Simple orientation:
Make the daughters know they are beautiful in a pure way, the mothers know they are honored for their endless labor, the sisters that they are cherished, the brothers, that we are one; the sons, that they are confirmed and validated, the fathers that they are respected endlessly. This is the most basic way. My gleanings from reading St John’s generational blessings today! Let’s do at least that towards one another.

Why I still like Austin, Texas: since she turned 178 last week, and I forgot to thank her for how cool she still is after these years! I know that’s still a young city in the big picture, but she’s still being herself. What I like about her….

Austin is so experimental. It’s willing to try new stuff, and synthesize it with what is already working. I do appreciate that. It also cares for animals and artists well. We have one of the only free health care programs for local musicians, which includes mental health. Bless your priest, bless yourselves!

We also have a day of each month named officially after a local artist. And we have ACL (Austin City Limits on public tv) the longest running music show in the nation! This week they inducted Roy Orbison, Rosanne Cash (inducted by Elvis Costello-great speech about hope for America coming from places like Austin—creative incubators and free speech cities which honor the past without getting stuck in it!) and the Neville brothers into their hall of fame!

Rosanne’s (who I got meet years back at Waterloo records-which again is a symbol of accessibility here!) speech summed Austin up. “You gave me creative community when I had no voice, until I could find mine!”

Thankful for how Austin havens creative vulnerable folks and creatures. We are the first no kill animal city, which has become a global model. I like the grounded progressive experimental nature of this city, and how it cares for the weak or fragile. We are certainly first adopters in many areas. And we develop it with leadership. Not a timid town even with the arts!

It has gotten a bit too expensive, but still about half the cost of San Fran, London and other global cities, and just as inventive really. Thankful for this city today. Still after many years, it welcomes the slanted ones of us, with Grace, and let’s us be human together! Each city has its gifts! This one is kind, and havens creatures and creatives well. Thankful for that characteristic of hers today! A monastery, with an enormous Texas Sky above her!

The Sky really is the limit, and as our local university (with 73,000 students, which we live just near!) motto says: what starts here, changes the world! So it has a global symbol making potential—an arts leadership mantel!

As you can see from her film industry, directors often from my own generation like Quentin Tarrantino and Robert Rodrigues-so many film studios here; mainly people who got fed up with Hollywood- and music of course, which is a constant (South by, but also ACL and so many arts and music festivals always spinning).

Sometimes it’s good to bless the place you live pro-actively! People too often, just complain about where they live. I try to see my own story in relationship to my city’s narrative. It keeps things meaningful. But sometimes it’s good to encourage your own city!

It’s good to proactively love the cities we are given to share life with. To be salt and light for their stories! Healers and Seers in the mist for them. Love your city, and help her finish her story and walk out her gifts! Wherever you live.

We live in several cities and I love them all like people with long beautiful stories and gifts! Ours here is a creative leader, and very inventive–i experience that about her daily!

I challenge you to encourage your city today! Get to know them where they are now, where your city is in its story, and how can I help pronounce their next chapter in the book we are together.

I love cities like people, and this person is pretty cool and special! I know her blocks and shadows, just like my wife’s or best friend’s, but still love them all into full view, and towards their wholeness! Anyway, thankful for this particular special city today. Thought I’d say so.

“We have already more than we need to serve. True wealth is service. Even if you only have one kind word or cent, or sentence-give it! A life lived in Love is more than returned, it yields past it’s time in all directions.” 3rd C Monk (my translation)

Love searching for wisdom’s treasures in history! Maybe because my dad was an archaeologist and anthropologist, as well as a minister, when i was a kid and used to bring back amazing finds from his trips, and imparted that cultural curiosity and wonder to me; or maybe just because wisdom is practically helpful day to day, and worth searching out!

“A king’s glory is in searching out a matter.” as the good book puts it!

“Serving others, ushers in a meaningful life, and people need meaning”, seems pretty basic life advice! As a better man than me once put it.

Anyway, maybe I’m like a spiritual archaeologist and translator, or at least an aspiring one! I love finding wisdom wherever it shines! Life requires that quest, at least! It’s the least we can do, in thanks.

