Talking to another comedian/artist minister (i.e. servant) friend yesterday about coming on and off stage ( both sides of life!): I think it’s similar with ministers and comedians and artists. I like both the onstage and backstage lives of stars! Those meant to give the gift of shine, shimmer or glory to others!

“When i step off stage, i am walking on air for a while, then the normalcy of life hits me. The letters to open, the bills to pay, my health. But on stage i am practicing to be an angel; then suddenly i fall to earth again. How to do this balancing act? Some artist just stay high all the time, and crash in silence.

I wanted to integrate my on and off stage selves! I found the secret was to keep serving with your star power, once you step off stage!
To use that hightenedness to bless others. To bring the tight rope down to the people.

And yet…however in what people call “real life”, I was never prepared for so much normalcy. Alas.

Life has always been a heightened event for me—breathing in the rarified oxygen of The Spirit. When i left the circus, the supermarket made no sense. The common worries of each day. And yet, i have found the circus again within them by now. I’m not bored, because i now serve up the circus to others wherever i am. In the tax line, at the post office, i juggle and do trapeze! I now serve the circus for and to the people.”

That’s a reasonable response to living a heightened life as a gift to others! Nice to be in a friendship spirituality with my friend, and to glean his experiential wisdom, as we go…the backstage, wisdom, still helps!!!

My favorite quote (by me, from an interview about why marriage still matters!) on why we try to live the metaphor of marriage…(marriage is still one of the higher, thus most difficult metaphors to incarnate!)

“Marriage is an impossible possibility, it’s a train wreck in the best movie ever. Yet, it’s why we invented trains. We like to link and risk the impossibility of intimacy and adventure, and continuum. Something in us, wants to commit forever to the impossibility of marriage! And that, in itself, is high symbol of hope!”

One thing feral (wild) cats have taught me, as we have rescued many over the years, as well as feral people ( i think i’ve worked with homeless folks since age 9 at least)…

Feral cats have taught me much about people who experience themselves as ferrel, unvalidated, orphaned-distrustful of the world, others and their environments.

A mentality of scarcity and lack of trust in others, is not only dangerous to ourselves, but antithetical to the way Love works and forms us. We can’t receive gifts from others until we know we are beloved, in short. This is why the real gospel starts with God so loved us…

But reversal of this early life experience is possible. I’ve found myself often involved not just with animals but also people, in part of the reversal of an orphan or scarcity mentality, and being given the gift of showering others with raw authentic acceptance, long enough to where they get the oxygen of Love and belonging to know there’s another response to life; maybe different than their early experience of it. That’s been one of my highest pleasures. To help people walk from the orphanage towards the Castle.

More on this soon, as I’m considering what i’ve learned thus far from helping people, creatures, places and things which see themselves as discarded, victimized orphaned or feral.

I’ve worked with one cat for seven years to build his trust spectrum. People often take longer. This cat still is skittish around others, but will come close with me and my wife. Trust is a journey even with creatures. I learn so much from them.

Paradise is on fire
i can’t even see to cook.
All of us, hiding in some flooded cave of waiting.
Hope is the only safe lantern available to see by now.
So, I’ll light that One, at least tonight.
I guess we are all cooking in the wet fire dark of now.

Fires in paradise
cooking in the dark
here we are, and yet
we praise.

Staying in Sabbath (internal rest and tangible Peace) is subversive medicine for our times now! And may be our greatest gift to others! To stay centered in tumult is a sign of hope.

Our desperate need for Sabbath now! Sabbath still matters! We have to find ways to stay in Peace at least internally, to usher peace to those around us now! Whatever practices keep us in that place of usefulness should be prioritized now in our daily spiritual practices!
Sabbath in our days, has become a necessity, and essential practical daily practice.

Let us enter that Rest, so we can be people living from That Peace in the midst of global traumas! Wisdom dwells in true internal rest.

Sabbath isn’t a luxury now, it’s a hourly prescribed medicine in our traumatic times. In times of intense shaking, knowing rest at the center is essential. I had a vision once, that many would be burnt quickly into place. Burning is refinement but also essentializing.
Peace is the practice which allows fires to be purifying rather than victimizing. Let’s pray these shaky fiery times, refine us into being, rather than destroy our faith.

Sabbath is the way to find wisdom in the midst of tumult. When we rest in “I-Am”, we can interpret and better bless those not in Peace.

Let’s do at least that in the task of loving our neighbors in their current state. Sabbath is an inner practice, bringing Peace is our outer one. Let’s help in tumultuous times by being people of steadfastness in Love. Love calms the storms.

In scriptures, all the miracles occur inside the atmosphere of Love; Jesus lived from Resting in His father! That sort of miracle has Peace on it’s wings. It acts from knowing.

Miracles wear Love. And, Love and Peace still go together. The way to stay in them is to practice Sabbath or resting internally in Him. Sabbath is the most essential practice of our times. Love guides us towards that Peace which last, and makes us people of Peace, which is the most needed medicine of our times.

I get dreams and visions often. Once I had this one….

Had a vision once in which i heard a Voice:

“A great shaking is coming. Everything not pure or real will become dross. People will be forced to cling or burnt quickly into place if they cling/lean and come into true friendship with Me!
If they were willing to enter My Rest, i will comfort and form them. The storm will become a crafter of righteousness within them. I will use high contrast and trauma to refine.

As in the days of Noah, a great shaking is coming. But if you cling and lean into Me like St John, it will be a time of rapid formation of My Spirit within humanity. A time of accelerated spiritual growth is the opportunity of tumult. High contrast times, reveal and form character. Fire can refine if you are in My Kiln. Black and white can become color, if we lean into the Source.”

