Taking internal snap shots all the time, this time at a particular corner cafe which is also everywhere…

I take pictures in my head all the time. I’ll see an elderly couple eating salad on a terrace on a corner cafe, by a park filled with children, and I’ll see their moment a hundred times as universal. Often i just have to stop and photo it, but usually i just do it my head. Just noticing things with Him.
The woman who no longer feels beautiful letting down her hair, as she used to when young. Letting her know she is still beautiful, maybe in my eyes even more so, as she is relaxed now in her own being. Dark eyes, dark hair, ancient peru i think somewhere in her background. Then the Jewish lady beside her, perhaps some czech heritage, eats no nonsense and stares out the window across the park towards her dog which someone is playing with so she can eat in Peace. The daughter with her father. The two don’t talk much, but have been across this table for many years, at the end he hugs her. She follows him out, when he is finished. The little gestures tell at least a 30 year story. The tall fellow, dutch i think; certainly northern european vibe, feels a little awkward in his body, but is really strong and striking and interested in the beautiful Jewish woman who sits by herself and owns at least two businesses in the neighborhood, judging from her stack of papers and eyes. And I and my gazing self with my funny yellow shoes and clown socks, talk to the old and young alike, and I am as welcomed into today’s drama at this particular corner cafe, as anyone.

(Creature callings…towards a spiritual ecology…from a dream i had last night!)

Animal dreams: The whole world is a dust bowl now!

I’ve been dreaming lots about the creatures lately. I’ve thought lots about a spiritual ecology for years, as I was shown there were three neglected areas of Christ Lordship in His church: sight (imagination), soil (our relationship to the earth), and skin (our proper relationship to our physical bodies). I’ve seen the gaps in all three areas, especially within Christianity, as it’s been lived out. And I’ve felt Christ’s Heart to enter more deeply into each of these three areas! So this dream was welcomed! It was about how the animals are confused now.

Animal dreams! After seeing a Marin county beaching of the largest types of whales in the world this week during the day, this one evidently hit by a cargo ship, i had this dream at night…

So, here’s another thing my dreams were talking about last night. Nothing I hadn’t heard before, as someone connected to the animals my whole life, but a good reminder:

Care for animals is close to the heart of God. Not everyone is called primarily to creatures, but God is always there with them. Concerned and hovering over and with them. In my dream, there was a sheer presence and atmosphere of care around the many displaced and confused animals in the world. It was tangible Presence.

In my dream, the animals were confused by our chaotic global behavior. Whales and sharks were in the wrong places. Horses running through city streets. Turtles on rooftops. The dream was surreal in its displacements. The geometry of the animal kingdom was eschewed by our poor governing. They were living signs of our rebellion against the actual nature of Reality. Our authority trickled down over them into a shattered expression.

After the flood, my dream reminded me, God also made a covenant with the earth itself. He has direct relationship with it.

Especially in our times of so much human displacement. He leans into what is uncovered and weak. Those with a calling to the creatures are near to God.

In my dream, I saw many animals wandering untended during all these global crisis. Wandering in bombed city alleyways, and sleeping in abandoned trucks along our borders. Some were ravenous for lack of food, others just confused by lack of order. My dream said that need some Noah’s now to haven the creatures in love and order, and kindness. Good dream reminder! I’ve always wanted to be a Noah, which is probably why we have way too many rescued animals, and I walk around talking to birds often. Nice to be reminded that God does too.

One character in the dream, a hawk tender, said to me: “It’s not just to feel guilt, and act from that motivation, rather it is to find and see The Face of God in the creation. We don’t merge with them, we merge with God. And when we do our motivation is not guilt, but to love what He Loves.” Great quote. I wrote it down even in the dream! Keeps us from earth worship.

There’s a poignant photo taken by Dorothea Lange of a white horse running through the dust bowl. It captured what happens when humans are displaced and can’t tend the creatures. My dream was like that but the situation was amplified to the whole planet. Time for some Noah’s in the midst! Nice dream reminder! “Care for the weak, God is always there,” as one monk put it. Creatures included. For, the whole world is a dust bowl now!

