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.