Winter Stream

Sun's glow suspended

Paddling effortlessly

Caressing beauty

Thin Ice

We are on thin ice

Ozone penetrated by greed

Inequality perpetuated

By the pursuit of happiness

Lines drawn by race and creed

Stepping out, the creaking indicates

An inability to support the "same old"

Fragile beauty - linked molecules

Stretched to the limit as "womb of life"

Are these  labour pangs

Birthing of compassion

Primal call

Of fragility?

Hope is always

A metamorphosis

Benediction

Blessing

Calling forth

Recreation

The Star

Suspended star of heaven

Hanging idle in the cosmos

Fixed as tale and myth

True North

Generations have followed you

From your place in the heavens

Continue to leads us

to the Child of peace

The Letting Go

When all has fallen

The sky's subtle hues call out

Revealing Beyond

The Empty Nest

Southward they flew

Unaware of exchange rates or politics

Just as they had done in past lives

Hardwired by evolution's teaching

Crossing self imposed borders

Without so much as a passport

Nest now vacant - carved out and ready

Remains furnished - for those who would follow them

On next year's journey

Dreams

Dreams in crisp thin air

Self belittling discards

Wait to be caught again

Death Bed Vigil

When all is said and done

The eternity wait of dying over

Sky remains above us

And clay beneath our toes

When mourning prayers are uttered

The sacred words all shared

Then the sky opens

Just as a seed falls

And new life begins

The Whispering

Whispering Pine Trees

Canadian And Soulful

Direct Us Homeward

Sanctuary

As moth to the flame
Enticed for sanctuary

Seek the soul's refuge

Becoming Normal

Face painted and fixed

Frozen in its serenness

Hiding the kiln's horror

We who voyeur

In warring attraction and repulsion

Have become complicit in the secret

Of your unnatural creation

And fear the normal

We have created in you

The Dark

Darkness

Curtains us from the unknown

Imagination taking over

Creating terror

Even horror

With courage to peek

Beyond this curtain

Comes a stillness

Revealing to us

The light

On the other side

Nature's Confessional

Come and sit

Sweep away the blanket of snow and rest

Place your footsteps in the fresh

Fallen snowflakes and make your mark

Soon new snow will fall

And hide the evidence of your visit

Secrets will remain a mystery

Your thoughts are safe

Covered with a fresh blanket

of snow.

First Snow

First snow fills the void

The empty landscape's longings

For a covering

The Wall

Who owns beauty's definition?

Brick upon brick

Building a walled city around the good.

Is it the eye of the beholder

As we have been led to believe?

Or the eye of the creator

lovingly glancing around?

Is it ugliness embraced, scars enfolded?

"It is finished!" being uttered?

Is this beauty?

Watching flowers go to seed

how beauty resurrects

in the power of hearts

in loving minds

and in reaching hands

consecrating the darkness as light

this is beauty.

Hideout

Sometimes we need to find

A perfect spot

Away from the same old

Body to hold

Not a mansion

Or a comfortable five star

Just an old familiar hideout

A quiet place to unload.

Rainbows

Worns Symbols Tarnish

My Souls Metaphorphosis

Rainbows Light The Way

Forbidden Fruit

Mutual Awakening

While The Gods Hold Their Breath

They Have Become Us

Eye See Red

Chlorophyll Dancing

Nature Tricking The Senses

While Creation Laughs

Seed

Am I Vulnerable

Created Potential Waits

Wind My Catalyst

A Kites' Prayer

I Am Tetherless

Miracle Wind Set Me Free

Loose Me To The Clouds

Beauty

Angels Inhabit

The Changing Autumn Colours

Promises of Spring

Drops

Moments Transform Me

Flowing Self Into Eternity

Lubricating Essence

Pathways

Noise Bars My Entry

Only With Inward Silence

Do I Find Pathways

Companions

The Unbearable

Becomes More Manageable

With A Companion

Doors

Doors We Can Walk Through

Others Can Not Be Unlocked

Wisdom Is Our Key

Shadows

The struggle in and with any faith tradition often occurs where the shadows of the past converge with present reality and experience. This is not new. Elaine Pagels, the noted scholar, frequently describes in her books the challenges faced by Christianity during the first couple of centuries. Battles ensued about whose telling of the "Jesus" story would emerge primary and which praxis would be adopted as "orthodox?"

The extremes were poles apart on a continuum between the literal and the mystical.

This dilemma remains, as illustrated in the picture above. The cross or religious experience we embrace is informed and sometimes overshadowed by past traditions and struggles. The tension between these two visions: what we see now and what tradition offers us proves for a lasting and sometimes violent debate.

Yet, within this struggle faith is found. Within this tension our spirit reaches out with the same primal love that ignited original fires of faith.

Play

Remember To Play

Our Age Is No Barrier

Soul's Eternal Youth

The Touch

The camera lens acted like a voyeur as it zoomed in on this intimate moment between skin and skin. Touch is such a basic need. Touch is conditioned by trust and overcoming our fear of "other."

