At Least He's Consistent.

I like that part about God. He's consistent. Every day the sun comes up, every day it goes down. Comforting rhythm for sure. And most times the transistion from day to day is cause for some sort of celebration. Just celebrating the consistency I guess.

It's shouldn't be about, "Is it going to be a good day?" or "Was that day nice...for me?"  Because that can get confusing. A lot of the days I hated, turned out to be turning points that led me to a deeper spritual understanding of myself, my people and the world around. Painful, but neccesary and ultimately transformative.

So good days versus bad days, morning versus night... just be grateful for all of them, and you'll do well. Now let's see if you can if you can even tell the difference between morning and night. If you can't, stop trying to label your days good or bad. As they say nowadays..."It's all good."

Asking the Better Question

I first heard of surviver’s guilt when I began an intense reading of WW2 autobiographies several years ago. After reading many memoirs from Holocaust survivors I gained renewed resilience and hope to continue fighting my own very real battles left over from a life of Big T trauma.

I used to ask God a lot of why questions. Why God why? You know I never got an answer. I just waited in limbo for an answer to come. I felt powerless.

Over the past 2 decades of healing, I have acquired a sense of perspective and it has helped me generate a better question. Now, I ask God how? How can I live each day more fully awakened to your presence? I always see the answer. It is usually an action and it doesn't require waiting. 

In Cologne, Germany in 1942, allied bombers leveled the city. Somehow the 12th C. cathedral remained standing amongst the dust and ruins.

This assemblage is dedicated to anyone struggling with the whys in this life. 

What if I locked them in the car?

It's a scorcher here in SF. 100 degrees and there's this wierd brown hazy light everywhere. People are saying it looks like the world is burning up.  It's been getting up over 122 degrees in Phoenix. I don't know how they live. Air Conditioning I guess. Today I locked my dogs in the car while I ran into the store. I came back just a couple minutes later but they were standing up, panting, staring out the window at me, "How could you do that to us. We could have died in here!" And the truth is, they could have. They might even have  unlocked the door, but without opposable thumbs still couldn't operate the handle.

And it hit me how helpless all the other animals are. Totally at our whim. The planet started heating up, we stepped into our vehicles,  fired em up, turned on the AC and roared off. Yeah, we brought our dogs, but we left the raccoons, the foxes,  the mynah birds and the polar bears.

What is God saying to us now? I suspect it's something like, "Step out of the vehicle son. Look, listen and feel what's happening to this paradise I left you in. Turn down your appetites and turn up your awareness. There may still be time. All the billions of creatures I spent all those billions of years crafting into feather and fur and fin, they're totally at your mercy. You are ALL my beloved!"

I have only an inkling of what God sounds like or what he would say. But I'm pretty sure he's saying something right now. And we sure don't seem to be listening.

I included this picture of this beautiful young coon I found by the roadside the other morning. I guess someone built a road between him and the creek on the other side.  I set him off to the side so his pals could safely bid him adieu.

I Am Here

Just for today, I'm gonna try.

I have more than enough proofs for myself of the existence of God, but alas, that leads to, it seems to me, an even bigger question:  What do I do about it?  Does He care about me?  Does He want something?  Did he leave some sort of record we can all agree on?

I’m working through those one by one, but last night I go some bad news for those of us trying to get a handle on things.  The previously held view about the rate of the universe’s expansion is incorrect.  It is actually expanding faster, not slower, the farther out it gets.  We’re never going to catch up with the dang thing!

 So for today I’ve settled for this:  I will try to realize that each person I meet, with warts and all, is my guest made in the image of God, and is also faced with the same conundrums that I face.  He/she is probably simply trying to get through the day, and all too often that’s not easy.  If I can avoid honking the horn in the traffic jam, or sighing resignedly in the checkout lane, or frowning at dawdlers, it might make their day a bit easier.  Just for today, I’m gonna try.  If thing really go well, I might even smile (though I don’t want to get carried away.)  Hope your day is a good one.

Field Angel

I encountered my guardian angel for the first time when I was 15 years old sitting on the back of a flatbed truck. It was during half-time of the Varsity football Homecoming game and a line of high school floats inched toward the narrow gate that led onto football field. My legs dangling to the side of the truck, reflexively kicking back and for forth madly to the loud marching band at the head of the line.

Just as our fully loaded truck passed its nose through the chain link fence, I heard a voice inside my body thunderously roar, “Stand Up!” and at the same instant a burst of inner energy thrust my legs upward to standing. 

