The beginning of Autumn alone, or merely last night’s glowing moon song, after all sorts of eclipses; or even a friend’s eyes, or crackle of their voice last night which said of prayer, “She’s been singing her way through hurricanes a long time”, teach us enough to know, there is no end to one another’s Glory! Or our stories! Something underneath is still turning and churning towards…

We are more than commodity!

Great conversation with some younger friends on not branding one another in life (on line or anywhere else—not seeing others in terms of how you can use them and their gifts), and how to practice seeing others as more than commodities. Since the economic metaphor seems to be where most people are placing their security and source of interpreting life these days, a needed talk with the next generation!

In a consumerist culture, these questions have become essential. If consumerism, celebrity, and branding of identity are three major cultural problems in the west, then best to address them now, as my friend pointed out!

How have you stayed true to yourself or authentic, with all the pressures to commodify your self and gifts? The one fellow asked! Great question. How do we stay authentic in a consumerist culture which worships celebrity? Good topic to converse into!

Part of my answer: Try not to see one another as economic units, selling one another’s doves and gifts in the temple. Rather how to treat one another as images of God, not marks of money to be bought and sold. How to be living temples as St Paul put it. We are more than products. Even on line, how to treat one another more as whole people, with intact narratives worth reading.

We spoke of how easy it is to commodify identity these days, especially before even knowing who we are, and what identity is. In other words, to content poor, but have such professional interfaces with the world. How the internet often encourages presentation before knowledge of identity or content. That as teenagers it may be ok to “try on” representations of self, or borrow voices in order to find our own, but then a stage comes when you need to be representing out of true self.

You must know yourself, to lay down your life! Or represent it to others. Good stuff! I learn so much in conversation.

On the way home, i was thinking about “entertainers” who had maintained their real self, even while having public personas. Can we interface from an authentic space within, regardless of how we are perceived by others. In a culture of instant and constant celebrity, this becomes important in the art of really living! Made me think of Johnny Cash, and how his whole life story became a parable of Grace, and he somehow managed to be himself in it!

Let’s not presume to consume each other; or, commodify ourselves, let’s see one another through Love’s bigger lens! Just a thought from last nights conversation with younger friends. Good concerns they had.

The motivations for self commodification are ancient—fame rather than significance, affirmation by others, and power or realm of influence.

Conversely, Jesus was famous for the right reasons. He also knew who He was before He laid down His life. He did not have amnesia on the Cross. He knew he was a King. Our motivations for self representation still matter and need to stay in check.

Liked this talk last night. Especially good food for thought for those with public personas, which is pretty much everyone now! Is your public face flowing from your true inner image? And are you treating others as more than their persona or a package of gifts to be bought an sold! Good questions this fellow got me spinning on last night! More later… thank God we are more than commodities!

Working towards an article about on line identity—how the internet has effected our actual intimacy with one another, for better or worse.

What is our actual tone towards one another on line, and how can it become more loving or mutually activating—i.e. as if we were actually in the room with each person is one of my guiding questions!

How to treat one another as the depth of poetry they really are! How can our on line encounters be overflow from our real love for one another?! Looking at some of those questions anyway!

Thinking about virtual representation as flowing from true identity! Rather than a mask of it. One of the questions i keep coming on—how would you treat this person in real time or real life?

Tone is so important. Often on line, our tone doesn’t communicate care. Tone again is the “orientation of the writer’s heart to the words”, classically defined. What is our hearts orientation towards one another, and how to we communicate that in each medium.

I’ve always been interested in representation flows from true authentic identity. So internet would just be overflow of identity. But when it’s reversed, when persona becomes personality, people get lost. A teenage stage of life, is to identify self with persona; but a healthier version is the symbol of ourselves matching and being attached to who we really are. Identity precedes expression, or on line representation. The branding of identity is another problem.

That’s self as commodity, but that meditation is for another day! Enjoying thinking about how we represent ourselves though. Sort of like what clothes you wear, and how they reveal what’s going on inside.

Still, we are often way too flippant with one another’s real self on line. How deep a poem each person is! Let’s treat one another as the art we are! Would i treat this person like this in real life? Words still matter! And tone indicates the heart’s orientation towards language and other!

