Did i neglect your name
your sadness or your love. some regret
you implied, or tried to tell me, i missed along the way.
I’m sorry friend. We could have been
better. But, i’m finally thankful
for the nuances of your name today.
Even the parts i didn’t say.
Each day, I’ve tried to listen well
tried to make strangers come into the focus of friendship;
the focus of being named, that only friendship can bring!
but i’m sure i missed a line or two along the way.
I bless then, today, your missing lines
that could’ve been written by my heart’s gaze.
I’m sure the angels are reading them now anyway,
none of us are in haze,
despite me, despite us.
but i could’ve been a better poet
of your being. Still, we’ll get written
down as friends. Maybe,
that’s enough, to end well in Love.
We’ll wear each other’s names better in heaven,
I’m sure!

My mom is a great performer and has an angelic voice, and long ago, though she may not remember, as we are all getting older, she gave me a small riddle which stuck with me for life?

My mom gave me the first part of a haiku years ago, when i was a kid and already performing in the neighborhood, and later in bands. Every kid likes riddles!

Derek you are always loved because the fat lady never leaves and always applauds, regardless of how well you perform; though she often, like you sits in the back row of church. My mom is a tiny lady, so i knew she wasn’t talking about herself, but some other Source of staying constantly loved. Hearing the daily applause of being!

Sometimes she gives standing ovations, my mom said. Years later, she told me the fat lady was named Grace, which was my grandmother’s name, so i thought for a while it could be her who was praying and cheering me on.

Then years later, that her real name was Jesus. I had already met Him, and immediately agreed! He’s the one who always claps for us, regardless.

That little koan stuck with me. Jesus is the one always cheering for us, celebrating our identities, and always excited about our performance in life! Ok, got it! Wow, that only took 50 years!

Who knows what i will learn in the next, now that i know my audience! Although seeing the Holy Spirit, as a fat lady, has always slightly troubled me. Perhaps, that is just her current form! One for our benefit!

Our need for meaning:

Reading from some of the Viennese psychologist this summer to remember what they gleaned: I always look first at what someone thinks drives us to be human, and to change. The core motivational factor helps essentialize method. In Man’s Search for Meaning, by Victor Frankl that core would be our need for meaning!

For if we really don’t believe in meaning, it’s hard to make it through any level of suffering. His logo therapy was aimed at meaning formation or discovery! For he came to think that life had meaning regardless of suffering. How we interpret suffering is the key.

Freud put the will to pleasure at the center what it means to be human, Adler, the will to power, but Frankl put the search for meaning as the most important human need. Feels closer to the truth to me!

I’m enjoying re-reading, “Man’s Search for Meaning” this Summer. His philosophy of course came out of working with holocaust people, and his own life. He calls his theory, “logo-therapy”. Meaning therapy.

I still like returning to this book. Clear and humble toned, and kind.
Doesn’t meaning and what we value in life end up being one key motivation for dealing with pain and suffering as well. I think Frankl made a simple and profound observation about what it means to be human. We need meaning.

We need to be involved in a story which has meaning, even if there is great suffering in it!

Of course, Christianity might add that we have a suffering servant savior who is familiar with all our suffering and offers a meaningful narrative rather than escape to them. We don’t escape but rather enter suffering with Him, which gives them meaning. Rather than escaping suffering we fellowship with His through ours. That’s basic christian spirituality.

Regardless, this book is clear, helpful and even hopeful! Good re-read! And like Aristotle wrote about art in “Poetics”-we simply like and need to have a beginning middle and end in stories and in life! We need things to mean things, and have meaningful progressions. And according to Viktor Frankl, they do!

From an article I’m working on about the role of artists:

Great art is a new world which starts inside us or is implanted, of one closer to how the real world actually is, of meaning taking permanent root and residence in one’s heart, and being expressed symbolically, outwardly through some medium, as a blessing and a room for other’s sight and response to what is Real, and to increase their receptivity to Love.

The role of the artist is to find and reflect Reality well, as it is honestly, and will be, so others can enter living transformative contact with Love in Hope. Or meet God, in short! Artists are meant to be that sort of sign or pointer or highway towards the reality of hope. Artist are meant to correct our vision towards the dignity of life’s true dimensions. When we see things more as they are, we are by sight transformed, conformed to a truer image. Creativity is re-alignment with what is. In this sense, good art is evangelism towards Reality!

If Christ is real, one will find Him as one travels towards what is Real! Art trust that metaphysical fact. If no one comes to The Father but through Him, then to get there, we will have to find Him. Art trusts that, without making religious excuses. It says, instead, if what is is, then we will be fine. Let’s create. Let’s play vulnerably like children again! Art declares an unspoken trust in the Universe. In short, it says yes to things, as they are and will be! It implies there is meaning to life! A reason to continue. It’s an unapologetic apology for Life!

