On overcoming the deterioration of language in daily practice…for the love of language and one another…let’s make language rich again!

In our times, knowing your part of the conversation, and stewarding your words well, really are important and needed daily disciplines.
The internet is like a global party, where everyone is speaking at once in all directions from all ages, and stages of growth! Knowing who and when to talk to at the party matters these days, and requires wisdom!
Let’s be reconcilers of language itself! Those who bring back together the rich inner meaning of conversation, and host the right con-versings (con=with; vers=to turn; hence, conversation is to turn with one another!)
Let’s choose our words to birth the most Love in one another! Then, we will return the yield of loving conversation, and stay in the wheel of kindness!
Making our communication more One, that is, more like God talk. For language is a medium through which Love incarnates!
Let’s make our language a better temple for The Presence. When talk is cheap, let’s turn our tones to pearls of Love. Let’s land on syllables like that Dove on Christ did! Let’s not “use” language, let’s be in it with God. For Love is no secret, and language is what touches in whispers between us.
By language, of course, i don’t just mean english, but more what St John meant by the word, word! Word! Let’s be, in his words, “words of Life”!
Let’s add quality rather than quantity to the global conversation. Let’s make language wealthy in Love, and humble in tone again. Let’s at least do that, friends!

What I like about trailers and tents, is they remind us of the vulnerability and flexibility that the Jewish holiday of Succoth is trying to teach us! I have an old trailer for that purpose. To go into the tent of vulnerability and dependence daily.

We all are in a wilderness, in tents, before the elements. And it’s good to remind ourselves of that, in such times as these with so much false security—especially as many of our neighbors barely even have tents!

This is one reason i write from an airstream, but also, just a good reason to be equally under the stars together, as we all are. The Sky and the sea equalizes us through common symbolic encounter! Plus, it promotes creativity, to have less but do more good with it!

I like the part of the story where the prophetic symbolic people only had mobile tents for to carry the great Presence. A meager box and tent to hold the Holy Name—that was a real teaching and sign. God puts Himself in humble boxes, tents and people! And reminds us to climb in those vulnerable tents (even our physical bodies are so fragile) each day! The way of Succoth teaches us this much–humble dependence.

Though, i’m glad they finally built a building, in Solomon’s time, and may one day may do so again. But I liked the part of the story, when they, like kids had to follow a Cloud, live in tents, and carry a box! I relate to that way!

I want to live nearby that Name! Living in tents and mobile trailers, reminds me that the Name not the building is my shelter! Asaph, the priest.

Daniel, the Sky reader!

I like to write from the writers of scripture and find their spirituality that way! To overhear the tone of each writer’s spirituality or relationship with God, helps me get at a clearer interpretation of their messages. I studied Daniel for about three years.

So Daniel says: I want to understand more Lord, so i will “fix my gaze to gain understanding.” You come to me in dream, through your angels you bring understanding through trances. I can now see up to a certain point in both directions in history. I will share as much as you allow me with others, and rule this land in my season on earth according to what you show me.

So Daniel wrote down what he saw and understood from God, even through reading Jeremiah and other prophets. His book records it. And Jesus called Daniel a prophet.

Daniel was a practical mystic as well, who lead the subculture of seers in that nation who would later become the wise men. Years later some of these wise men, could read the sky well enough to find Messiah! Sky readers are rare in our days. Daniel wanted to understand how all of history tied together, and how it concerned his own people. He saw very broadly through space and time.

Daniel could read through time. And could see, but also understand. When he couldn’t he sought out understanding, and often the angels would explain what he was seeing.

Seeing and understanding work in tandem. Yet, many can see without understanding. When they go together, you have a high prophet like Daniel.
In our times, post industrialism distraction have increased, and most of the world is now lost under forms of consumerism, materialism and other forms of distraction from the Ultimate. But God is One, and has revealed His Story forever to those who would seek it out! “Love is no secret!” Yet, few are even trying to understand the times, much less read the skies. We float adrift with no context without the wise to interpret the Skies! The skies of history require us to seek out understanding, as the wise men, and Daniel did.