Un-damming the rivers we are:

Each of
Our voices are like rivers…
half dammed from the start-
some dams occur closer to their sources
nearby the heart
when young; when we still are learning
our own names-the rivers we are, that is. These dams
must be brought down suddenly some times…
to free the stream, and order our banks.

once free, we learn to
direct the river, to follow with care its flow; connect it with others
we are becoming fluid networks, rivulets of watery song, we
grow trees along our banks-sturdy bark things. Then, later
we may discover other dams—bigger ones to dismantle;
ones which came way before us which others have learned to
take apart and re-approriate.
By then our voices have enough wisdom
to bless, in love, as we displace
whatever blocks His Voice from flowing
right through us, and out to water and connect His worlds.

But what of the beavers who build the dams
and redirect the waters of the earth;
these industrious family oriented ones
who never stop their work; well,
some are friends of re-direction
along the way; others need to be guided
down stream to play, until their endless work
is more usefully placed, and they
can help us pace our stewarding of
the endless river’s flow
towards heaven, and know
as ourselves, the river of
our true voices of Praise!

Last night’s moon…it’s corona alone was a stand alone poem!

The moon was so beautiful in the Texas skies last night, i refused to photo it!
The moon had at least 12 colors in its corona tonight! Like a child’s eyes or a keyhole into heaven. Entirely too subtle to be photo-ed. But well worth beholding! I took my wife out to see it in the cold garden, though she can’t see very well with her eyes, and my dogs, who see maybe too well.

How yellow whites faded into lime greens into deep fuchsia into raw purples—what a night poem the moon was last night! Each night speaks forth it’s own type of poetry, declaring the glory, even, as the stars, when we can’t see them in the day, remind us that the poems are still there at play above us.

I tried to see God right through her beauty, as i do with the beauty of people! When we see any type of beauty, do we immediately think of God in thanks. When i see all beauty in the context of God, seeing becomes an act of devotion, as Van Gogh tried to teach us. Sight is healing and becomes a prayer in this way.

I try to do this with people as well. The homeless man’s hands, the girl’s eyes at the market. It fights a pornographic vision of the world-to find the Thee in the thee’s. Last night’s prayer poem was the moon. Thanks God for that glowing governor of the night, and all your other types of radiances around us. Teach us to see Thee in them.

So, today getting the privilege of reviewing a book by an old mentor which just arrived in the mail (old school cool!)! What a privilege!

Dr Cliff Edwards and I worked together years ago on several projects. His first book “Vincent and God” was groundbreaking in terms of understanding the artist’s spiritual quest, both for Vincent and for artist in general. His new book, goes even deeper into tracing that inner pilgrimage which gets expressed through the outer art forms.

This new book “Van Gogh’s Ghost Paintings”, explores Vincent Van Gogh’s spirituality revealed through his art and letters to his brother Theo, but also through the art which he intentionally discarded or destroyed, specifically one on Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Great read so far, specifically looking at the paintings which the artist intentionally destroyed—one brilliant and revealing one is a meditation of Jesus in Gethsemane!

The chapter on Vincent’s depiction of Jesus in the garden of gethsemane, the night before He heads towards the Cross, alone is worth the read (how artist dialogue, commune with, and be transformed by a higher suffering, reveals their character)—what colors and textures the artist chose to interpret the story through, make you realize he was dialoguing from his personal life with the story through art; or as it says on the back of the book: “Vincent was painting as parable. In many of his more inner works, you overhear the artist considering Jesus’ suffering, alongside his own, as if they are together in that garden of suffering, anxiety and depression.”

And, this penultimate, often overlooked, scene just before, and leaning towards, the Passion, is, as Cliff points out, so seldomly depicted in art history; that moment when he tells His friends to wait and watch, and none do, and He breaks into depression and anxiety, probably over his coming sense of separation from the Father, was a scene few artist or people were willing to sit with! It’s a great scene in the grand story, but few have attempted to picture it, much less interpret it-even in the church. Van Gogh did, and wrote about it!

Plus, one of my favorite 20th C priest, Henri Nouwen wrote Dr Edward’s last book’s intro, and has a great blurb on this one, which he wrote before he passed!