Ever thought about why we praise?

In the bible, I love their law about not eating the fruit of a tree until the fourth year. It was a model for spiritual development. A child cannot yet teach, until their fruit is mature; they must grow in study and stature, before having fruit useful to others. On the fourth year, the fruit was sanctified, or often sent to Jerusalem. Then after the fifth everyone could eat the fruit whenever. I like that model of maturation. The Jews were onto stuff.

Baruch Hashem–bless The Name! (Baruch-to bless; Hashem-The Name, it’s their name for God which transcends and surpasses all Names; i might call it The Namer—bless the Namer of your names! One of my favorite blessings, bless the Identity that your identity comes from! Our Father, The Namer of Names!) We find our names by praising His Name!

As one rabbi said, it’s not that God “needs” our praise, but we need to praise Him, to recognize our dependence in thanks often, i.e. throughout the day and night. Praise God. Baruch Hashem (bless the Name). The older i get, the more I find myself praising Him for everything, even breath. Every breath is a treasure which should be accompanied by praise. Praise often. This becomes more obvious as we get older! Praise is a way of life once you experience its fragility enough times!

Praise Him for the identity of all things!

We even are meant to praise for having identity, for not being the same as one another, for having differences. Identity is a high praise, as our unique identities reflect who God is. When we praise God for identity, we overcome racism and many other hatreds. Identity is a gift, and it is good that we are not all the same, and must learn from one another. Praise God, you are not me, but we get to know different parts of who God is through one another.

Identity itself is a sign and miracle and part of how God chose to reveal Himself, we are expressions, and expressers!—through many races, types of personalities etc. He is a God of distinction who highlights identity! The new creation is not one big blob. It has unique distinct identities! Praise God! Baruch Hashem we’re alive to express another day! And be worn out on the town.

Still believing in angels!

The other night i had a friend who told me he still believed in angels. And that every time he hears a great song, he believes in heaven again, and a spiritual dimension down here as well.

This fellow was native american, and felt the loss, especially in the church of a larger view of what life is-the magic, he called it. People don’t believe in magic and angels anymore, and it is killing them, and making their lives boring, and leading to more wars.

Why do we have to wait til just before death to believe in a spiritual reality again?, he asked me. Great question. And some of that must be that we lose that child like imagination as we become adults. Or for christians perhaps we’ve come to believe that art isn’t helpful to our missions. That is somehow superfluous and a luxury, when all the while it is a core part of who God made us.

We stop being creative, and therefore we lose part of our humanity and sight. As Madeleine Engle wrote. “We lose creative sight, and so no longer can see life, one another, ourselves or God accurately. Christ came to enter and transform and integrate, the whole person, including our imaginations. And that changes everything. Even how we interpret ourselves! Art also teaches us true empathy for others-without that, how can we love our neighbors in meaningful ways?!”

My answer to my friend was: I still believe in angels, because I see them all the time!

That should be normal for us, especially you Christians, he replied! I concur.
When our imaginations are awakened and baptized in Christ, it will be the norm.

Maybe “feeding the poor” involves us overcoming a poverty of the imagination as well! So we can better be His Images while here! His poetry He is trying to pronounce! Maybe we misrepresent the gospel and God by having a dull imagination! After all, our creativity is part of what Jesus died for and wants to heal! His creativity is entirely integrated with who He is, as ours also should be becoming! Maybe, in short, like Jesus, we should still be seeing angels!

Learning to be in your season of life!

How are you aging? Each season of life requires another surrender to become.

Talking to a friend last night about the two childhoods of life—the beginning and end, and how they are meant to inform the middle part! “We lose our spiritual imagination we had as kids, and unfortunately often don’t regain it, until just before we die.” That’s sad.

Henri Nouwen used to talk about the two childhoods of life—one at the start and the other at the end, where we are completely dependent on others again.

How can our two childhoods inform and motivate the middle part. He said, i still believe in Santa Clause and angels maybe even more so now in my 70’s. I don’t know why I ever stopped believing!

When I was a kid the tooth fairy always came, and then i stopped putting teeth beneath my pillow. I lost faith. Later when i had several aha moments, i realized my imagination had grown cold towards the spiritual dimension, and as a result i lost a sense of meaning. We need both the right and left sides of the brain and heart to stay motivated throughout all the seasons of life!”

This fellow actually put rocks which looked like teeth beneath his pillow, but the tooth fairy didn’t come. His interpretation was that she clearly discerned that these rocks weren’t teeth! He still has faith!

I often look at aging as living out each season or chapter of life well. And being in the one your in! Not competing with your previous ones! I love watching artists age because if they are wise, they won’t try to do what they did when younger. They aren’t in competition with themselves in that way. They are content with the season of life they are in, and working to be more fully in it! To shine from there.

