“Art without soul is like prayer without conviction.” Motto for Bezalel school of art.

Incarnate art includes brokenness and suffering and redemptive hope. Good art and living should have both complexity of suffering and light. Like gospel music or even the blues, or nearly all of David’s poetry. Authentic meeting between humanity and heaven. Where earth heaven meet there is loving friction. Art should reflect that friction.
This is the beauty of a storm. That’s where great art occurs. We are overhearing moments of transformation. Where the imperfect meets something higher. This is why an AA meeting is often more beautiful than many church services. They reflect the manger’s way, more honestly—the way of God coming as a child in an animal stable.
My own generation nearly demands it to be real. We want to see the seams, and the brokenness, then we might encounter what is making things less broken. “To see God, i need to see you, more as you actually are-broken like me.” Good art helps us see more truly, both how things are, and how they are being made to be.
Without seeing the fracture, we don’t trust the cup to hold water or something refined like wine, as one friend put it.
It’s not just that my generation wants to know the narrative. We also want a transparent story, so we can see light in it.
Authenticity is a pre-requisite to both good art and real spiritual transformation. Jesus cannot enter until we say that we are sinners.

A friend today…

“I just need a day to recover and be myself again and then i can serve endlessly. I really need a tangible Sabbath.” My friend said to me today. He continued, “I know it’s not just about being away from people, it’s deeper. I need a place to remember my name.” Nice definition of Sabbath—a place to remember our names.

I relate to that. I told him he could come stay in my trailer if he needs an escape from his roles (sometimes we just need a mental escape from the roles we play) and things he’s caught up in. Just to be himself again.

Aren’t we all just trying to be ourselves again, daily…..

This is why I think Sabbath is the most neglected practice in our times. To actually rest in Being. Or however you name it. To be yourself (outside your tasks, masks, or previous accomplishments) for a moment, still matters. To not just be defined by what we do, but who we actually are, and rest in that space and place, still matters!

Poor Father, He kindly waits for us to enter His rest, so that we know ourselves.

Sabbath is a part of Himself, we resist, but is the home of our identity! His rest in himself, is our rest in who we really are.

The mandate to pause was for our own good and health. The bread that came on the extra day was the bread of life.

That place is a real space we desperately need daily. Yet, we are afraid of resting in Him and being ourselves!

To be fully ourselves, means we actually believe we are loved, even adored, seen and named.

To enter there, requires us to be nakedly ourselves which we afraid of.
Yet, He edits us as, and when we do, step forward in that transformational trusting of stepping towards His Rest in Himself; for, Love is His underwriter. And we, His potential poems find ourselves in His Rest. Sabbath is about developing trust to become!

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. (Nice translation–direct! The other, i like, translates it, “I lack nothing that I actually need today!”)
Finding what we actually need, is usually about finding what we are truly being given each day! Nice morning meditation! Finding today’s manna….
It’s not about His inability to give us daily what we need, but more about our inability to discern what is being given and receive it in thanks, in short! At least that was my take away from this morning’s devotion!

One more thanks friends! From one big fish to anothers–thanks friends, for swimming in the same sea with me over the years!

Shorter intro as promised! I’m working on being shorter winded, more haiku this year. It will be a challenge to keep my life into 17 syllables! Pray for me! I’ll need it!

Just wanted to say thanks again to all the big fish in my life! The ones who keep me inspired and imagin-ing a larger context of Life! Thanks for being you again friends! You keep me swimming! So here’s one more fishy afterword, in the afterglow! I have many fish dreams, but you are some of my most lucid.

The Grammar of love…
Loving in the present tense, also matters! As my spiritual grammar teacher once said! Love occurs in the present tense, but is informed by past, future and, incarnated in the present participle! Loving is the way to be….in all tenses, and seasons of life! If you don’t know what to say, speak love, and you’ll utter something meaningful, despite yourself.

God is so thorough in the art of Love.