Thankful to have received this book for review from my old friend and mentor Cliff Edwards, who has been working on solving the koan of Van Gogh’s spirituality for nearly 50 years! And in doing so revealing a basic spirituality of all artist!

And the book articulately explores the inner pilgrimage which was really going through and in his paintings and letters! A great map of the inner identity of the artist, and artists in general!

Where art and religion intersect is my favorite place to dwell, my part of heaven. So, very excited to review this book for and by my dear friend and mentor Dr Cliff Edwards. I savor the earned and long explorations of my elders this season, and honored to get to review and enter into what they’ve gleaned thus far! Thankful today to receive this humble and beautiful book!

I consider the dutch to have a prophetic teacherly gift, so nice when someone considers in depth one of their artist as a spiritual cartographer or mapper! Similarly with Jeremiah and St Paul, their life stories become part of their message! Cliff catches this trail throughout this clear and heart insightful book!

The gift of Glory: upcoming Front Porch Talks from us!

Today had a great front porch conversation with my wife about beauty, glory and how it relates to being a whole person, or true identity, and integrates into our spirituality. It’s a common life topic for us both as artist, thinkers and dreamers-how beauty and identity work together. We launch a bit from CS Lewis article on “The Weight of Glory”, but then take it in many directions, as Glory has many radiant rays streaming out from it, once we enter the conversation with God. This is a little God talk from our front porch. I think you’ll really enjoy overhearing this one!

In the art world and church world it has become obvious to me that we don’t fully know what to do with glory-our own or God’s- and the role of beauty in our spiritualities. My wife has wisdom in this area, so really wanted to record some of her insights on the topic!

How not to worship one another’s gifts but to honor and serve one another with our gifts. Even our gifts of glory!

This is a life topic for me, and we have a great upcoming podcast on this subject—if the true “use” of glory and beauty, and how it relates to identity! We explore a bit about what Glory actually is, and how we are meant to integrate it into our lives without worshiping glory itself! How to be more conformed to His Image, as the book puts it!

We aren’t meant to worship His Glory, but Him Himself in other words-not the outside of the cup but the inside (as Jesus warns in Matthew 23), yet the outside glows for a reason; for one, to attract people to God. His glory will blow your mind! And one day will, if it hasn’t already! When we see His Glory we will be forced to fall down and worship. It’s easy when we see it!

Just as it did when the disciples who went up on that mount of transfiguration! Or Moses on Sinai—just a glimpse of His Glory is so much we can barely handle it! Yet, when He came to earth He dimmed it down, He made Himself approachable in every way! That was how He chose to reveal Himself, as a baby and a man of no reputation etc. Yet, He also later revealed His Glory to His Friends and they were shocked!

This topic of the relationship between glory, identity and integration is a great one! The role of the gift of glory in spiritual formation it might be called. When we look at the beauty of one another, we are forced to consider it’s role in the whole personality. As Lewis put it: “If we really saw one another in our true glory, we would be tempted to worship one another.” Great quote highlighting what glory is, and is meant to do. Some people highlight beauty, and force us to consider its role in making us more whole.

ST Paul said, we shine like stars in the universe. And it’s true! Each with their own radiance, he goes on. Things being comfortable in their unique glory is where we are heading in the big picture—looking towards that radiant city descending from heaven, with all it’s bejeweled gates, as the book puts it! Enjoy our thoughts on this neglected topic of the gift of glory!

The role of beauty in making us more whole is also one of my wife’s gifts and life missions. So fun to spin around this topic together! I think you’ll like this upcoming Front Porch Talk, and I look forward to sharing it with you soon. Seeing ourselves, the way God sees us, involves being nearly embarrassed by our own beauty in Him!
When we see ourselves well we are made more integrated or whole. For, like David said, we are wonderfully made, and Paul added, His masterpieces! When we are truly hidden in Him, we are radiant like stars!

Of course, my wife works with women and clothing, which intrinsically deals with how we see our bodies and identities, and wearing His Glory to radiate our own beauty and glory. But in our talk we also touch on how we view God’s glory, and how it is meant to relate to our own. Enjoy this upcoming talk. Will try to publish it soon! And have a glorious day friends!