“Most people compete with their younger selves rather than learning the season they are in well-as a result they stunt their growth and others!” Each season requires another surrender into the next level of trust, if we want to be a whole body of work, or allow the whole poems of who we are to be written, it’s wise to be in your season of life.

Let’s learn to be in our season of life, so the whole book gets written!

To see an old person who is ok with being old is beautiful! When we are in the season we are meant to be in, it creates and reflects beauty! You see that it is ugly when an old person is still trying to compete and win the turf and the prize. It doesn’t suit old age.

We are no longer in competition, we are now blessers at the gates. And if you have the right eyes incredibly beautiful. I love sitting with the elderly for this reason. That is the ones who are ok with being old. Be in whatever season of life you are in. Find God there, and be formed. It’s the most beautiful path!

A thing is being beautiful when being itself in its season of growth. Not trying to be other than what and where it is in life! Authenticity applies to all seasons of life! We need not compete with our previous seasons, but settle into the beauty of the one we are in. We were made to develop and grow.

Each season of life requires a fresh surrender into a new level of trust.

It’s beautiful to see an old person fully within their season of life. They can bless in a unique way they could not when young. And not in competition with some younger part of themselves. Find God in your season of life. It helps us all keep going further into the forest. Some of my favorite people are in their 80’s now.

That they are still growing and going where they are at, gives me hope. Don’t waste your seasons of life. “We don’t have to compete with your younger selves or others, we can rest in the season of life we are in!” That’s a relief!

Plus, we get to become blessers at the gates as we grow older. And we know the Source of all the magic! Let’s keep clearing a path in the forest for one another in life!

Spinning around the Lord’s Prayer today…it begins with, Our Father…

“Our Father…” Both ours, and a Father, (so the brother and sisterhood of all) the first two words of Jesus’ prayer. Jesus establishes true spirituality on a fatherhood relationship.

Reality is only knowable through loving relationship, is one hidden premise in this prayer! We have inherited a relational way of knowing. We are adopted into a family metaphor-so we know, through intimate relationship. That’s our epistemology!

If you set up the whole cosmos as a child to father relationship, you change everything. It implies a loving relationship of formation. Not a relationship with a principle but a Person. It’s not a merging, but a relationship. It’s a collaboration! This requires left and right brain engagement-a whole person encounter to know! Not just cause to effect, but parent to child, as the core metaphor of how things actually are.

It implies that the universe is not cold hearted. We enter a child to parent metaphor at the very start of the Lord’s prayer. Not just monotheism, but friendship with a Father figure who is Love, and particularly in love with us each.

The next line tell us to “hallow” His Identity, His Name is whole or to be hallowed. He is One, and is making us one! Comforting start to the Lord’s prayer. The core metaphor in the book is about fatherhood, and entering into that orientation towards the universe. Kids with a loving Father above us who wants relational transformation with us. To parent us in short.

It’s a relational epistemology from the start of the prayer! Great beginning of a prayer! Who you address firstly, and with what level of intimacy, tells much of the story of your spirituality! Jesus addresses Father. That recalibrates the universe into a parent to child metaphor! Still, such a powerful prayer, worth going through line by line in prayer!

Wearing the nations daily…
I love literally wearing the nations, not so easy these days, with globalization, but I’ve managed to still find a sense of place or origin in costume! Wearing a nation to me is to pray for them. And also to empathize—to “try them on”!

We wear to know, as Wem Wenders, the german film maker, put it in “Notes on fashion and cities” (a great documentary about a Japanese artist! Looking forward to his new film on the Pope!).

We wear different metaphors daily. Today, I am wearing Iceland, New Zealand, Israel, Belgium, Japan, Germany, Holland, and Italian (my Pantofola d’Oro-golden slippers, shoes!) ones. Trying to sense what each region does best.
We are all mixed metaphors!

Today, I feel like St Paul (but hopefully less hyperbolic, but hopefully in prayer as much for those i’ve been given to Love)!

I’ve always liked wearing the symbols of cities and nations. Hopefully they all will one day work into one outfit, fit for a King, not me, but a better one!
In the meantime, i’m in dress rehearsal! Plus, I love wearing the nations, to see who has what gifts! Photo to follow, it’s hard wearing so many nations at once, but it just happened today! Plus, wearing many nations, makes the coolest fashion statement ever! One, which i hope points towards eventual collaboration at some Great Banquet or party!

Thanks Jerusalem! I like thanking cities I love from time to time!

Jerusalem, you taught me to Love again despite and in full view of ourselves. If we can love one another where we are both at, anyone can. You taught me that Love is still possible!

You also taught me to be more honest about where I’m really at, and trust that someone will care. To be in relationship where you’re at, not wait til you have it all figured out. I appreciate your frank Grace Jerusalem. Thanks.

Writing love letters to cities is one of my favorite past times. Sort of like an active prayer. It keeps things fresh between us. Just like with people.