If our on line selves are representation flowing from our true identity as art flows from the artist, then we need to treat each persons art as holy being that is an actual extension of their inner dignity. Just some thoughts today. Let’s treat one another as poems in every medium!
Who we are off line informs and creates who we are on line. On line is like a stage, where we dance and overflow…

Saying this week:

Grace is firm also!

How many iterations we each teach of the same poem! It must need to be spoken.
Speak us!

Practice implying God in all you say and do!

I like seeing things be themselves. Maybe that is one of my highest joys, helping things become and be spoken what they are.

The moon, really. Seriously, it alone is enough to know..each night it glows, reflecting the sun from another place..of course, we wanted to touch it. We, too, reflectors of a Son.

Fun photo-ing my wife this week, as always, as we roamed. One of my favorite things to do! I could take or make pictures of my love forever. Think I will! Makes it easy when we are in a city we love as well. Operatic settings make us feel at home in the enormous room. My wife is cool, and fun to photo! Excuse my excess of love! But love may be the right thing to practice these days. And thank God, love never sleeps, but rather grows in measure and depth as time passes. Just to be art friends is a gift, to co-behold together! Thankful for that small but splendrous gift! Sharing life with another seer, always good to also see her! Gazing is a form of love!

Do each entry as if it were your last. Good practice, I’m finding as I write this week. Makes you pack your heart into each word! And mean, or have become, whatever it is you have to say or share with one another!

Prose poetry is still one of my favorite forms. The prophets in scriptures often perforce, tumble into it to express what they see and here. Prose poetry makes the most sense to me, it’s a big room, and includes more of what is.

It uses more of ourselves-heart, head, body, soul, spirit, limbs engulfed more in and by Love (which seems to be one of the main points of being here-incarnation, that is!). Maybe we never express what we know all the way, but it’s fun watching people try in the long human story. Came across one section by a favorite poet Rilke today,
about the inner intrinsic glory of daily things.

Like this section of what he was trying to encounter and name well. Maybe we should be telling todays news in prose poetry, or try to live in it. It’s closer to what Reality is really like. Anyway, here’s some lines i liked today from Rilke (ninth elegy)! I added the last line myself. I like to dialogue with the poets, and add my two cents, or lines from time to time, it helps me enter in to their best thoughts…

Are we here, perhaps, for saying: house,

bridge, fountain, gate, jug, fruit-tree, window –

at most: column, tower……but for saying, realise,

oh, for a saying such as the things themselves would never

have profoundly said. Is not the secret intent

of this discreet Earth to draw lovers on…

(and into themselves, that is, what they really are in song).

Each of us, forever poems…walking towards our names.
Each of us, more than our function, each of us eternal poems, more than skin and bone; we are Thou’s forever poems. Names with a home.
Each of us forever names and thous not to be used by one another, to be it-ed out of existence, but to be cherished and pronounced, nurtured into pronunciation by Love’s beholding and kind tone!
We read one another on open mics, beneath the sparkling stars, en-toning one another’s nuances into Grace, healing with gaze our scars. That Tone is where God is. That tone is called our home.
And as we listen well to one another, we find Him there in the midst of us. And in the mist of conversation, we turn, finally, towards…
Each of us, Love’s sons and daughters. poetry becoming free verse. Each line a tender branch, waiting to bloom with words spoken in love. Each of us worth pronouncing forever, as meditations and reflections on The great Romantic Poet. And slowly, we drawn into our forever names. Slowly, we walk home in Love’s kind tone. That walkway is what we give one another, a highway, down here. Something free from fear.
Each of us, forever poems, walking towards our names! Each of us, when well encountered, will never be the same.

I too am art:
Something beyond function, i am
the broom with two heads, which is also practical
because it is there. I am here,
so there must be a reason
for such beautiful disfunction
on this earth. Even if, it is just
to sweep out two corners of the house
at once! To dust off probable impossibility for the future.

One of my mentors back in the day, was an artist who made long brooms with two heads. They were beautiful pieces of sculpture he would hang on the wall as installations. People often asked him about their practical use.

Julio’s brooms

He made brooms with two ends
and hung them on his walls.
people asked him why?
because it is possible to do so
i recall him answering
and they can sweep two corners at once
art is also practical.