Living from the mountain, with Paris and Ireland and every city park I’ve ever loved, somehow within me now, as I follow the dream of poetry which runs down the mountain into the valley of forgetfulness, where Jesus works. But where we forget the mountain, where we really live. My middle name means the Mount, because that is where I’m from. I go back often to the mountain to recall my Source. But mostly i live along the stream of poetry running from the mountain. This stream is living word water, and is the brook David wrote of—the one he was lead by-those still waters. Mine are less still, more like a babbling brook, but they are fresh, and carry re-freshment into the valley where we all forget our names.
This week i went again to the top of a mountain—as i love mountains, ridges, and rivers most! Parks maybe next, because all the people are just being themselves in parks.
It’s good to know your repeated or recurring metaphors in life. The places you go, which remind you of your real self.
They also reveal which parts of heaven you already live in.
Noticing your metaphors also helps keep you on your path, the path prepared beforehand to be your way.
I also the in between—airports, train stations and any place which reminds me of pilgrimage. That’s a big part of my identity. Most of my best poems occur between here and there. Like even this little meditation on knowing your core metaphors in life. Where you meet God, tends to reveal who you really are.
Sometimes God asks me to hang out in places which are less like me, just to be with and get to know His Son more. I don’t mind deserts, but I’m a green mountain myself. But sometimes I learn more about Him in the wilderness spaces. But He always takes me back to the mountain, the high places, the vistas—and rivers ridges and rims are my home!

Great books remind us that the mountain and melody is still there. So in the valley of forgetfulness where we mostly all live, it is good to read, to pray, to listen each day. But we also sometimes must return up the mountain to remember our names, so that we can bless others in theirs. Too much valley creates despair; too much mountain perhaps so much rarefied ecstasy that we are no longer useful to humanity. There’s a dance, or a climb and then a walk or run down a hillside beside a stream of poetry we offer to others. Or, at least that’s how it is for me!

Each of us has a spiritual landscape within us. We often discover that, by the external landscapes we are drawn to in life. I am drawn to mountains, rivers, parks and gardens, cities and artists.

Our inner identities are often revealed to us by what we are drawn to in the outer world. We each have recurring metaphors, which at first are “out there” but as we get older, become more internalized.

Mountains, beautiful poetic people, parks, rivers, and ridges are some of mine. Like thinking about finding my internal landscape by looking at what I’m drawn to around me.

Sometimes we have to return to these core metaphors in life to recall our names, and remind us of your story. I often trace the poetry stream back up to the top of the mountain to recall mine.

What are your recurring metaphors in life, and what do they say about who you are? Which places or things are you drawn to for refreshment and remembering your core self or identity? Those places probably symbolize your “home above” or it’s texture. What your spaces in heaven are like. There is a continuum down here. Jesus always will take you to those places to remind you of who you are, and how He made you. At times, He also guides you elsewhere to stretch you, or help you appreciate other’s lands. But it’s good to know your own!

In the valley of forgetfulness, where most of live, it’s hard to remember our names. One way is to remember the central metaphors which you keep returning to in your life. Do you return to the sea, the mountain, the rivers, a park, a dog walk, coffee house (all these say something about who you are)–where do you feel most yourself? That probably is part of your “internal forever identity” as the monks call it–that is where you feel most yourself, is probably a symbol of who you really are.

For example, my most overt ones are Paris, San Fran, and ireland, and specifically their rivers, mountains and parks. This says much about who i am. I like rarefied places. Places of high vista, and places where rivers are flowing, places which flow between cities and nations and rural and urban, connecting things, carrying hope’s words, and parks, places where people de-mask from their days are just join the trees children and dogs in being. These places for me, are where i feel the most myself. Knowing these central metaphors helps me live as my poem and pray authentically. They help me recall my name, when i feel lost.

