Finding a context for your gifting isn’t easy. For artist who want a larger more spiritual or transcendent context, the art world doesn’t offer much, and unforturtunately, the church is often also silent. But there is a metaphysical house or spiritual structure being built globally, that excites us with a true context into which to create our works of art, and inspire the cities and nations with a fresh Voice.
We are part of a global collaboration which is really about downloading heaven onto earth through the arts. In this way, our art provides a space or container for The Divine. Some say, art always does this. But with the pressures of commerce and fame, one rarely sees an artist truly being motivated by “building a house for God to dwell in.” But I think there is no lower context which is truly inspiring to most artists. Arts were meant to change the world. Change begins with changing the heart, or spirit or the way of seeing the world.
The arts invite the spiritual realm. Through art we are able to touch something transcendent. Not necesarily religious but definitely more than meets the eye--something spiritual! Everyone desires that their life have meaning--art declares that indeed life does mean something, and that we are in an important metanarrative which matters in the universe. We are part of a story that God is telling! The symbolizers know this, and sense that there is something other which helps interpret our lives as more than jobs and tasks, which tells us our lives symbolize something purposeful, something greater.
In the Torah, we have this passage where King David is so radically excited about building a house to God that he calls all the artisans to give it their best treasures and time. He calls forth the artisans to make the house of God a place of beauty and shining. The artists of his day, gladly “consecrated” themselves unto this work. They wanted to be part of something bigger than their own lives or even their own moment in History! Art wants to serve the Divine. And to be part of forming a space for God to download onto earth and radically reflect Himself in space and time.
At times art is worship, but at other times it is primarily a space of interface between God and man--a place where people can taste, feel and know Him. Worship has the unique focus of devotion and praise of God, but art also is used to make the house of meeting between God and people. The second “use” of art is what I am writing about--where we are able to touch and download heaven onto earth through the creative process and the objects which are birthed within it. In doing so, we forge a “big top” for The Creator to express Himself. We become resonating boards, or satellites for the Divine to broadcast through.
The artists of David’s day where suddenly given a context into which to create and bring their art, which was a radically new context. Rather than just making beautiful objects, they were given the call of participating in creating a "house for His Name." This implies so much, but in short, these artists were being allowed to make a spiritual "space" for the coming of God onto the earth! They were not just working on careers or fame or social work--they were part of building a house for God to dwell. It doesn’t get higher than that in terms of a meaningful context to bring your gifts.
At the same time, they had to lay down some of their treasures and set themselves apart for this project. This is harder for most artists to do, as we tend to get caught up either in the creative process itself, or our desire to further our creative careers. This was a unique moment in Jewish history (and world history), that so many artists were willingly giving their time and talent to build this unique spiritual dwelling. In doing so, one imagines that they too were transformed by the Presence for which they were building a house! I think we are in another unique moment like in the time of David, where we can be part of the transformation of the entire planet by both being and building a house for His Name to Dwell.
To be transformed as we are building a space for the transforming Presence of God is a high calling. To then watch this thing we helped build, transform cities and entire nations is even more thrilling. That is exactly the moment we are in again in history. Artist are being asked to come help build a temple for God to dwell in. And this is the most meaningful project and context for their gifts ever seen. Not only would God inhabit our own creative process more, but allow us to experience His inhabiting the planet more.
Artist are transformers because they are downloading something which is transformational! Now some things being downloaded, say in pornographic art, transform our sight into darker associations. But all art taps us into something larger which brings change in us and how we see the world. To be and build a place where The Great Creator can enter is to be changed into His Likeness!
To be part of transforming the entire planet into this likeness is to be in one’s highest context. This is the opportunity before us now as artist. God wants us to build a temple for His Dwelling globally. He is asking us if we desire this higher context for our art. To say no, is to remain within the lower ceiling of world of art. To say yes, is to finally find the most meaningful context for our creative gifts ever offered!
This ‘temple” has broader and higher proportions than both the art world and the church world’s current perameters. It has Kingdom perameters, which are limitless and radically beautiful. At the same time, as the contours of the Kingdom press in through our art, we will see both the art world and the church world experiencing a fresh burst of hope at being able to expand into the vast freedom of its arches and passageways.