In this gentle exchange of a hand touching - care has been exchanged from one to another. Resulting in a memory being burned into the deep recesses of the synaptic.

This is what the soul longs for. This is what Creator longs for.

This is what trust brokers as soul reaches out.

Bread

Basic Elements

Simplicity Nurturing

The Need of the Soul

Decorating

Rooms Mirror The Self

Furnishing An Empty Loft

Extentions of Me

Solitude

Solitude Sits Idle

Casting Its Glance On Water

Stillness Brings Healing

Masks

Masks We Wear Like Clothes

Veiling Known From Unknown Self

Fashion Who We Are

Center

Finding Our Center

Spirituality is about finding a sacred center from which we can nourish our spirit. It is drinking nectar that invigorates the core of our being with a promise of belonging and an influx of divine light. Being nourished means pausing, stillness and being vulnerable to new possiblities.

Sacred Dancer

Pausing After the Dance

The Dancer Locates His Parking Spot

Three Hour Spirituality By Litres and Gallons

Far From the Plains and Buffalo

Listening To The Stereo' s Drumbeat

During the commute Home

The Table

Roasted Eucharist

Broken Host Glazed with Sugar

In Single Use Cups

Crossing

Light Lead Us Onward

Mindful Steps Forward Backward

Journey Faithfully

Rock Face

Water Like Tears Flow

Measured Lines Etching Meaning

Opening The Soul

Destination

Afraid to be lost

Alone, we remain close, safe

Never choosing shore.

Filters

Our filters are something we begin to build into our life from a very early age. They interpret the world around us and let in only what we want.

Unfortunately our filters can distort the world around us. They can shift our perception of reality and may find us trusting in shadows and dismissing the light.

Filters change as we allow ourselves to become vulnerable. Old ones fall away and filters that are more hopeful, trustful, expectant, compassionate and forgiving begin to take their place.

We may still not see things exactly as they are, yet trusting in the lens of faith will open up the way we view the world around us and ultimately the way we view ourselves.

Magic & Mystery

In many discussions with mental health patients whom I associated with as a hospital chaplain I am often confronted by their claim that the spiritual fire within has been dampened by the medications they take and their magic and mystery of the holy has faded.

Many situations in life can fade the magic and mystery. Loss, anger with a faith group or community, visioning the holy as being at our whim and calling and experiencing "the silence, " of the holy not at our command and bidding, childhood hurts and damage, loss of trust/security. Like strong medications, they can dull the wonder and awe of the creation and creator.

Restoring this magic, this mystery, requires us to trust that even though our feelings may be subdued, the holy is as mystical and magical as ever.

We must grow to learn that our concept or construct of God may be part of the problem - yet God will be revealed in the vacuum - if we trust and wait. Just as Doctors have to adjust medication for mental health patients so that they can feel without being overwhelmed - so too does our understanding and imaging of God need to be adjusted. We need to view the holy as being with us in the losses, pains, tragedies and setbacks as much as in the other situations of life. The magic and mystery is that we are never alone, never abandoned.

Adoption

Art has become a very spiritual tool lately. One of my daughters gave me a canvas and asked me to paint how I saw myself (today) and how I would like to evolve(future.) The painting above is the result of this agonizing endeavors. I have titled it "ADOPTION." I have become in many ways a "Midlife Mystic," and a spiritual orphan.

Mystics see life with more depth, more hues, more complexity than most. The forbidden fruit that initiated me into this experience was no longer being able or willing, as a Christian, to decide who was in or who was out???

As a seminarian I had the good fortune of spending a weekend retreat with Henri Nouwen, the late writer-priest who so aptly spoke about reaching out in faith from our own wounding and healing. The other author who has had a profound influence of late is Parker J. Palmer, a Quaker, and no surprise, once a good friend of Nouwen.

These profound people plus many other men and woman initiated me into the mystical, the spiritual, the radical faith, wherein embodiment and presence are one's greatest assets.

This leads me back to my artistic creation. The hands almost touching seem to be the experience of the mystic. A longing to belong. A need to be adopted and endorsed. Yet a realization that the freedom that results from being un-chained from dogma and formulas terrifies those who must embrace such as part of their worldview and as a means of embracing the world around them.

The painting signifies for me a strong desire to belong. To be recognized. I began the canvas with the large hand on top and soon flipped it over as I realized that God is more of the playful child than I can ever be.

And so, the inner longing of the mystic is revealed in acrylic - to belong, to be adopted, to be no longer the orphan who remains when all the other prospective parents and children leave.

Yes the divine has adopted me, and yes the world around me warms to my openness and compassion, yet the question of prospective parents is always the same: "By whose power do you do these works?"

Breath

Creation Gives Breath

Let Us Inhale Together

It Is Good, Now Rest.