Daniel was able to, and while practically serving in government. A practical mystic, i would call Daniel, who fixed his gaze to gain understanding! He could see and interpret his times.

In turbulent insecure times, we need people who can interpret the times, and read the skies, and restate the ancient narrative told in them. To contextualize our own times in the long story is needed now more than ever. Unfortunately few are doing so. We need more sky readers now!

Prayer helps us to see more dimensions of things; then we seek out understanding and interpretation to fill in what we have encountered with His meaning. We see, then seek to understand what we see. Where there is prophecy, understanding is nearby; they work in tandem in God. That’s what Daniel modeled. He had both sight and understanding! The wise men could both see and understand The Star they were following.

So in prayer, if we are shown something, ask what it means. You can learn to both see and interpret in and by His Spirit! Let’s become sky readers, friends!

Once we see that Father is Lord over space and time, we can meet Him in every direction! Developing a cosmology of meeting God in both space and time was part of what Daniel modeled for us in his personal spirituality!

From my journal:

That photo shot in my heart with my homeless friend against and with the super moon! Him, invigorated to be alive again by this rare super glowing white moon, prospects of new work and meaning.

Some art you hold inside until it is developed later! Yet, †here is a grieving of sight. I’ve seen so much from 911 to my local friend tonight in gorgeous moon light. All of it forms me. And informs my heart.

Being in that village in Croatia as the first american; watching the berlin wall start to crumble, living in Jerusalem, seeing the effrontery of the end and beginning of the end of race relations; watching the bodies fall on 911 still sticks into and with me, like falling poems disintegrating into styrofoam dust…without interpretation or honorable funerals.

Making the local front page in Buzet, Croatia, for picking up trash, and drinking great beer with local friends afterwards! What a bash, those friends know how to facilitate life! Happy to have been in the story of the nations. I just keep crying about what i’ve been allowed to see, and be with, in Him.

I’ve had hundred of homeless friends in many nations through the years. They all blessed me immeasurably! I’m still embodying and incarnating all they taught me. And teach me daily.

I myself lived under many bridges (NC, Richmond, Boston, NYC, Albuquerque, San Fran, Brussels, Tel Aviv, and beyond…) for a long time also, and in my car, in parks, and later with ramblers; but, those who have had to find a higher sense of home in themselves without a physical home, always teach me the most. The true shelter is internal. And eternal. Sometimes it’s in one location, often it is mobile, but it’s always spiritual-what Home, really is inside us.

I’m not homeless or an orphan anymore. But that has nothing to do with location or physical shelter.

One day, you’ll see us all in One photo, and it will be gorgeous!

Generations lean into one another, like chapters. We are a continuum of one another’s lines in a grand Autobiography. Usually on earth, three chapters are open at once, which are meant to work together in tandem, be seamed together, but are often torn apart, and and in need of mending. Let’s be book makers friends. The binding is Love.

I like to think of them as generations of God’s purposes, rather than about age. As in the book of Joshua, there are usually three generations in concurrence, or at the same time. Each playing it’s part.

Often, we have to overcome contentions between them, to realize the larger story, and how the chapters fit together. But the narrative stream is always there, if we seek it and learn to live in our part.

Some generations, like mine are meant to connect and interpret and help the generations work together in tandem. It’s a priestly calling, like those fellows in Ezra’s time who went around interpreting the story so everyone could get excited again and understand.

It’s a cool gap seam calling, to hinge things together, and explain them to each other, so they can work more in tandem. But you also often feel the tensions between them and the gaps. That’s our privilege of fellowshipping with His unique sufferings over and in the generations of His Own Purposes. We get to hang out in that gap of becoming and linking with Him!

But the story is an autobiography about God, so He will get it out, regardless of who lives in it! I have a heart to see the generations work together so the story may be told more clearly.

I like seeing how the story knits together. Generational interpretation is underrated. So is book binding!

