Nice juxtaposition from an early clever monk! Love finding treasures in the spiritual archives today. Like visiting heaven’s library while here! This monk, like me, was evidently a sky watcher, based on his metaphors!

Love it when people see things from different angles! Or overhear the angels who were floating around at His birth.

“After He has suffered He will see the light of life (in us!). We are His reward! We are the stars in His night sky, which He enjoys gazing out on!”
The image is sort of like The Father gazing at His Son, the Great Star in us! Love that image. Makes me want to paint.

Love it when monks say old things in new ways! And I like the idea of being the stars in Jesus’ night sky, also and He, also mysteriously there with us, as the Morning Star! What a cool constellation. As a sky watcher, i’d watch that one all night!

I love the image of the Father gazing at His night sky and seeing His Son shining in us all, in this amazing constellation. To sit with The Father watching His Own Sky—that would be eternally cool! Like sky watching with your dad!

When I was much younger, i lived in Jerusalem, teaching english on the side to both arab and jewish kids. After evening market, i used to go up on Jerusalem’s white stoned rooftops to fall asleep. I just found this little poem i wrote on a napkin way back then. Still feels true, so as we weren’t able to take our trip to Jerusalem this year, nice to still have her poems on crumpled napkins, in my heart, and on my skin and in my bones some how, as well as many friends who are still there, all of whose voices are alive to me as poems on napkins!

From these ancient domed moon touched white stone rooftops
another young man falls asleep…
on his skin, maccadamean nut scent, cumin, paprika
and all the people’s food’s fragrances, like voices, settle into night.
when i wake up, i hope i’m old like you friend, lover, inexhaustible hope-er;
for if we die in our sleep
the alarm clock won’t go off for anyone
and the violins and trumpets we dreamed of as floating above us,
will fall to earth and be engraved
in these endless rolling whitestone rooftops,
as a young man’s bones.
But, for now, moon is a blanket of sheer white light
illuminating us all throughout the night.

Show me how to do the boring stuff better God
fold the socks, take out the trash, look with hope
back at my dog. Otherwise, the day is lost,
as this is today’s incense, rising up to You.
And, let changing the oil in my car, be a sacrament today!

Since those wild urban coyotes brought me out of dream last night, here was another poem i wrote in response, sleepily, on my napkin, as their eerie response to sirens in a vacant city, felt like a good metaphor for our times-such longing, but still responsive to our distress calls at night:

the wild coyotes in my backyard tonight
are yelping again at our empty citied sirens
responding to our distress calls, they awaken us again into
the night we are actually in. Perhaps,
teaching us to pray, in their own longingly authentic way.
Or at least, they teach us-how to yelp well in response to night.

Art responding….making art in response to other art!

Often, when i see great art, i make art responses as a way of listening more deeply to it, and allowing myself to be transformed by the painting. To I-thou with one’s art in order to engage my own imagination in encountering the art in love. This is one way to be transformed by one another’s art.

Art response is my favorite way of knowing. Art is epistemology for me. Or at least one way encounter more deeply-with more of myself.

Here’s a poem i wrote in response to Mark Rothko’s painting called “Slow Swirl at the Edge of the Sea”! Regardless, making art in response to art, helps me interpret and listen well to other-to encounter rather than use or consume.

Here’s an art response, to that tender painting I put up earlier. Getting back into art responding! Fun! Next time you see art, make art in response—it opens a deeper dialogue! Even if the poems not good, it takes you into a deeper encounter, and more understanding of the piece, i think. Art challenge, your way today!

My art response to Rothko’s painting:

There is sea, sky, and
the unseen swirl between
two worlds,
two lovers…on an edge
between- that
is,
us
all.
That
kingdom
is always
in our midst;
but too
rarely
seen.
much less
lived in.
For only
Love
can live
there-
by that
Sea.

From an evening, and many others, I’m sure….(working on a few little poems this week; good to listen to the older rhythms (like what park holds in evening) in turbulent times like ours, i think… thanks for your patience, as i try to listen to older things, like evening; helps me stay in Peace anyways) What evening holds….this one written in a european park we once lived near:

Evenings here, are matured. As when a park has listened to a neighborhood for generations and they know one another, and gathered all that conversation into the roots of her trees. Each bench holds in deco shaped curved steel what trees can only feel. Like the sound of listening itself, across many generations. Or two content lovers in a park, leaning into one another, just doting in wonder, endlessly. I’ve always liked the sound of listening. I’ve often heard it in my favorite paintings. Evening holds at least that much.

And there was morning, and there was evening….

Morning talks:
The bear shaped tree on the hill out my window, is always talking to some sea, i can’t quiet see through the brighter sudden-flashed pastels of morning glory. The sturdiness of bear, the transparency of the sky, while the sea is just listening to them talk, starting a good conversation—at least at dawn.
Morning knows the art of to how to start a conversation well.

Evening’s job:
That pastel glow of evening, how does it know when to go? After making the day remember itself so well, it just vanishes…each color having done their job for the day, trail off into night.
Evening knows the art of timely vanishing!

Windsong:
And even if,
our harps are hanging
on strange bushes, with
strings vibrating alone,
they must still play; as chimes do, and
as we must,
to be.
For,
if we don’t play
them (our instruments which we are)-the Wind will sing without us!
And we’ll be less
ourselves
for not having lamented
with them
and one another
forever.
At least that’s
what chimes teach.

Complete Your Handiwork, God!

Psalm 138 ends with this great idea: God will complete His art—the art which we each are. Been thinking about how God always completes His symbols, and that we are those poems, signs and wonders, symbols, He is writing.

Psalm 139 goes on of course to reveal just how thoroughly He knows us, even before we barely knew ourselves—ie in the womb. That we, like nature, are wonderfully made; and that He sings us as a celebration of Himself—these song are the true songs of ourselves. The Namer, naming us out loud for pleasure.

These two songs taken together, reveal how much God celebrates true identity! And that the Author is also the Finisher of His Own Art—that art which we are! He who began a good poem in you, will finish it! And pronounce it forever!

Confessions of an extroverted monk:
When you love people, and can’t be with them…what then….
Of course, i love people, encouraging and being with them, so times of social isolation are challenging for us “people, people”. My friend used to ask—just how many people did you see today! Many, i assure you. I like people. My best poems are written in people, i’m sure.

Yet, I also find it exciting to develop more contemplative practices—taking slow gazing walks, looking more deeply into my wife’s eyes. Watching Spring return, each flower an overcoming statement, a declaration of Life. Paying better attention to my dog’s needs. And listening for that still small Voice, which is like a symphony inside a whisper! That one Elijah heard.

We will all return to one another soon enough, but while away, we pray each day, and come closer to one another in that deeper heart- waiting, and common vulnerability. In that house of prayer not built with hands!
There are many spiritual opportunities now. Stillness, learning silence, gazing more deeply. Expressing more thoroughly…

So stillness, silence and aloneness aren’t my primary spirituality-i was never cut out for monkhood, nor was i for celibacy! And yet, this period of forced isolation is allowing me to develop my inner life.

That quiet space of just being-that I AM to i am space. The un-busy me. I think that is a great fruit coming from this pull back time we are currently all in.
Plus, i can hear the birds better and listen to the sound of slow falling rain on tree leaves again. Thankful. More holiness is formed from here, this enforced Sabbath, I’m sure. Be quick to listen, and slow to speak, as the old wisdom put it!

And I promise when we do return to the table, i will love you even more, and playfully, listen to you more deeply, having sat more patiently alone in that silent knowing of Love. Plus, i’ve learned to hear the layerings of bird songs and church bells i didn’t know were nearby during this time of contemplation and retreat.