Another quote I liked today about being caught up in that John 17 space where we are overhearing Jesus talking to His Father:

“The movement from The Father towards The Son and His Spirit is where our names are hidden. We find ourselves in that space where they are naming each other. Both our identities and our pathways are hidden somewhere in that space between them all.”

Nice way of thinking of the Trinity relationship as a space we can enter through prayer, and find our own names or identities in the meantime!

Studying the story of Ezra and Nehemiah today…that period of restoring unity, and renovating a desolated city….
Looking at the particular aspect of the Nehemiah story today, when he is on his horse at night surveying the ruins! Love that moment! Here is a man with a vision, who now has support from a king, sneaking around at night scouting out the broken gates of his beloved city. Great part in the plot of restoration and making things whole again!
What a poem: Nehemiah sneaking around on his horse at night observing the ruined gates of Jerusalem with a vision of restoration in his heart, which he hasn’t shared with the people yet.
A special private moment, which we get to overhear in the narrative, where restoration has been planted in the heart but not yet incarnated. Soon the priest will all join in, and the gates will begin to be restored, but in that moment, it is mere vision, and hope of heart.
Looking at that instant in the book of Nehemiah today, if you want to know. I relate to that instant in the grand drama.
Nice keyhole into our times today to come across again!

Just a little counseling insight from this past month talking with, listening to, and dialoguing with, other poems and people, cities and places….

What people are really like in their eternal spiritual selves! I always try to see that when i’m working with where they are at now.

It’s not idealism. It’s not just, I wish they could be like that, it’s sight into what they really are. Maybe it’s easier to see others whole, than ourselves! We need each other, it seems!

It’s trying to contextualize the current versions of us, in the larger story. Once i see a person, more as they really are becoming, they are always taller and more themselves, and usually filled with kindness of being. It helps me work with myself and them, where we are at. To heal is to be made whole. When I see someone more whole, i’m able to listen them towards that taller expression of themselves. Maybe that’s the goal of counseling.

Anyways, i enjoy seeing people as more themselves, and helping them move towards it. One of my favorite parts of helping others become! Hope i am getting to be more myself as I do!

Today found these two photos, and had to talk my way into them, to see why they interested me. Then, i realized that I often have to express in order to know. How annoying to others, i thought, then kept talking…so,

Confessions of one who must talk or write or art his way into Life each day…no longer for approval, but just to know where I’m at!

When I don’t know where I am, i speak and write, until i am grounded again in what Is. It’s always been like that. Expression is an anchor for me. Or, a tracer i shoot out to see the way through the skies of knowing each day.

So, Let my little words, meet Word in mid air then, and be happily informed, grounded and contoured, edited by this unseen encounter. And let my angels, much less other people, be not bored by my sonic explorations. I know that half my prayer is stumbling into what i’m (then Your) really praying. So forgive the introduction God, let’s skip to the good part. Thanks friend again, and also thanks for not stop talking to me over the years. If You, oh God, were not a babbling brook, I would not have learned to swim at all! Amen.

And some days i discover a ferris wheel above my head, and others that I am talking and walking towards a mountain. Those are good days.

Confessions of one who must talk or write his way into Life each day…

When I don’t know where I am, i speak and write, until i am grounded again in what Is. It’s always been like that. Expression is an anchor for me. Or, a tracer i shoot out to see the way through the skies of knowing each day.

Really spinning lots this summer on the implications of the Resurrection! Specifically in the areas of engaging and motivation for ecology, cultural dialogue etc—how to bring usher in, quicken His Kingdom (the place where He is already King) into all areas of culture and life. When I was studying at L’abri in Switzerland, my big question was about how to treat our physical bodies and the earth. Specifically what was our motivation for tending or helping to complete or steward the earth, and why value our bodies, or the physical. NT Wright and Shaeffer both addressed this issue head on. In addition i was interested in why the arts matter on a basic human level. These areas are still my main interest! Soil, Sight and Skin, i called it back then. Our proper relation to the earth, the imagination and our own bodies. These still seem to me to be neglected areas of Jesus Lordship even among Christians, though much has changed since my days in the Alps! Many more are now actively engaged with Him in these three areas. For which I am so thankful. It’s no longer weird to speak of a Christ centered ecology, or a baptized imagination which is part of our sanctification process of being made whole or more fully new creations. Nor is it as odd to speak of the physical body as mattering in our spirituality—health etc. Even the late, Dallas Willard wrote great articles addressing the sanctification and resurrection of the physical body, and how to live accordingly. Im so happy our theology is catching up with God’s Heart more and more.

Small daily kindnesses!
Today twice people invited me to their table, and said welcome, how have you been. And they meant it. This way, cannot be overrated in our times. Feeling like you are included in the daily banquet of conversation wherever you are is essential to remaining human. I’ve come to appreciate kindness in it’s smallest most daily little forms. A woman at the table also noticed that i liked shrimp with rose and said, “I like that you appreciate that conversation between the citrus fish and the saltiness of the rose, I can see you appreciate their dialogue, and savor it.” How nice to feel seen today! I really do appreciate the conversation between fresh sea food and a salty rose, and these two in particular were talking today, and in the heat, it made sense to engage in their conversation! Nice to be welcomed and seen today. I’ll try to do the same for those who come along my way later today. It really is the little kindnesses in life!

Just dreaming this week…

Two dreams this week. In the first I’m in europe and given access to an enormous arts library gallery; in the other, I’m creatively playing in Europe with friends arts friends from California, integrating the purified version of their identities through art- full play! Love it! I learn so much in dream. Transforming and finding truer images of ourselves and our cities is one of my oldest passions.