How to read sacred texts:

Scriptures contain many keyholes to look into God through. The writer’s spiritualities are one. Look at the tone of each writer’s relationship with God. What do they repeat; what is their orientation towards the language used—the tone! Learn to read into God, through these people’s spirituality, as my mentor put it.

When you come to study in order not just to increase knowledge, but to actually meet God, you start sensing the inner meaning of the text. You overhear the tone of the writer’s conversation with God. God is the context, the bible is the text, as another put it. This is how to read devotionally—i.e. as an act of meeting God, and devoting yourself to that encounter.

Our spirituality is meeting God through the stories and words in the book, and then living that encounter out in daily life. If so, learning how to read spiritually is important.

Listen to the individual tones of the writers to determine part of the meaning. For instance in the Psalms written by the priest Asaph, he is writing as a priest, so his concerns are: staying in the actual Presence of God whether on heaven or earth; interceding for himself and his people; and that all of Israel know God. Asaph also passed between heaven and earth lots in his writings. Interesting as he was working in the temple, and knew that thin veil between the realms through prayer. Even when he is speaking of justice against the wicked, he is seeing it from their future. From another dimension in other words, outside of time. Priestly vision, and spirituality his. In that line and way.

You can’t just make the text what you project on it. Empathetically listen in prayer until you hear the actual “voices” of the writers. This is a key to actual hermeneutics, or meeting God through study.

Hanging out with St John and Daniel, talking about our times….

When you look for relevant voices for our times, i am often drawn to two of my favorite writers in the old book: Daniel and St John. Both very different, but both come down on the right note in terms of how to make it through turbulence, intact!

Found this in an old journal today, still felt true, thought I’d share it. I like dialoguing with the old saints, as if they were still in the conversation, as I somehow sense they are!

Excuse my mystical exploits, but it you don’t enter the writings, as if they were alive, then the word goes dead and cold. And we need some living voices in our times to tell a bit more of the truth. I used to write my way into conversation with authors to hear their tones and what they really had and have to say. Still do, actually.

What I realized, upon rediscovering this entry, was that these two men, have become some of my closest friends by studying and entering into them and their times. And they are still speaking into ours!

I’ve studied and sat with St John and the prophet Daniel for many years…they still speak to me, and teach me about even our turbulent times.

Wrote this one day, when i was with them together in prayer and study, talking about this now time, where we find ourselves again. Daniel spoke of Jeremiah and his times, as like ours. Daniel, whose sub-culture was mystics and seers, but who kindly and in care served his king, even when going crazy, has lots to say from his careful study of Jeremiah. Your times, are like ours were then.

You are in the times of Jeremiah, he said! Empires falling a rising, and still redemption’s sweet endless scent still rising. And John, well, he spoke as often about moving in the Light Love Life of His best friend…..made me think again…

What would my friend St John say now, what would my dear brother Daniel say about today!

That’s the way i want to move and think in friends. Their conversation, which they are still having, is worth entering into…. Been listening to them from the beginning— Daniel, a mystic dreamer and a practical man, who served the ruler, interpreted dreams til the people got loose from the endless noose.

What would my two brothers say today in these dark again hours. I’m listening to their voices like Love’s towers, even as I watched ours tumble; i was trying to hear the angelic choirs keep singing songs of hope and mercy reigning somewhere far above us, and somehow en-gutted in our bones as well.

Daniel was practical prophet, and John a close friend-had that friendship spirituality, we are meant to walk in.

Again I hear their voices from different ages, saying the same damn thing—Love until we are released. Have faith that there is in exit ramp into Love! Love, in hope, or even blindness, that this story is meaningful, and has a Grace-full end. Love until we bleed for others, until we walk in furnaces and live in prisons, and still care more for others than ourselves. Trust that we are being formed by Fire.

Theirs was and is an endless love song between them and God, to plunge into there. I’ve entered there. And I won’t stop swimming along side my brothers, as they still speak from the long river. Two very still relevant voices in our times, i think! Good to visit them again today. Felt needed to hear older voices of wisdom still speaking this day, until we call it a Day!

