Category Archives: Deeper Sensation
What makes art, art?
What makes art, art? What makes worship, worship? What makes beauty, beautiful? what wants to be expressed? longs to come out, to be displayed, to be offered, as gift of delight, inspiration or awe. what wants to take shape? to be recognized, to be known, to be understood, as the beauty, the spark, that responds. The. Oh! Ahh... Yesss! of art, worship, beauty, the trinity of emotion, drawing out the hidden, invisible, still. unlike the cough, which the tickle propels, unlike the sneeze, which the dust mite ignites, unlike even the rage, which erupts from the hurting No. This. This calls from outside, from elsewhere, to neither erupt, propel or ignite It calls out, calls up, evokes and elicits; It compels, yes, without my permission, yet absent inhibition. I gasp. I startle. I laugh. Where did you come from? Flowing from me but surely not of me; Yet, not a surprise to me. this joy this awe this wonder This worship This oneness This humanity The hidden, invisible and still, has been waiting inside me For what art sees what beauty says what God does to bring me to life.
The human chain of life
I had a dream, under a cloud be-speckled blue sky
that we all joined hands
with our nearby neighbors,
to the right and to the left,
whose opinions, possibly,
probably, almost certainly,
differ from our own.
Me with thee and thee with thou
until we reached the end of the lane,
the boundaries of the neighborhood,
the extent of the town,
the limits of the principality,
across the borders of countries,
over the oceans, lakes and rivers
until we encircled the world.
We formed a human chain
spanning races, nations, cultures,
crossing opinion, without distinction
... gradually,
incrementally,
hardly noticeably;
bridging every gap,
grip by grip,
person by person.
No one concerned about
contaminating viruses
sticky fingers
or dirt under the fingernails.
So grateful were we
for the touch of another human,
we gave no thought to
where the chain would lead,
how or where it would link up
with the other side
on the other side
because there would be no other side.
Just the one continuous connection.
Incremental effort,
tugging us in
each others' direction,
extended arms
encircling Mother Earth.
She, who has the final word;
Her Pull is the gravitational hug that grounds me,
as the strength of connection tugs me
toward you on my right and you on my left --
and you toward your neighbor,
whose hands you hold
for the sake of all life.
kicking and kicking but going nowhere?
I’ve never been much of a flutter-kicker. More of an arm-stroker. But when the masters swim workout calls for 100m freestyle kick, well, you kick. And it feels like an eternity to the other end.
Some people seem to have the gift of flutter-kicking, propelling themselves along like a speed boat powered by an outboard motor. Me? I’m more of a putterer. Not for want of effort, mind you. I’ll churn up a wake like nobody’s business and go NOWHERE!
Which is a bit embarrassing, especially if the people who share your lane are either piling up behind you or catching you up and tugging on your feet so they can pass.
Fortunately, today I had my very own lane. So when the workout called for a 100 meter kick, I aimed my kick-board dutifully toward the opposite end of the pool and set off with a mighty push from the wall. Momentum is underrated when you’ve an entire pool ahead of you and a kick like mine.
Now, I’d like to say that today I surprised myself with my torpedo-like speed, but I did not. No, I was much more like the Little Engine That Could. In fact, at times it was only the changing colors on the lane rope that convinced me I was moving at all.
Four navy, three black. Four navy, three black. Four, three. Four. Three.
Isn’t that how days feel sometimes? Like we’re kicking and kicking and going nowhere? Funny how something as simple as a friendly lane rope — which really is going nowhere — can reassure us that we’re actually making forward progress. And that, in the end, is all we really need to know.
….kick on, my friends. Before we know it, we’ll be there.