Feels close to those times to lean into His resting in Himself–that is, into true Sabbath.

A fellow sky watcher last night:

I see the sky at night, and i just
want to be there. Especially these days.
The sky has peace with friction and useful uncontainable silence
and endless unseen transformations. The Sky is possibility to me.
i’m a sky watcher.
When you see the sky
you just want to be there.
the sky reminds me
i am still a kid
just gazing upwards.

Why I like art?

Well, because I like thinking in and through symbols. Symbolic communication carries more weight or density than straight talk. And symbols can carry many thoughts and associations simultaneously like a dream. I’ve always thought primarily in and through symbols. Dreaming and making art are two of my favorite places to be.

Good art is first of all good. What Francis Shaeffer used to call excellence. Unity of idea and materials, true to itself, valid etc….good art is good art, in short. Then we can talk about possible content ideology, worldview etc. First, is it good.

Bad art like bad preaching is propaganda rather than impartation and transformative participation. Art invites transformative encounter. To the level we engage our hearts, we will know a piece of art at it’s core.

Some one asked why i like art. I like art, because i like thinking in and through symbols. So there it is. Also, i meet God fastest in symbolic communication!

How I see marriage: raw notes thus far…

Marriage to me is one way to be thoroughly transformed. It is a high way, and one of the toughest metaphors to incarnate. It requires so much death to self. I think that is what attracted me to it at the start. That I could be hallowed by something which required higher sacrifice. Of course, one need not marry to die. But marriage is a good way to die!

My wife and I are not only very different we are very independent, but we always come home into that space Christ has made between us. It is His new poem He is forming between us.

He likes writing new poems. He told me so, when we got married. If that gives Him pleasure, it’s enough motivation for me to stick with marriage.

I’m most motivated by spiritual growth. So when He told me that marriage would cause the most growth, i selfishly just said yes. I want to mature. So if marriage is the highest method, I’m in, i told Him.
Some people don’t like the idea of what they see as the limitation of marriage. I think God grows things best within limits. Like a canvas helps you frame your art, so marriage provides a frame within which to transform. Everything grows within containers. Even plants. Some containers are bigger than others. My marriage, for instance is a huge. It has room for almost infinite growth as we yield to Him and then one another.

The Third is always where we both lean. In that space, we become more ourselves. Marriage implies that Third space. The new creation space which we are together. And that space is unique to each couple.
When you make a contract with someone, you begin to grow within it’s boundaries. Boundaries are good. This is not that—the land is unique from the sea. God created like that at the beginning, and it still holds. One thing is not another. She is not me. And what we are is unique together.

Just as our physical body contains our soul and spirit, so marriage is a mystery novel that provides a contour for growth.
In some ways it’s less about who you marry, than how deeply you enter the union bond of transformation available within marriage. God offers options, we choose to enter and He meets us. That’s the patterns i’ve seen anyway.

When i first met my wife, i had a dream. In the dream a purple veil was drawn back between us, and I was offered a gift. The gift was a person who had been on a journey before me, and would continue on one after me. I heard a question, do you want to walk a while with my daughter—she is a poem and gem. It’s up to you, but she is worthy.
It was as if i was approached by a girl’s father who was asking me if i would like to take care of His daughter.

If so, you will grow spiritually immensely. She is loyal and true to me, though she is bruised and hurt also. You will have a long journey together and your marriage will be a sign to others of hope and transformation and creativity. Your marriage is a sign. And will be authentic, unusual, unique as you both are. So I will make unique art through your lives together. A sign and wonder. A slanted odd poem of Mine you will be!

So, I said yes, to this voice, and we went on a journey we are still on. A journey of spiritual formation, which to me, is what marriage is.
Unity in uniqueness, both people being formed through the relationship. This one was His idea, so i trust that and return to it’s particular labor. We were not young when married. We knew what we were getting into. My dad’s a marriage counselor, so i avoided marriage as long as a could! (a joke, but sort of true)
She is father’s. I am just taking care of something which is His. Helping her be more whole, as she helps me do the same—that’s how i see marriage. Her poem, the one she is, is God’s poem. I am just tending the lines for Him for a while. Marriage. My marriage is an art collage we are both still collaborating with Christ on. I think it’s already beautiful, but should continue to get even more so!!
Thankful for the new poem we are becoming together today!

My dad has spent 50 years trying to help people have better marriages. That says a lot about him, but also about how important and difficult marriage is. He likes helping people get along, but also saw that marriage was one of the toughest places to yield fruit. But also had the potential to yield the most. All of us are here because two people married-at least physically.

Marriage has the potential to be intensely transformational. If we keep deepening leaning into and becoming in and through it. God seems to like marriage. I do too.

Marriage symbolizes the Trinity of course, but it is also one of the most difficult metaphors to incarnate. That’s one of the things which attracts me to it!

Christ is obviously still working on His with His Church. It’s been a long marital journey for Him. That should tell us something. Marriage is like death and re-birth over and over. Most people don’t want to die to self. We avoid it. But marriage offers the quickest and most thorough method of death to self. Union with otherness. Unity with uniqueness. Marriage is a high metaphor. It has the potential to truly be fine art.

I hate to say it, but I’m more interested in the upper narrative than anything else-the big story our stories occur within. How we contextualize, and so tell and interpret our stories fascinates me most. To tell our stories we need a grand Story to interpret our’s through.
If your grand story is economic good luck. If artistic, be careful. If ministry, be wise. If it’s the actual story of creation, we may get somewhere. We need an interpretive lens these days.