They are both talking in the tone of discernment love and care for others, and even those they were being oppressed by. This is what impressed me first about the two of them. They modeled a spiritually mature response to their times. But that day, they were both talking about mine.

Some good reminders today when trying to study actual church history..try to think of the church as a story, rather than a static object! Try to think of her as a daughter or person, is usually where I start in trying to help others have empathy and care for her journey.

Some people find church history boring. That’s usually because they aren’t studying her spiritual history, her actual living story. What the living part of you, the part which is true authentic and has always been becoming? I often start there. Seeing her more as a person, rather than a series of dates and mistakes. I try to do that with people, and the church. What is its true story, and how can i find that narrative line in each chapter of its life?! And draw it forwards…

When studying church history, it’s important to find the true church in the Church. To find the actual spirituality living stream of the church in each season, as her story is cumulative and has an underlying narrative just as each person’s does! Many people just dismiss the whole story because of the bad chapters, but the real story is always at least implied each season.

Look for the Church in church history. Remember my dream, where there was a river running through History, and at times it trickled, other times it gushed, but the river was always there. Try to study into True Church history. Ask where was God in this epoch of history—where is there spiritual Life! Where the Spirit is, there is freedom, and that is the place God was growing in that epoch of church history.

You can find the true spiritual history of the church by looking where you see the Fruits of the Spirit! Enter there. See what God’s real conversation was, not just how the arguments were being framed.

Spiritual reform movement are helpful windows in seeing her true spirituality. Usually they come after crisis in authority, which is what we have now!

Other take aways….Often, when reform is needed, people turn to some form of monasticism or mysticism to “find God” again! In times of outer corruptions, people turn to inner purity, and practices which put them in deeper tangible communion with God. So you see worship and prayer movements, and simplicity, feeding the poor, study and meditation etc (Benedictines, later Thomas a Kempis etc). So I’ve been following the more mystical ones, and those who are just serving the poor, during this turbulent recent decade; they tend to speak from a more eternal space, and help contextualize things! In Ezra’s time, you needed the levites to even interpret the text!

There are always spiritual options to meet God in each era, since He didn’t go anywhere in any moment of history. You just have to find Him beneath the hype of that day’s arguments. Finding the true church’s voice in our times, is essential, but can require a bit of a hunt. It’s easier to hear the louder less in tuned voices. “Listen to the symphony to hear the daily melody.” as one monk put it!

I see God for instance in the medieval times, the true spiritual stream running and working through education, missions movements, charity etc. Many just look at the corruptions of the church in that era, but lots more was happenings spiritually! God was still in conversation and communion with His People, as He always is. Find the true stream, not just the banks, as one spiritual historian put it! Even today, it is easier to find the faults than the places where the true church is moving, and manifesting the fruits of His Spirit!

Monasticism and mysticism are historically, recurring responses in times of spiritual reform. And they are once again in our time of crisis in the church, and with authority in general. Interesting! Historically, the great mystics and monastic movements occur at spiritually dry or abusive moments in church history! People draw deeper into a purer spirituality! Makes sense.

Just looking at patterns in true church history today. Fun study! Let’s not throw out the baby with the bath water. Or as my Jewish friends say, keep looking in the river, you never know when you will discover Moses floating there!

Things I’ve learned this season (hope it helps and contains at least an intimation of wisdom especially for extroverts or those who find value in constantly serving others externally!

Things I’ve learned in a study season. Confession of an extroverted minister!

It’s ok to pull back and listen to more gentle winds in times of great turbulence. It’s ok to just consider things for a season, and be innerly prepared for the next. It’s ok to reflect and consider what is already formed in your heart, and what still needs to be. What part of God am I learning to incarnate and embody next! Which part of His Face is He revealing this season?!

Even if you are an extrovert, it’s ok, to have internal seasons of quiet growth. But it requires patience. Stillness, and just being with, is work for us.

Taking in the very best revealed knowledge in your silent seasons helps-take in the best spiritual nutrients in silent seasons! Seek truly en-Lightened conversations, where the Spirit is hovering. Go there, enter there, learn from that space in daily exchanges! Seek those conversations!