When Martin Luther King Jr preached the Kingdom, he was bringing it into the realm of social justice and race relations; as the Kingdom comes also into the art world, we will see a renaissance of passionate creativity and new forms, never before seen. As His Kingdom presses into the symbolic realm, we will not only see new art forms emerging, but entirely new systems of commerce and distribution.
Art is the place where His Kingdom can pronounce itself-broadcasting or proclaiming its ways through the symbolic! God is symbolic and wants to communicate through the symbolic level of communication. He is Lord over the symbolic, as He is in every other dimension of Reality. As we let His Kingdom come in the arts, you will see many other areas being radically changed. I feel it is time for us to wonder at the amazement of the creative symbolic process, and also to offer it unto the One who created us.
As artist we desire to be caught up and to catch others "up" into something higher than the hum drum of daily life. We want to be interpreters of our times, and guide people into something bigger--a metanarrative worth living within; a story which inspires us to live fully! The Kingdom provides this context for our endeavers, and inspires to serve with our talents in downloading a spiritual realm which is His House and our home!
We are building a temple, a dwelling place for The Creator. Our art is a door for His Kingdom to come. Let us take up our talents and make room for the King of Glory to enter! Let us take up our talents and spend them on His House! Lift up ye heads, and swing open your gates oh porters and pilgrims, singers and painters---for The King comes and His Kingdom is with Him!
Yes just wanted to let all the folks back east know, that myself and reverend shoeless will be a doing tribal unity tour late in the summer. Primarily focusing on the theme of letting God build the wall of unity instead of us. the Reverend assures me that we will also be able to take this tour over to eastern europe where we hope to continue on our ten year journey to link houses of peace from many streams in the Body, to form a beautiful tapestry of linked homes and communities in the exact likeness of God's vision, which Rev Shoeless received years back in the desert someplace.
I wanted to say that we know that the tribes much less our shoelaces are not yet in the exact likeness of His patterns; however, rev shoeless has seen the light of this pattern of linked homes long ago, and is labouring for its incarnation. I too have been a soldier of the gaps over this past ten years, warring for what I see a a lovely laticework of linked homes and centers where His pilgrims can wander (of course at their own risk) to experience something close to a full image of His Lovely Bride, the Church.
I myself have often been a frustrated by the ramblin ways of His children, and the poor timing and choreographic efforts on their parts! Nevertheless, Rev shoeless assures me that Jesus is able to link His own--like great sausage links, we will be ONE even as He is one. I myself repeat the Shema daily, just to remember that at least GOD IS ONE!! And I know--somewhere in the pit of my spirit--that He is also able to make us one tribe of linked homes, a beautiful sign of what it looks like when God builds the house!!
Anyways, this tribal unity tour begins in boston and could travel anywhere that needs it most, so we hope that you start to catch a vision of His True Divine networking between us all, so that we can be a living sign and a shining wonder on earth as I know we shall one day be in Heaven! Don't forget, if God is linking you with a friend, then that space is worth the labour. Rev Shoeless often reminds me how I didn't believe in friendship years back until I heard him preachin up a storm somewhere near Waco Texas. it was then that I caught a vision of Nehemiah's wall, and the unity around jerusalem that would be necessary in our times to hold the girth of The Kingdom coming! It was then that I saw that we were actually becoming His living temples, baptized INTO His Name. That this mighty Saviour also wanted to press in deeper in our times and incarnate even into the deepest places between and in us to form His fullest expression. It was then, that the word in ephesians was truly opened to me, and I could see that we are this gorgeous poem God is trying to write about Himself. But that we keep interrupting Him! It was then I decided to be more than an interruption in the divine story, and let Him express Himself uninterruptedly. So often I float back in my heart's mind to a time before I believed the walls between His People could topple and the beautiful unity could be formed that would reveal His Exact expression of Himself He had been trying to lay down since the beginning. I nearly faint remembering before that day when I had faith for da fullness. SO I gotta give it to you now--this tour for tribal unity is a sign and wonder--pointing towards the possibility that God might not have finished symbolizin Hisself yet! May His Force be with you! We will be through your town soon enough--so watch out!