Shakshuka! oh yeah!!! Inter-cultural dialogue through food and art are the best!
Making Shakshuka in the Airstream this week, which i used to eat daily when living in Jerusalem! I love cooking in small spaces but making big hearted inter-national dishes, which remind me of people and places!

Cast iron delight, this one, and makes everyone happy! Simple, flavorful and brings the middles east and northern africa into your home, or wherever you call shelter.

There are versions I’ve had in portugal, and spain and even in Poland once, but this one is typical of Jerusalem! Even the smells take me there! This dish helps me integrate all the places I’ve lived. Food, like art, can help with integration!

Plus, its just fun saying Shakshuka! Northern African (Tunisia, Morocco brought by immigrants but became indigenous!) brought to Israel dish, which is sort of synonymous with breakfast in Israel. I used to eat it daily when living there.
(That, and the little sweet noodle pies they make, sort of a sweet shepherd pie dish(nice at night when colder)—yum.

And one good way to prepare for a trip is to try making food from where you are going. Tunes your soul in to a place, and let’s you know which spices you don’t normally use in your own culture! Culture is revealed in food, as they say! And ingested best that way! I have a whole cookbook on cooking classic belgian dishes using only monastic beers.

Shakshuka is the huevos rancheros (our local synonym for breakfast from Mexico via Spain!) of Israel, the english breakfast of england-nice to bring it home! I made some last night just to get in a Jerusalem mood for an uncommon return to her this year! Wow! Paprika, cumin, cayenne, bit of cinnamon song—Texas and Mexico meets the middle east!

We have a recently arrived Lebanese family down the street, who I have befriended; when i get decent at this recipe, i’ll invite them down! I’m thinking a bit more cinnamon or even nutmeg (the only spice which is two!) would help it come fully into the conversation!

Food is about facilitation of conversation between available ingredients and cultures! We have many friends from south america here, and now starting to have some from the middle east! Nice to collaborate culinarily.

This particular dish, hearthy, colorful, flavorful, and alive food! Bit like an italian frittata, but less french quiche-more mediterranean (fresh veggies and chillies!)! Happy colors as well! And pretty easy to make. Loved it. And my wife did too! Looking forward to more middle eastern food this year in person!
As the planet grows smaller, let’s share recipes for food and life! So much to learn from one another—a year of culinary and spiritual unification! People unite through food, care and eating together!

Anyway, cooking advice on this one, as Jesus said to the teachers of the law—don’t be sparing with your cumin (Mathew 23)! Ok, his advice was deeper about not swallowing camels etc, but in this dish, be generous with the cumin and paprika and everyone will be happier! And it needed some nice northern Israeli wine with it, but worked it with a Sauvignon blanc from New Zealand, which made it nearly as happy!

Really looking forward to heading back to where I left my hat in Jerusalem this year. I left my hat in Israel years back, assuming I’d be back the next day. I was young, teaching english, and the world was my oyster, as they say. This year, i get to go back and find my pearl, my marbles, and my hat, which i left in an arts community there! They’ve kept it for me, all these years!

I taught english in Jerusalem many years back. That place never left me, the city, the land, the whole thing. As they say, the scent of Jerusalem never leaves your skin! It hasn’t mine. My parents go each year for the past 30, but I’ve not gotten back in a while. Miss her today!

Today, when i was getting challah bread from our baker to dip in my shakshuka, i ended up talking to a girl from Galilee, specifically Tiberias—this often happens when I’m out. I meet international friends, and we end up in poetic conversation about life! In this case, about that land. How diverse, and how it’s not like how it’s pictured in media. How it has it’s own unique identity past all the world’s projections, and how we both love it for what it actually is!

She grew up in Tiberias, but went to school in Jerusalem; so knows the north and south in her heart. Her family runs a small vineyard in the north. This is common in the north as the agriculture is rich there.

I love how people from there talk so passionately about the land, regardless of their religious or ethnic orientation. Something touched there, when people are so passionate about where they are from. We talked about breakfast, and how Shakshuka is the huevos rancheros of Israel! It really is! Oh how dear to me that breakfast is! Dr Shakshuka was my go-to when in Jerusalem! So much love in that cumin papricka egg based dish! Plus…

I have so many buried marbles in that land! I used to carry around and give away marbles when i lived there, rather than lose them; i thought it wise at that stage of my life to give them away, rather than “lose my marbles”. So, I always carried around a satchel of marbles with me, which I wound give to special people and places. But I also literally buried many marbles in the fields outside Jerusalem, near David’s supposed tomb. Look forward to seeing if they are still there!