Find the living conversations around you, where Love and His Spirit are hovering! The most wise thoughts from humble ones are best to ingest when in a rest season.

Action will return, but the root system is treated best in rest and receptivity-even if it looks like nothing fruitful is happening outside you. If you find self worth in helping others, you need to remember, His ongoing work in you, will also bless others, even if you don’t feel like you are helping them.

Sometimes just your presence, when in Presence is enough to bless others, even if you have no practical tools for them at this instant.
Listening in Love is the highest practice.

If you find your worth in serving others, sometimes, it’s good to stop being overtly helpful, and resonate again with Him in your inner being-to find the inner monastery of being again, where just the two of you are sitting and chatting, running or walking.

To just fill up from that communion/ relational space, before giving again. Learning this type of Sabbath-ing with, sustains longevity in service. Sabbath-ing puts us deeper into the Father’s I-amness. It’s a good place to then later, act from. Resting is work for extroverts. Or rather a new Grace to be imparted. When we don’t feel useful to others, we rest again in being worthy at the being level! This develops trust for us.

If you feel useless, when doing nothing but being, you probably need to do less for a while, until you can do action from a deeper place in your heart.
Use your “off” stage seasons to grow in new parts of God, which you are less familiar with. Listen well to what these are, and consider why you haven’t embodied those parts thus far.

Read wisdom literature and slow down to that space of considering things outside yourself.

Sit in water rather than fire for a season. Fire always returns. Water refreshes and sinks into skin, to ready us for seasons of fire!

Trust the season of life you are in, to teach you what you need next. Be patient to let each season fully settle into you. It’s cumulative, even when certain seasons seem boring or less interesting, things are being planted in you, which you will need to be whole and useful.

Be ok, when seasons of change come! Welcome them, with heart opened joy! Joy overcomes fears of transformation. Joy is the opposite spirit of our times! It’s a sign of God’s creativity, and that we are in a collaboration together. In this sense, change seasons are a sign of hope, we are never stuck in our previous seasons of growth, but have a long trajectory into out eternal names!

Find the Cloud and see what new shapes it is forming. Follow and try to contour yourself to that shape. It’s alive, relational and dynamic. Last season’s dry cloud, may form a rain cloud in this one.

God is dynamic, creative, even in forming you! He is making the poem of who you are, even more perfectly expressed, in seasons of rest. Trust that. Keep collaborating! If you need to recall previous seasons to keep hope kindled, do; but know there is another level of formation occurring within you each season, which requires a new level of trust.

Some seasons are more about you. Others more about others. Be ok with both.
Don’t think God is going to keep showing you the same part of His Face. He wants to reveal the Whole Face. So He turns to let you know new angles and aspects of His Being each season.

Find the part of His Face He is revealing to you now. Look deeply until that part starts reflecting on your inner screen of being.

Since, life is a progression into getting to know and appreciate and embody more and more of who God is, we are free to mess up and make mistakes along the way. The dynamic Cloud of His Presence, will find us, if we seek it. Don’t worry too much about your performance, just be receptive to what He is forming in you–say yes, confess, yield until He is all the way into that unformed or decorated room of the house you are! And are becoming. And then follow it’s creative shapes through the seasons of our lives.

True spirituality is relational, so listen as if in a friendship, which we are. It’s a friendship spirituality, so you will know where Your Friend is always in the conversation and communion of becoming. He is with you always, no doubt, but we must stay engaged in the relationship-keep finding the contact point! God is good like that.

Thanks for listening to some confessions of a constant extroverted servant minister, as he becomes!

When God shares you again, as He always does, you will know it was His work in silence which formed that expression, and once again, be in thanks and wonder at His Ways! God always shares us with one another in the end!

So, in short, learn to rest in and into, your particular season of formation, and others will be blessed, eventually, and even in the meantime, from that useful rest!

In Antwerp, the church bells still tell me when to wake up and go to sleep. And the sea gulls also aid me in the mornings, as they must know I need help awaking again to the day.