It helps me if I forget my way (ironically, my name means way, so you would think that wouldn’t be a problem; it’s good to know your name, my literal name is way, mountain, and servant–so the way to the mountain who serves), to return to these sorts of places. They have become “spiritual” to me in this sense. They symbolize and I think, participate in the spiritual reality to which they point. In heaven, i live i places like these already. And I even think, these spaces participate already in that realm.

But the practical, for most people, is they can’t “remember where they are from!” I mean REALLY from. Which means, they can’t recall their names. And in the valley of forgetfulness where most of us live, it’s easy to forget our real names, and then one another’s. When we do, the world is just something we use to try to desperately “get home”. But, we are closer to home than we think daily!

But home is always here, identity and purpose always near! The Sacred mountain, we are always living near is just a stream or park, or walk away! We just must trace the stream of living word, which always sounds like our most loved self, up the hill towards The Source. If this sounds too esoteric. I just mean, if you like baseball games, traveling, walking in nature, it probably says something about who you really are, and your pathway in life. Find those recurring metaphors, and you’ll start to hear your name whispered. Many of mine are geographical, as i like travel–mountains, rivers, ridges and parks-are a few of the places i hear my name in.

And as i get older, those places have gotten more internalized in me. I don’t have to be in them all the time, to remember my name, as i did when young! As we get older, we know what we like, as they say, but also we don’t have to have the outer experience to know the inner! I really think as we get older, we internalize our favorite metaphors. If we like to fish, we know that as part of who we are, not just what we “do”!

Last night, at dusk (my favorite time of day) in a nearby park, could’ve been any park, in any major city, but it was one i know well, tree by tree. I was watching dogs get their last run in before evening turned fully to night, and there was a moment where i just felt us all like a great tree of life through generations, still playing with our kids and the squirrels, expiring the day, and our frustrations together. Young lovers under the trees, leaning far too deeply already into one another, the lonely french lady who only has her dog to walk now, the cafe workers who just got off, and desperately need a bottle of wine, and a poet or two like me, just watching us all–anyway; at that moment, i remembered, i am one who likes to just sit with the daily theater of life and appreciate how beautiful it is. That park reminded me I was a seer and be-er; one who likes to just resonate with things deeply. To be with the trees in wonder, and the kids, and tired parents, and restless dogs…that park reminded me who i am.

That’s how our central metaphors work in life. They remind of and lean us towards, our forever or eternal names, which always are waiting to break into our days.

One way back towards the mountain where our names reside and are Sourced, is to trace the stream of living word uphill. And there is always a stream of life nearby to guide you back to the meaningful path you were born to live on!

For instance, i often return to San Fran and stay in an old art farm house on a very high hill. That metaphor is one I easily can wear. The space helps me remember who i am, where I’m at, and where I’m heading on my journey! I feel at home in high places but which are grounded in nature and very authentic, and have a story. Those places remind me of my own story. We need these recurring central metaphors in life to remind us.

If you are nomadic, all those places you traveled to, came to know and love. They are within you now, and were always hidden in Him, as your part of heaven. The world is a metaphor, and it participates in what is forever simultaneously.

Living from the mountain, with Paris and Ireland and every city park I’ve ever loved, somehow within me now, as I follow the dream of poetry which runs down the mountain into the valley of forgetfulness, where Jesus works. But where we forget the mountain, where we really live.

My middle name means the Mount, because that is where I’m from. I go back often to the mountain to recall my Source. But mostly i live along the stream of poetry running from the mountain. This stream is living word water, and is the brook David wrote of—the one he was lead by-those still waters. Mine are less still, more like a babbling brook, but they are fresh, and carry re-freshment into the valley where we all forget our names.

This week i went again to the top of a mountain (one of my favorites in this case; one which continuums into who i am forever in heaven)—as i love mountains, ridges, and rivers most! Parks maybe next, because all the people are just being themselves in parks.

It’s good to know your repeated or recurring metaphors in life. The places you go, which remind you of your real self.

They also reveal which parts of heaven you already live in.