Stewarding the animals in the midst of our chaos is a calling now my dream said to me last night. Noah and St Francis were whispering through this dream. Good reminder! A single sparrow is never forgotten. Not to mention a hawk or horse, fox or tortoise, or even us.

Arm into Person, a shift in metaphors of God…just midrash-ing today from da book of Isaiah: such a richly dense book of prophecies! Fun meditating today on the images God uses about Himself in Isaiah 53.

Reading Isaiah again: one quick take away from passage 53: The Arm of God becomes a Person. Nice metaphor shift at that point. Two types of images of God’s relation to earth. His outstretched Arm becomes His incarnation as a whole Person. The passage is very complex, but that much is clear in the poet prophet’s imagery-Arm becomes Person by the end of the passage. And then the Person is described in detail. The prophet poet starts with implying that he has seen the Arm of God, and then shows that He also saw the Person of God, which enters into humanity as weak ugly and bruised, and completely misinterpreted. Isaiah places the two images in the same vision, like a progressive image that God is revealing. An Arm becomes a whole body of a person. Body imagery is used throughout the passage-faces, arms and whole bodies. Fascinating passage to say the very least.

About the many faces (face speaks of the part of God which He reveals to humans—like when someone looks you in the face etc; Arm of His sovereignty etc; arm and face are used throughout this great book, one of the most erudite of the prophets) of God in relation to humanity. And the changing creative metaphors of His relationship to the world. Arm to Person is the simple version—like the whole shift from old to new stories or testaments. Nice two progressive metaphors in the big story God is telling about Himself. History is God’s autobiography, and He uses certain metaphors to express Himself. A Face, An Arm, and then a actual human Person. Cool progression. In this one, we trace the Arm into a human form to come. And it appears that nobody understood either of what the prophet is “reporting”. Hence the tone of lament in this passage. The prophet’s endless tears.

Also explains why all great gospel songs have lots of suffering and redemption, and even pre-praise (praise in advance of the fuller incarnation; praise ushers in, just as the Levites cross over the Jordan first, artistic praise and symbol, precede fuller incarnation… God symbolizes Himself first, then incarnates into that symbol!) side by side! Who believed the prophet’s report, which included both God’s Arm and His Personal incarnation into human form. What a packed passage from da Book.

I love spinning from the book, and a blast and a reckoning re-reading the major prophets this season! Isaiah is so subtly poetic as well. But Arm into Person makes total sense of the two big metaphors of God in history….

Living ironically: the burden of prophetic awareness…

Most places I have to interact with ironically. It’s rarer when the place itself is aware of its own irony. Then i can interact with it straight. When a camera shop, for instance, is aware that it is selling a metaphor of human perception, i can just enjoy it. When everything is just a product, i have to put on other lenses to enjoy the treasures of that shop. Perhaps its like this for all artists, or ironic participants in life’s drama.

A church building for instance, is also a metaphor, and a teaching about beliefs around the sacred. Specific beliefs. We “read” architecture to get to the theology of that particular church building. Just a thought. Maybe also with people, if we really do think we are just our external roles and not eternal poems of God, it’s harder. When we realize we are these poems, temporarily behind a counter serving coffee, everything changes in the depth of interaction. We have an I-Thou exchange rather than an “I-it” in Buber’s language.

Going back to the church building metaphor. When the true church is meeting in a church building, it’s interesting. It almost makes the building redundant, or just an echo of the actual Voice in the rooms. Most artists experience this when they go to a church building, if the true church happens to be gathered in that building.

Perhaps, its just being hyper aware of the symbolic meaning of things, even while participating in them. Maybe that’s one thing the artist brings to the table—the awareness that the table itself is also a metaphor of communion and community. Hum, some ironic food for thought, anyway today!
Maybe that is the burden of prophetic awareness.

