is essential now!

  For example, just last night talking with my african friend. He said you are white man, I am black. I was thrown in jails lots of times not for being black, but for being human. We started there, and things went deeper. He did not see himself as a black man, or a minority (he had been delivered from that small category). He saw himself as a human, who like all of us, has struggles weaknesses, sin nature etc, and has tried to learn to love his brother.

 By the end of our talk, both of us had a deeper understanding of one another’s struggles. And neither of us, saw the other as a category of human, but rather as a real person. We were able to honor one another’s stories and personhood. That’s a huge success these days! We had to share lots of our story. I told him about being perceived as Jewish, about having an african half brother, about having Cherokee blood etc; he told me many things about his parent’s mixed racial marriage, and how he was perceived growing up.

 That’s the type of conversations we need to be having now. We need to be heart listening well to one another daily now. It overcomes more than racism, more than women and gay rights and all the other poorly framed issues of our day—which are often human identity issues in the end-it let’s us be family together as people.

 You rarely see this in the media, but it most often happens in interviews. To have non-projective relationships with people is to see them beyond my own categories of perception which i put on them; i have to actually listen and encounter them in His Love. This is most basic, especially when dealing with those you highly disagree with. Basic conflict management is needed in our times. And you can see this modeled with the best interviewers.

Along with this, we are taught in scriptures, that God’s spirit is where the greatest suffering is. So we move towards that place with others, to meet the One who is intimate with their and our sufferings. Not away from it. I think often we assume our own suffering is the greatest. Not so, according to the book.

Anyway, here are some things I’ve learned from my favorite interviewers: simple but i hope helpful…

 Find common ground. Don’t live in or appeal to the other’s or your own fear as a foundation for the conversation (the worst of daily tv), live proactively in love. Try to model what you believe in practical daily ways. Kindness is an action this season, and starts in the heart, and can be seen in your eyes. Try to listen well—that is in the tone of love. Have authentic ways of addressing and framing the issues which concern you. This allows for real dialogue about the underlying issues. Love especially those you firmly disagree with. And try to find that one area where you do agree as humans and amplify it as you talk. Go very basic with people’s concerns, discerning not just their thought or emotion, but their heart. What really concerns them about this issue. Start there.

 Sometimes you have to agree to disagree on topics, but you can still treat one another with real dignity and respect, regardless of gender, race or economic status. These are some basics, I’m practicing and trying remember in seasons of trauma, crisis and change. How to treat the human family stuff! Great potential now for mutual refinement through caring dialogue with one another. Let’s do at least that, for one another.

 Last night, that long talk with my african american friend, who had so much forgiveness in his heart, challenged me to be a better person. That’s what good listening can bring to us. And that is how it heals and blesses both people. Love your neighbor, partially means listening well in our times. I’m trying to. Hope you do too, this season friends. Let’s listen our ways into Love this season, and mutual positive change.