The next sound I heard was an ear piercing screech of metal on metal and saw that the flatbed had wedged flush and immobile against the chain link gate post exactly where I had been sitting with my legs dangling. 

I never told anyone about what happened that night but during darker times of sadness throughout my life I have been drawn back to the memory of that night. 

This assemblage piece is in honor of that guardian angel who continually interfaces with my humanity to deliver God’s amazing grace.

The Watch Over

Hide and seek was one of my best games when I was small. I would be the last to be found for I would hide where no one would bother searching and at times I would wonder if it is true that the creator of the universe was able to see me. One evening I hid in a small tunnel and stayed there for half an hour. My grandmother thought I was lost after searching 'everywhere'. I came from hiding and went home just to find everyone at home looking worried and amazed to see me. They kept asking where I was and innocently I said I was hiding so that God would search all over and find me, but he failed to. I still remember the bright smile on my grandma's face as she let me explain my naive reasons. With lots of love she embraced me and taught me that God was watching over me and will always do because He holds my future and that He does not need to search for me for He walks besides me always and lives in my little heart.

Everywhere Always

I was thinking all day about which of the gorgeous video snippets I've recording in the last week I'd put in today's blog. Water with shimmering moonlight. rain rivulets reflected through windshield, sun sparkling amongst wind disturbed wavelets...mmmm, so many ways I saw God revealed in and all around me in my everyday world.

I finally decided between the 3 while on a sunset ride through the woods tonight and was headed home to edit it into my entry. It was nearly dark as I passed a thick stand of trees and ran into this angelic chorous instead.

No Proof

Fin feet

I made this mermaid triptych a few years back. It is about transformation. Like the the little mermaid in the Danish fairytale, I wanted more than anything to be human. I wanted legs. I wanted the life I didn't have.  

Stemming from early abuse, I associated "different" with being fundamentally wrong. I was repulsed by my differentness.

Over time, God has slowly convinced me that my uniqueness is secondary to my value and worth as a human being. Every day, I am learning to love myself more wholly and without reserve. 

At the top of my piece inside the rusty circle it says: She came to terms with what her limitations were and turned them into strengths.

Burning Beauty

This year my tree was especially beautiful I left it up until March. But all good things must end and eventually my tree became a fire hazard.  My housemates pleaded with me to get it out. 

I like to burn my trees on the beach. It's their last hurrah. At high temperatures they reach their ultimate beauty. It's like the deep inner spirit of the tree is being released on its way back home. I think that's maybe when God let's you and everyone else see what's most beautiful about you... when you burn up at the end.

Be Sure to Click on the Full Screen Icon at the Lower Right.

Click the vimeo icon lower right, then click the full screen icon lower right once it starts.

Got Light?

Everyday, everywhere I go I have this tiny dog with me. Her name is Eva. She sits under my arm in an old camera bag. When people see her they sort of fall apart. They squeal, they gasp, they start to whisper like they are in the presence of something sacred. They become all gentle and ask tentatively if they can touch her. They have their hand up when they ask this, fingers curled and childlike, waiting for permission.

Once granted, they reach out radiating love and wonder. While they look at my dog, I look at them. Their eyes shine with tenderness, joy and often, hurt. They allow something in them to come out that is so unguarded, so vulnerable that my heart grows in my chest and tears arise.

This is my proof of God.

The old, the young, the sick, the well, the rich, the poor – all of them reaching out for just a moment to attempt meaningful contact with this tiny creature. And I fill up with some kind of weird hope, because I’m thinking, ‘well, after all you’ve been through, after all the pain and loss and fear you can still love, you’re still working at it.

I can only feel this exchange when I let go of my shopping list, my rush to get where I’m going and be with them in this moment, in this still circle of peace, light and allowance. By this I am mortally, absolutely, infinitely blessed.  

The King of the Jungle

For the life of me I cannot avoid a sense of amusement of our searching for proofs of God.  To whom am I proving that He exists?  To me?  To you?  Will what convinces me be proof to you?  If not, does that mean He can exist for one of us but not for the other?  That was the fluid truth and anachronistic thinking of the hippy-dippy days, but in truth it is rather ludicrous. 

 To prove the existence of God, objectively, is a complex proposition, and not due to the unimaginable vastness of the subject, or of the poverty of my own mind, but because of the deceptive qualities of what we call proof.  Proof, it must be remembered, is simply that which convinces one.  If I’m convinced God exists, it has then been proven.    But that leaves the heart unsettled.  I want you to be convinced, too, partly to assure myself that my searching has not been in vain, and partly to share that experience of discovery with others. 