Walking in the way the truth and the life…

Simple insight from a dream i had last night: we need truth, a way, and the life to live well, and in order to make it through coming storms. My dream had huge storms on the horizon, and many were simply not prepared. There was a moment when it was too late. I won’t go into the dream now, but wanted to share from what it was teaching. Knowledge, a map, and empowerment are all needed. And people are seeking all three. Some in better places than others. (Some of the life jackets in my dream for instance, simply didn’t work! It’s good to pick the right knowledge and safety equipment before jumping into the water!)

From that dream last night I’m thinking we each need both a spirituality and a theology of our own spirituality to start! To keep us mored in Love’s Ways and our truer selves. We both need to have spiritual practices and to understand our thinking around our spirituality, what it is founded in. This feels basic to survival. I won’t go into my own dream, but many were drowned int he coming storms for not having both a spirituality and a sort of theology of their spirituality. If we are unmarried or un-mored spiritually, it effects the whole. Knowledge alone doesn’t save, just like those guys in that town who knew about Jesus, but hadn’t gotten da Spirit yet. They had info without power to enter it. We need the whole package these days. Sacred information, a sacred pathway, and sacred Power to walk it out and live it!

I guess that we need is the whole package to make it—the truth, the way, and the life, as the Man taught. The information, the actual path prepared beforehand (Eph 2:10; at least a partial view of where we are heading long term), and the Life energy and empowerment to Live it out. Those are basic. And my dream was talking about them symbolically last night. I found it helpful. I realize some people and even cultures tend to emphasize one of these aspects: the truth parts (greeks) the way parts (more intuitive cultures) and the life parts (sort of power encounter cultures, like much of Africa). But it seems we need all three to be whole now and mored in Love’s Ways and our truer selves.

In my dream, some where blown away or drowned because they had no knowledge or truth (or just even simple reasons for their own spirituality; they hadn’t considered to articulate what and why they were grounded in ultimately. An unconsidered spirituality, can be deadly, as we are all spiritual as humans, and so mored in something!), others because they had no sense of their life’s whole story and where they were in it (“the path prepared beforehand to be your unique way!”, your part in the grand narrative; still others drowned, because they simply didn’t have the power to empower them to live well. I would guess that in helping others or ourselves, it’s good to look at which area is weakest and develop there!. Cool dream anyways, sort of a discipleship dream for lack of a better term. Or just how to be more whole, and help others do the same. Felt like sharing from it anyways. I love how dreams teach us to live.

Today a big storm is blowing through….Texas storms are mighty and humbling! I love them.
I actually get calm in high winds. Is that weird? I like intensity, high velocity situations, it causes me to center. Maybe i like high contrast—black and white photos! Tonight we are to have 60 mph winds where i am, i sort of get excited by storms. I know it’s strange, but there is something in them which causes me to come “home”, or to sheer myself. To just be human. And care for those closest to me! To be a mountain in the storm!
Weather keeps us humble. And equally vulnerable. I like experiences which make us aware we are all in the same story! Like kids standing in the face of thunder.

On writing and living:

This writer speaks of: “finding the universal in the local; loving each character until they become a recognizable sign for all humanity; that the purpose of writing is to empathize; to enter deeply enough to where the particular cafe becomes every cafe. Nice how writers know. Two other lines of hers i liked: “..honesty is one thing that it’s almost impossible to make a mistake about in reading fiction.” And, “…It is something only you can write, but which is not necessarily about you.”

Enjoying reading writers thoughts on their craft this week.

This one is from “On Writing” by Eudora Welty. I like hearing what people have learned from their art practices, regardless of medium. In her case, unlike some writers, she said the practice of writing should make you a better person. That she went with a 60% living well, to 40% making art. Other’s have said you have to give up life to make art. I don’t think so, and neither did she. It’s meant to make us fuller people, and more heart generous to spend so much time empathizing with “otherness”. Anyways, thinking, as often, on art and life and how the are meant to interface. Love collecting others earned thoughts on the matter.

Mountains speak of authority. The place of Authorship. My dogs, nature and other people look to me as a mountain. And when they do, i am motivated to become one. I try to be a worthy, trustworthy steadfast one. One who stays mored in Love’s ways.