Noticing your metaphors also helps keep you on your path, the path prepared beforehand to be your way.

I also love the in between—airports, train stations and any place which reminds me of pilgrimage. That’s a big part of my identity. Most of my best poems occur between here and there. Like even this little meditation on knowing your core metaphors in life. Where you meet God, tends to reveal who you really are.
Sometimes God asks me to hang out in places which are less like me, just to be with and get to know His Son more. I don’t mind deserts, but I’m a green mountain myself. But sometimes I learn more about Him in the wilderness spaces. But He always takes me back to the mountain, the high places, the vistas—and rivers ridges and rims are my home!

Great books and real conversations also remind us that the mountain and melody is still there. Everything follows that stream up the mountain. That stream of life which always flows. Find that, and you will be lead up the mountain eventually, or at least, hear its music!

So in the valley of forgetfulness where we mostly all live, it is good to read, to pray, to listen each day to the stream of poetry running down from the top of the mountain! That stream has life, and allows us to re-member our names, and the why’s of life. That stream of His Poetry is alive! And life giving.

But we also sometimes must return up the mountain to remember our names, so that we can bless others in theirs. Too much valley creates despair; too much mountain perhaps so much rarefied ecstasy that we are no longer useful to humanity. There’s a dance, or a climb and then a walk or run down a hillside beside a stream of poetry we offer to others. Or, at least that’s how it is for me!

The mountain’s name, may be Father, the stream Spirit filled with The Word.

Excerpts from an interview i did this week on where art and Life intersect! Just raw clips here, but will publish the whole interview once out! In the meantime enjoy the snapshot version!

Art is meant to lead to Love….(just some good versus bad, art/religion thoughts your way today; there’s still a difference! One leads to living well!)

Playing around the “the rule of thirds today” in my art today-these shots. Turns out there are some laws of perception, which were already discovered!

Even city skylines have to notice the rule of thirds, as should good religion. “God sees us well!” as one monk put it. I learn so much through art-ing!
Over the years, people have figured out what interest the natural eye. It is also so, with the heart, i propose!

In short,the rule of thirds goes, when you frame something (painting or photography, and i would extend it to writing as well etc), or make a composition, break it into thirds, and put the subject towards the right or left third, not at the center. Look it up, it’s true. It’s more pleasing to be oblique! Which is good, like Emily Dickinson said, we are all slant!

Some art is just truer to Life than others. Mozart, Beethoven, regardless of all their personal beliefs, made art which was truer to Life than others. Art sometimes knows things which even the artist themselves didn’t. When we see or, in their case, listen well, we tap into a much longer song than us. Some ways of seeing are better than others. But, back to the rule of thirds…

Even our noses, are not centered. The gospel is also slanted in its own way. God becomes human—that’s just weird. The Creator enters His creation as a part of it. To exaggerate it, what if Jesus would’ve come as a squirrel. That’s about how weird the gospel is! The Father’s love would’ve still entered through a squirrel (as it does!), but He chose a baby human form. Tell me that’s not good odd art! Still, blows me away, anyway.

Rule of thirds—don’t put your subject in the middle; put it towards the right or left, and the second most important element on the opposite line. What bad christian art does is put the subject at the center, so it lacks the subtlety of the eye, and becomes sentimental or over stated. Sappy, in short, not true to how things are. In truth, we suck and are loved; we suffer and have joy simultaneously! We are in heaven and on earth etc. We are that sort of contradiction. And we are good art! Evidently, if we are to believe St Paul, we are masterpiece art! We are His greatest poems! (Ephesians 2:10)

Bad art is bad religion, or at least bad expression of it. Bad religious art, hurts the soul-as they say. Let’s see well to be well friends! Art’s not just for breakfast anymore! We need to see well, to know, and love well…seeing is the beginning of interpretation. “What do you see?” God asked the prophet Jeremiah. He saw well, so God continued the conversation.