A yellow sunflower
sings by itself
for nobody
but God
and a few friends
who happen to overhear.

Watching birds today…

The birds don’t know they are green and exotic. They need us
to tell them. Or, to, at the very least, note their unique glories.

Please encourage non-abusive men to keep standing ever taller in this time! We need it!

Bless in the opposite direction! Today’s prayer challenge, i got from my morning devotion: when i think of abusive situations, which is pretty much everywhere these days, i immediately think about how to move in the opposite spirit!

“What if Hitler could have been displaced by prayer and kindness; what if he and Ghandi would’ve become friends!.” as a friend once challenged me with. Or, what if his father could have been loved into place, so that he was less absent and abusive? Good challenge!

I challenge you to bless any man who has ever blessed you in life today! Someone who moved in kindness, gentleness and care for and towards you in your life!

What a great and ironic time to strengthen and encourage the non-abusive men in our lives as well, and to help them walk more fully and forthrightly! As an act of displacing the false masculine, and to help women from wearing the false feminine!

It’s easier to find dark in others, than it is to live in and speak from Light, which is Love illuminated! To criticize than encourage. Encouragement takes sacrifice and true discernment, rather than our wounds.

Thinking about men who walk in integrity and kindness today (I know many who are truly laboring in Love in unseen places), and go out of their way to protect women and others who are in vulnerable situations; I am blessed to know many such men! Try to find righteous ones around you, and encourage their integrity, so that it may increase and displace the madness.

So, If you know a man like that, who have reflected fatherhood and true kindness towards you, lift them up-overtly encourage them today! Even if your own father didn’t, or couldn’t, there are those who have learned to walk in God’s ways—find them, and bless them this season! That’s part of displacing abuse, and clarifying our images of one another! Not to mention, getting a clearer image of The Father!

For in this divisive time, many are being torn down for the wrong reasons. Let’s amplify praise where we see God’s nature, regardless of what ethnicity or gender.

For, Saintliness is not exclusive, nor are the fruits of the Spirit—all by Grace! And they enter many shapes!

Gentleness, kindness, Love, Hope, Faith, endurance, self control (Galatians 4 etc), are present in whomever desires to download them, and allow them to be formed through death to self. Regardless of gender, race, or location.

Let’s honor those who are walking and increasing in that Light today, and it’s fruits! This is part of our righteous response to the times we live in! As St Peter put it, be ever increasing in love hope faith knowledge, endurance, kindness, brotherly love etc….the path has already been named by many saints before us!

And let us not get caught up in the current dualisms of sight. Look for The Spirit and give it room, amplify it! This is the opposite spirit of our times. To seek God’s Spirit in all things, and enlarge that blessed space until we are all more in it! I’m looking for bold and risky encouragements in our times! In unexpected places!

To criticize is easy, to encourage, requires death to self and prayer! That’s why true encouragement is so rare these days! To build up and heal someone is harder than to tear them down! Let’s be edifiers while here, especially in our times!

Love your enemy must at least include this! Seek out your perceived enemy, and bless them with Love! I’m proactively blessing older ones I’ve found faithful—men and women from wherever. To increase righteousness, and honor it in them, displaces the un-dealt with darkness in others!

Critical spirit aims at and focuses on naming darkness in one another; discernment increases the light in one another! If we want to see our world change, we need to receive, increase and broadcast Light! To speak words of Life as they used to say!

When we honor those who walk well, it brings Light and holds out and illuminates a standard of how to treat one another. Let’s at least do that much in our times. Find one person, who inspired, and blessed you, and proactively honor and bless them. Especially those you perceive as “the enemy”.

Honor your true parents, so that it may go well with you…..find those who are already walking well, and help them walk taller! That was my “word” from my devotion today. Just thought I’d share it. If it blesses great. I’m also trying to walk in that way of blessing in times where the airwaves are filled with curses! Bless you as you learn to speak life over yourself and others!