 Ultimately, though, I have to admit I would be much more satisfied if I could discover that He knows that I exist.  Assuming God to be an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent Being, then He could not not know all about me, far more than I do, including my own doubts.  I also find it hard to believe such a Supreme Being could condescend to even think, much less care, about me.  Yet somehow I think He does that, too, because I see evidences of that fact everyday.

Meanwhile, outwardly He remains Aslan-like, a bit smug, able to vaporize me with one breath of anger or totally engulf me with the brightness of His smile.  The King of the Jungle doesn’t have to prove Himself to anyone.

Simplicity

It takes a lot of strength to deal with life hurdles . Everyone has something to rant about, a reason to break down and give up; except me and you.

Life is vast and at times seems out of focus but eventually all events make sense when we choose to see the world in sharp focus through the lens called simplicity.

My Life As a Dog

I grew up during the Space Race and against the back drop of a mid century suburban childhood. In 3rd grade I started hearing odd words like Sputnik, cosmonaut, and spaceflight on TV and at school. In Life Magazine, I saw a picture of 2 astronauts floating weightless in a chamber. In the picture, they hovered the way a paper kite sits on the wind motionless. 

I have spent many long periods of my life feeling weightless, untethered and ungrounded in my body.  Somewhere on the periphery of my skin there is an elliptical orbit I default to because at a young age my body became unsafe for me to be in. 

I started taking yoga classes some time ago and I have learned ways to be in my body and how to reenter it if I get stuck on the outside spinning out of control. It is God who brings me back into my body. I now have a place to call home. 

I dedicate this story box to Laika the first space dog to orbit the earth.

Flying Saucer God

push play button below, then read.

My friend is an artist and she has been laughing at me for years. Every time I try a new artistic medium I expect to instantly be an expert. I get frustrated and complain when I can't play the piano or write or dance perfectly within a few sessions. I've heard of that unconscious "zone" where artists say they experience pure creative energy. It's like their work comes from another place, perhaps even directly from God. They describe disappearing into beauty, then re-emerging a few minutes later... "Where was I? What was that?" I long for that experience of God but never bother developing the proficiency required to go unconscious and allow beauty to flow through my body.

Last month I was listening to Spotify, my usual vehicle for connecting with God, and I heard the oddly shaped instrument you see pictured above.  It's called a hand pan. I know, really dorky name. It was invented only about a decade ago in Switzerland. It's like an inverted steel drum. But you play with your fingertips and thumbs. It's very basic and easy to play. It has beautiful harmonics and when I watched a couple dudes playing it on YouTube I told myself, "That's the instrument for me."  I won't even have to practice.

Well I still can't play like those guys on YouTube, but I can disappear into that magical God zone. That is Grace to me. Even a lazy,  undisciplined "artist" like me can tap into the beauty of God. I just had to keep it simple and find my medium.

As Above, So Below.

Contentment

A friend of mine bought a small plaque to hang on her kitchen wall because she liked its terse reminder:  “Contentment is not found in things.”  I asked her why, if that was true, she had bothered to buy it in the first place.  I think the irony was lost on her.

But I do believe contentment is one of the proofs of God.  Despite the fact that we too often use the incredible gift of free will to try to beat the stuffings out of each other, we also tend to believe that fairness and right and goodness do exist and are still viable choices each of us is called to make everyday.  

The tragedies of the world, it seems to me, argue for a God;  if He does not exist, then there are really no tragedies.  Smashing up meaningless blobs of protoplasm is no cause for sorrow.  But we all know sorrow, pain, and sadness are real—so something is real, important, valuable, and treasured.  Bits of God, you and me, aching and loving and caring and hitting. 

The poet reminded us, “God’s in His heaven;  all’s right with the world.”  Even when it doesn’t seem that way, I see reminders constantly.  A few days ago I wandered out my front door and saw my grandson had set up his “Indian” camp just a few feet away.  For an hour or so he stayed in character, communicating only in grunts and motions, and was perfectly content.  For me, at least, it was also a reminder of the smile of God.

No One Lost an Eye

Happy 4th America! This video is the best proof of God I've seen in sometime. We were all standing pretty close and stuff was hitting all over our bodies,  but... no one lost an eye. Miraculous in my opinion.

Beautiful Home

Every day counts as a blessing in my life making me feel lucky to be here and experience the highs and lows of life. When I look at the sky through seasons I feel some flow of love. When I walk around my neighbourhood or take a trip I feel one with nature. Makes me believe there is a higher authority above all that exists. God made a beautiful home for His creation and everyday I want to enjoy my stay.