Or later, Jesus said to Nathanael, I saw you under the tree. As a fellow seer, Nathanael was moved by this (a seer, being seen; i relate to those moments when our angels are watching us, as we watch!), and followed the Great Perceiver. Jesus saw into their hearts, it says in several other places. Evidently it matters how and from where we see.

“Seeing people and things, into wholeness is one role of art!”

Spiritual perception is rarely spoken of, but may be the starting point. If i see myself as loved, for instance, my life changes. If i see you as loved, our relationship shifts foundations!

if as Tillich said, a true symbol participates in the Reality to which it points, then it matters how we participate. Let’s be good art.
And art is a spiritual practice, at the end of the Day!

Beholding is a form of knowing. Beholding well, a form of Loving!
I’m still practicing see well. It’s a life long discipline.

But, just the rule of thirds alone, would help bad art become better or truer to what IS. We see, therefore we Love. Art is meant to increase empathetic and true vision of how things are. At least, that’s my art practice.

Let’s go and see well, regardless. For God enjoys perceiving through us! He is the Photographer, i am the camera! And He has a great sense of composition! He made up the rule of thirds! Just look at the Trinity, if you don’t believe me!

One of my thesis is that art is not just decoration, but a teacher of how to see things more as they really are. Art, for me, is spiritual formation. It really isn’t a consumer product or decoration for some gospel. It is more like a tabernacle of meeting and being transformed. As I see you, i will treat you. The essence of ethics is good sight of one another.

If i see you as a child of God with great dignity, as a great poem that God made up, i will treat you accordingly. So it matters how we see our neighbor! As we see, so we Love. I treat you, as i behold you. It is the same with Nature. So it matters that i see you well, that is through the lens of Love.

More soon of this pet heart topic of mine!

See well friends! I pray to see you soon, more as you will be forever, as George Macdonald put it. I need to see your forever self, to treat you with dignity today!

Prophetic vision should be more common! Just learning to see things, closer to how they actually are, is a healing action, and it becomes, a way of life!

Just some raw thoughts on where art and life intersect.

What we can count on:
(what wonder poetry is as you get older)

Surely, the poems are still
near, as they always were;
but back then it was all
or nothing, and you barely survived that. Now they turn up
quietly in dreams-a girl’s wrist turning in moonlight
at another corner cafe. Or,
a hawk flying low watching in care today, or even just a walk
where a sudden flower shows
it’s inner life in clear daylight, shuddering wonder awake again.
But still, the poems
are always lurching, or maybe now more like leaning, here
daily waiting for us to tend,
and turn the page again-to turn with them and listen well
until both of us are spoken.
No scroll, word or name is ever lost down here, much less a bird, squirrel or flower, a single word heard well, is a tower (some just now
take longer to come clear; our ears grow dim over years!)
Even when hiding in ancient jars
we can no longer see, the words which are ours are
waiting to be unearthed
by only we. This poetry
has entrusted itself to us!
It’s simpler to know wonder now-
That, we can count on.
//
(the Father just enjoys us, even when we suck at walking!)
The Father just watches us in wonder, to see what steps we’ll take next. That loving gaze becomes our forever home.
Just as we watch our kids in wonder, until they know and walk into their names. So, we
by beholding can parent one another’s souls towards naming.
//
What if your gift in life
was to see people well
in their days, when no one else saw them, to gaze
them awake in Love.
To care glance at them
making them visible to themselves and others.
To clear the haze with beholding…to open the real ears
and eyes, to let their names
walk out into the light of day.
To say yes to the backstage self
of our days, until we
all recall our true names
in that gaze.
//
When God says Stop!