"I release the words of The Father over your life! Let them thwart the false streams of words that His enemy has against you. The Words of the Father are life, they are His specific blessings over you. They are His passion and enjoyment of you. Let them wave over us and take off every false whisper or lie from below. The words of the father are gold over us, and cause us to shine as the sun. The words of the father are hope for us, for they are true and how he sees us. the words of the father cannot be erased or overcome--for once a word is spoken...the words of the Father are irrevocable and mighty. Receive...these are the words you know as true. They push of the accuser, they cause your insides to dance again, they make the lame parts of yourself whole--don't forget the Father of all Life is speaking over your life at all times--believe receive and enter into the stream of word of Life over your life!!!!"
reverend shoelessjo dansa
Continue reading "notes from a recent sermon on haight street dr derek and rev shoeless jo"
The last year we've been working on a local space for artists to work and show/perform here in Austin. We've been so privileged to have some dedicated friends who were willing to come all the way from the UK and New Zealand to help us get the space off the ground, and instigate a creative community.
So we're really proud to announce our first opening this Friday, of the textile art and paintings of Jen Mickelborough. Many of you who read this blog know Jen--who came here with her husband Fran via New Zealand and are returning this month to the UK. It has been amazing watching her beautiful, vibrant pieces come together over the last 3 months. If you live in Austin, you are welcome to join us!
Lately I've been thinking what it means to become "one new man", a spiritual concept that is hinted at a lot in the Bible and taught most fully by Paul in Ephesians. I really love Ephesians. It is one of those parts in all of holy literature where there are so many clues to our identity, to who we will be, to where we are going.
Anyhow, the most famous passage about the "new man" is Ephesians 2:14-16:
For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.
In this whole chapter, the teacher is writing about both cultural and spiritual divisions--the division between Jews and Gentiles, the division between men and God. And he says that we are foreigners--to each other, to him. There is a hostility between these cultures, and between us and the spiritual.
And I look around me and see the signs of this dividing wall. The biggest one is between us and God--the wall that separates our natural beings from his supernatural-ness, his being, his reality.
The second biggest dividing wall is between men and women.
And then between races, which of course the most crucial one is between Jew and Gentile. And if we doubt Scripture, even in world politics the hostility between Jew and Arab should be enough to convince us that this is one of the deepest grooves of human division.
From there, there is hostility between nations and even one nation divides against itself. Nowhere did this become more poignant to me than when I was visiting Berlin a few summers ago, and walked a long day around broken parts of the Berlin wall. When the wall was being expanded during the Cold War, there was a famous historical church called, appropriately, the Church of the Reconciliation, that was torn down to build more room for police to patrol the barrier.
I felt this as such a prophetic symbol--and Germany as a prophetic symbol--a nation which, in the aftermath of its racial humiliation, divided against itself, where the evil one was able to mock and tear down the reconciliation.
And when the Wall was finally torn down decades later, torn down with a frenzy that history has never seen, there was so much glee, so much hope, so much joy. It was the most profound prophecy for not only Germany but the future of the nations: "he tore down the dividing wall... putting to death their hostility".
And not only that, he will make them one new man. And this is what I have been thinking about--what does it mean to be a new man/woman? He doesn't eradicate who we are, who our basic identity is, but he does make two into one, even when men and women come together in marriage. There is one new thing that is made that never could have been made otherwise.
Same when two nations reconcile--there is one new person who is birthed. The two identities, distinct in who they are, also recreate something that never would have been expressed otherwise.
I have now seen so many marriages struggling and really in combat with each other, wanting to be free and be supported in their uniqueness and personal dreams, but never really discovering who that one new person is that they are together. This person that they create together--when they become one--will never be replicated by any other marriage, with any other partner, or cannot be made on their own. But it is an expression he wants to make... who is this new man?
How can we possibly know? It is work to cross racial divisions, too, and there is no way that we can do this without his revelation and help and constant forgiveness. To overcome racism and forgive is I think one of the biggest human obstacles and cannot be done without his forgiveness at the core. It cannot be done merely by civil rights, or fighting poverty, or giving people a chunk of land they want for themselves. It will not be overcome by balance, in the same way that you can't heal the divisions between men and women by giving women more position. He doesn't just want balance--he doesn't just want fairness and justice--he wants one new man, who is bound together by love above all.
But the most amazing part is that since he wants to make one new person in a marriage, and one new man between nations, what does it mean for him to tear down the most basic wall between us and Him? He is trying to make, with us, a new person--a new expression, an expression that happens between God and each of us that will never have a chance to be expressed otherwise.
This new person that is made between me and God when we become one--I cannot express her on my own and He cannot express her on his own--it is the circle between us, his life in me, of tearing down the wall between us.