Deeper formation through the arts, baptizing the imagination towards a truer version of ourselves, still gets me jazzed! Plus, i learn so much in play. Watched a video of sea otters juggling rocks while relaxed.

So many creatures also speak to us of playfulness. And I’m sure my dogs dream as well—mainly of things to herd, as they are sheep dogs. So, playful dreams are my favorites! God speaks to me like that often.

Plus, just the lighting alone in dreams always blows me away. If I could reproduce those sets in real time, as many artist have tried to do, i would live in dream. Anyway, fun listening through my dreams each season! I often ask, where is the Kingdom? It often shows up most clearly to me in dream. Somewhere in between!
Dreams are cool. Like we have mini-cinemas going on as we sleep. How cool is that! Some books, especially children’s stories, feel to me like dreams written down as well. Those are my favorites!

Why love is still better than hate: thoughts from study this week.

Three areas God is talking about now according to NT Wright: How we know anything, who we are or the problem of determining identity, and are their any better or worse narratives-ie what is your narrative in life (what is your matanarrative?); how do you interpret Reality and Life. These three areas all shifted as we trailed in post-modern culture. And these three areas are where our answers matter most. Willard, would say identity, purpose and narrative also are the three big issues today. How we know, who we are, and what’s the best story of life? These three areas still matter.

The postmodern assumption that all metanarratives are suspect, has left it hard to interpret one story as more true than another. A crisis in knowing is the result. Or seeing everything in terms of power dynamics, and personal choice.

Then, there is the deeper ethical problem we all face. We can’t really live out of ethical pluralism where every story has the same weight. If so, we can kill jews or take ten wives or kill when we feel like it etc. Ironically, the refugee issue in europe has brought up a call for justice and fairness—but based on what standard or metastory. If all narratives are truly equal we face a crisis of interpretation in short. I like that point, NT Wright and even Tim Keller make in the area of ethics. You can’t really live out life if all ethical systems are equal! Nice reminder today in study!
The human heart still thinks its better to love than hate. Why is that, and based on what? It still matters which story you choose to live by!

I once asked a Rabbi also, what empowers your ethics? For Christians, though one doesn’t always see this in practice, but it can be found among spiritually mature folks, it would be the Holy Spirit forming himself in our heart and causes us to live more from and in the fruits of the Spirit—patience, love gentleness etc…

Dallas Willard points out that we need some sort of Power to live out our ethics. It’s not enough to just want to do good, to help the refugees and those suffering, we need real empowerment to do that, and live well. And some ways of living are better than others. It is better to love your neighbor than to rape them. Most people would agree with that statement. But if I believe all ethical systems are equal it’s hard to say love is better than hate!

I think that pluralism is actually a great opportunity to find the great stories again, and to pick out ones which feel actually true. It forces us to discern the spirit of things, to pick and choose wisely what is truer. In this sense, it’s good to be moving into supermarket of spiritualities phase in history. Then you have to really shop to know which ones hold water to what is Real. You compare and contrast and see what actually works in real life.

I personally would still choose love over hate, but to do so, I assume that one version of life is better than another! Nice remembering this, while reading Wright, Willard and others on ethics this week! These questions still seem important to me in terms of practical living, and motivating your ethics. The way of love still seems better to me than hate. And our stories which have begun still seem to desire an ending…

Lastly there is the area of beauty, or aesthetics. If all art is equal, then pornography and picasso are on the same level or plane aesthetically. I have not found that to be true. Just to fruits alone would prove that. Pornography leads to poor relationships, narcissism and a corrupted view of other. Looking at art, leaves you with other sorts of fruits.

Some art actually is better than other art, whether i like it or not. Relativism in the area of beauty seems impossible to live by for me at least. Any given sunset, is more beautiful than watching a bomb kill thousands on the news. At least, that is my view and experience. It’s hard to live in the art world, if all things really are equal. Watching someone kill themselves is uglier than watching someone dance and perform well. At least that’s how I see it. Buber also argued often from aesthetics, and its hard to live if there is no standard at all of what is beautiful.

Why love is still better than hate: thoughts from study.

Three areas God is talking about now according to NT Wright: How we know anything, who we are or the problem of determining identity, and are their any better or worse narratives-ie what is your narrative in life (what is your matanarrative?); how do you interpret Reality and Life. These three areas all shifted as we trailed in post-modern culture. And these three areas are where our answers matter most. Willard, would say identity, purpose and narrative also are the three big issues today.

The postmodern assumption that all metanarratives are suspect, has left it hard to interpret one story as more true than another. A crisis in knowing is the result. Or seeing everything in terms of power dynamics.

Then, there is the deeper ethical problem we all face. We can’t really live out of ethical pluralism where every story has the same weight. If so, we can kill jews or take ten wives or kill when we feel like it etc. Ironically, the refugee issue in europe has brought up a call for justice and fairness—but based on what standard or metastory. If all narratives are truly equal we face a crisis of interpretation in short. I like that point, NT Wright and even Tim Keller make in the area of ethics. You can’t really live out life if all ethical systems are equal! Nice reminder today in study!

The human heart still thinks its better to love than hate. Why is that, and based on what? It still matters which story you choose to live by!

I once asked a Rabbi also, what empowers your ethics? For Christians it would be the Holy Spirit forming himself in our heart and causes us to live more from and in the fruits of the Spirit—patience, love gentleness etc…Dallas Willard points out that we need some sort of Power to live out our ethics. It’s not enough to just want to do good, we need real empowerment to live well. And some ways of living are better than others. It is better to love your neighbor than to rape them. Most people would agree with that statement. But if I believe all ethical systems are equal it’s hard to say love is better than hate!