Sometimes, but it’s rare, God
says, don’t listen anymore, just
go love some stranger, until you hear Love again. Don’t express
this chorus you constantly hear, already begun-the one the dead have come to be singing
with the living. Angels don’t always even know where they are
when serving. Serving itself
lifts their wings into action, reminds them of Wind and Flame.
Still, usually He asks me
to stop and write the poem of it all, even as it’s happening, until i love everything more-ie,
more as He does.
//
each day,i pray:
Who do you want to love through me today Lord?
If it happens to be you,
then pray i get out of the way
enough to download the song
correctly
towards you today friend.
//
I am a confluence-where things
flow together-
one who lives in flux
like a flume through a narrow gorge, i displace as water does…and
His influx creates the flux, i am.
the watermark i leave in you,
will be my sign, or mark of poetry
pointing backwards
towards its Source…
nothing will be erased ever
for our names are already
flowing forth in these broken lines forever.

Notes from my spiritual journal:

I always liked impossible scenarios. When i was young i looked up to Philippe Petite who tight roped across the world trade centers before they fell. Back then, few knew of him.
Or St Stephen who’s face glowed as was killed because he was staring at God.
I also like failed attempts like St Peters, who started actually walking on water until he started staring at the storm instead of Jesus.
And of course, Phillip who suddenly “appeared” in Africa. These types were always heroes to me.
At this stage of my life the most impossible thing i see—the new tight rope-is a deeper formation of God’s Love in my heart.
All the suffering i see, is now aimed at that end, formation.
God turns out to be the highest tight rope, and being more “in Him” the greatest spiritual stunt.
To really love your neighbor, is nearly impossible, that is, apart from Him, i can do nothing!
//
It’s much less about where i go or what i do now; and more about who i am becoming inside, and how i offer those inner tree’s fruits! The eternal ones which may grow in us all.
//
My greatest obsession has always been the true identity of things—seeing calling forth and living from that authentic place. Beholding that place in Love, and living from that place and addressing it in others.
I’ve always wanted that deep to deep life with others, nature and with God. The rest keeps floating away and altering, but that space remains.
//
Forming fatherhood inside of me, has become my highest goal now. The rest has faded. Expressing that place within, is a passion for me.

I’m starting to like this poem i wrote about the old man across the street, whose eyes i often meet, as he cleans the blue birdbath by hand daily!

the old man across the street
hand-cleans the robin’s egg blue bird bath
out of habit each day.
his wife is elsewhere now.
he has lived forever already
and nearly died many times.
We relate in that, and wave
or gaze occasionally at one another in mutual silent respect; and
the pecans still fall this season
into that bird bath-making
their own type of syrupy mess
which we alone are meant to clean by hand-
and the squirrels only take half
the bounty, the rest is his!
And ours, together, somehow.

in the theater with God:

my poetry forever
waits in unwilling seats!
come sit with me my friend,
the Great usher repeatedly repeats….let’s watch a movie
about ourselves! Let’s be friends
as we discuss the story. Instead,
we sneak in before the show
and tell our new friend,
I told you so…

Another napkin poem for ya this week:
(i keep finding poetry in my pockets!)

What we all share…

the old man across the street
hand-cleans the robin’s egg blue bird bath
out of habit each day.
his wife is elsewhere now.
he has lived forever already
and nearly died many times.
We relate in that, and wave
or gaze occasionally at one another in mutual silent respect; and
the pecans still fall this season
into that bird bath-making
their own type of syrupy mess
which we alone are meant to clean-
and the squirrels only take half
the bounty, the rest is his!
And ours, together, somehow.

Ok last napkin post i promise, but cleaning out the archives today, and found, yet another from when i was living and teaching english in Jerusalem, and evidently living mostly on rooftops even then! Love finding old songs which still speak!

jerusalem is best
at night in moonlight
on a curved white rooftop;
that’s where the song of songs
lands on earth. or a girl’s hand
slips into yours forever.
moonlight, God, and ancient white stone, kiss like this, there,
with our own true skins.

jerusalem is best
at night in moonlight
on a curved white rooftop;
that’s where the song of songs
lands on earth. or a girl’s hand
slips into yours forever.
moonlight, God, and ancient white stone, kiss like that there
with our own true skins.