Still love that place, regardless of all the projections on her throughout history. What a story that city contains! What places and people really are, is often so different from what is projected on them. She is more than a symbol, she is the symbol itself! But also very grounded, so to speak. So looking forward to hanging out again, and just conversing!

And each city there and region is such a unique culture of being-it’s a microcosm of the world, as she said. Miss that sense of going one hour and being inside an entirely unique cultural expression.

I was teaching english to arabs and jews, and others, so got to enter the family lives of each. Oh, how I miss that place. Glad we are heading back this Spring! It’s something which gets in your heart’s blood-that place, and way of being. Very down to earth and spiritual simultaneously. Missed it again today, after talking in Hebrew to my friend today about the best breakfast in Jerusalem!
Made me miss the moonlit white rooftop evenings, and just the contact way of knowing there. You have to eat and have a coffee with, before you enter into the whole family!

I’ve loved that place since I was a kid, it was in my mother’s heart when i was in the womb. But it’s also good to have that practical contact with her as often as possible to remember. Looking forward to that this year! And maybe I’ll find my hat, retrieve and gather my marbles again!

What are your life questions and symbols?

What are your central life quest-ions? Mine have been about what is authentic spirituality; and how to integrate our creative symbolic dimension into our true identity. Both are solved in Christ. Since I met God first in art dreams and vision as a kid, I’ve wondered about how to bring together creativity and true identity.

I wondered what it meant to lose your life to find your real name. When Jesus told Peter his name, it was after Peter had seen who Jesus was. We find identity, by seeing and entering Jesus’ identity. But there was more to it.
Our new names get conformed by and into His, so that we find ourselves, hidden in Him. But this does more than progressively reveal who we are to ourselves; it also brings together parts of our selves which were before broken apart or dormant.

It engages our creativity and every other aspect of who we are. Since, Jesus is Lord over the whole person, we are free to create, and let that be part of our relationship with Christ.

Identity and integration have been my two major life topics. And I continue both to become more myself in Him, and to express from that deep core relational center with Christ. The two work in tandem and inform one another.
God loves the whole of me; God is One; His Son is Lord over my whole self. There is not a part of me where He is not meant to be Lord, including my creativity. These were lessons I got from my quest.

I often ask people:what are your central recurring life questions? And where are you at on your journey to answer them. This lets me see a bit of their map, and help offer what I might have to help them in this current season.

Knowing your central motivating questions over seasons helps you navigate, and know where you are in your story. So helps you think what you might need next.
For instance, I’m drawn to those who were further along in authentic spirituality, and integration of their creativity. People like Merton, Nouwen and others. Mainly for their example in living, as much as their particular teachings, though in their cases, i like their unique teachings.

They had integrated more than me in Christ by the end of their lives, and both had their creativity intact as well. So I learn from such men and women.
Most of my mentors knew what God was trying to highlight through their own lives as well!

For me identity and authenticity and His creative freedom are spotlighted. For other friends, other aspects of who God is. When i meet people, i try to see what part of God they are meant to highlight, and help that shine.
I’ve always been drawn to very singular or unique people. Like many of my uncles who were very eccentric and one of a kind. That’s partly because of my own identity and calling!

Often artist are used to highlight God’s enjoyment of unique identity!
It’s just one aspect of who God is: identity and creativity; but a very important one to have around to keep things interesting!

Regardless of what you highlight about who God is, it’s important to know your life’s quest-ions! As it is to know your most basic symbols. The most basic symbols of your life. Name, say, your three recurring life symbols. If you were a book, what is the theme? That’s one way into identity! If you can’t say, then ask Jesus to reveal them to you! He will.

And then show you where they are blocked in expression, and what needs to be cleared (usually through forgiveness and grieving and planting new life in that place!)

That’s the healing or being made whole process in the area of personal identity. It’s worth the work to be formed in Him.