When something flees to you, it calls for a Loving, kind, attentiveness to what they need next to develop. It’s similar with people. Flee to where The Father is. Find his face in all you do. Interpret even your own history by finding his face through it! Things know where it’s safe to be and become. Each of us do. We naturally lean into that shelter of being. And know when we are under it-in the shadow a mountain! We can be those safe spaces for one another. A place to meet the kindness of Father’s Face. A haven from the exhausting brutality of constant competition in the world. Havens for one another’s true names. We need havens of being now more than ever. Let’s be ones.

Flee like a bird to your mountain. Flee to where your true rest and name is. Flee to what is truly safe. And be a knower of that space in Him. And from there, become what you are. Father God be their home of being.

Flee like a bird to your mountain. The place you know refuge of being, safely to become who you already sense you are!

I want to be a mountain weaker or other things can flee to! I want to be a safe zone to become within. I want to prioritize my spiritual formation above my worldly success. I want to actually be a mountain for others to climb and be safe on. What other goal is higher? I want to haven the bird with tender vulnerable wings to cling to until she becomes. All men should want to be spiritual mountains. Safe and beautiful authors and protectors of being for others.

The birds on my land, and my dogs look to me for that daily. To be seen, named, known, and protected to become!

I can at least offer them this much. I want to become a mountain for them, the earth and my wife at least. A place of refuge from the storm. A place to be still, and know. A high place of listening and knowing. To be one who interiorizes the law or ways of God. Who gets them into his bones or response to others, and the skin of my daily interactions. To incarnate my ethics in real time!

Someone who prioritizes the developing the fruits of the spirit above my career or perceived success. One who has prioritized the inner life to where it is becoming the outer. An actual metaphysical safe space, for others. We need more true mountains these days. So many can flee to them. And be.

The native american seer Black Elk spoke of always sitting on the sacred mountain. As he allowed himself to be havened by it, he could haven others. To dwell more constantly in the Almighty, would be another way of saying that. To be a mountain is a gift for the world.

My wife, erudite as she is, wrote this yesterday in response to my beholding of our local daughter friend. I just told her, that people need to be seen daily, we yearn to be adored even for an instant, and our ignored parts from earlier in our lives, need to be filled with a loving gaze. The healing power of gazing at one another well, that is in Love, can’t be overrated!

the unobserved daughter
I see you
I see you where you dwell
I see you where you want
I see you where you grieve
I see you where you are unobserved
I see you tuck these inners away
I see you stand and walk with intent
The pace of holding high and competent
(Does she know?
Does she know
her skin, her neck, her belly, her bones, her eyes
are one story?)
Irish, German, African, Mexican
A story in your body, not
your mind, power, capacity
A story in the very thing I made
worth beholding on its own
It exists before me always
You read your story in your children
your work, your overcomings,
the external power,
the politic of you
But I see you as one, as worth the mountain
behind you

Thoughts on growth for you today! I love studying spiritual growth and development. Here’s a simple observation from working with myself and others on the journey of becoming in life:

Simple counselor’s observation: what’s not up to date in ourselves? What needs to be lit into the present season of our lives? What needs to be confessed, into thanks, into fullness… What child like parts need to become adult still in us? The whole self is meant to be in a constant maturation process. We are becoming full fruit, or whole houses!

Sometimes we have to go back and recover lost seasons, to be fully in our present one. To confess and cleanse unoccupied rooms or chapters in our life’s journey.

To update our lives, and return to places which still need healing, in order to catch the whole self up into the present and towards the future. We can only shine from the parts of the house which are already inhabited!

It’s valuable to clean the whole house as we go! Finding some dark rooms in our pasts, helps light up the whole house now! We want the whole house of ourselves shining on a hill, and portable in Love, into the valleys of our callings.

What rooms are still unlit in us? How can we bring Light there. And enjoy discovering each newly lit room. Let’s light up the whole house! To retrieve and restore rooms in ourselves in Love is the first step to helping others also integrate their inner houses!