Life at 3 miles an Hour

It's low tide this morning. I love low tide. You really get to see what's beneath the surface. Most mornings I come down and everything looks glassy and smooth, waves rippling on the sand in even patterns. Not this morning...today it's ooey and gooey and slimy and green. Tide pools hold little creatures hostage. Crabs scurry for cover to elude the gulls. It's open and raw and honest. In a few hours the tide will come back in and cover it over again and for a time the illusion will hide the reality. The longer I've been in the pastoral artist profession, the more intrigued I've become by the process of the tides. It has become so much a visual image of the invisible process of an honest pursuit of Jesus. I'm not even sure where in history it began. Perhaps somewhere before the dawn of time someone first articulated it innocently enough. Maybe it was in the form of encouragement. It might have been an innocent admiration. It could have been a fo...

Yesterday marked the celebration of 27 years that I have been privileged to be connected with someone who really knows how to live a journey. For a good share of the day we were wished "happy" anniversary from various friends across the country. It was a good day. It was actually a "happy" day. It wasn't a blow out celebration that we have enjoyed some years. It didn't cost a great deal of money. It was just two people enjoying the journey and some simple pleasures that we have come to appreciate during within the chapter of our lives known as the Seattle years. This morning, as I look back on the day and the years, I am contemplating the idea of "happy". I wonder, when we offer it, if it represents the idea of simply enjoying a day, or does it reflect more than that. We say happy birthday and I have to imagine that, for the most part, it means celebrate the day. Have your cake and eat it too. I know that, speaking for myself, I am not r...

As I pulled in here this morning it occurred to me that it's been 3 months since the last entry in this chronological journey. I'm not even sure why I'm starting back up again, to be honest. I guess that maybe I'm needing a place to process again all that transpires along my journey. It's a way for me to stop and smell the roses along the way. This year there have been so many and sometimes it seems as if I've barely noticed. Honestly, I've lived more this year than most people live in a decade. As one adventure rolls into another and age prevents my memory from always keeping up, I'm left with the fleeting dream images that are sometimes so clear when you wake up in the morning, only to disappear with the morning coffee. It's a shame really...to determine to live a better story, make a decent attempt at it, and then forget where you put the pages. So here's to living a better story. I can tell it's possible if you set yourself towa...

Back again at my home by the sea...ok so it's only a temporary home enjoyed periodically and it's not technically by the sea...but it is salt water all the same. Officially, in all honesty, which is a good trait for a pastoral artist to have, I am once again situating myself down at alki beach, in the great city of Seattle, on the shores of puget sound. The last time that I posted from here was in early February. I found myself in survival mode from grad school and life. The good news is that I survived. The bad news... Well guess what? There is no bad news. Part of the reason for my sabbatical from here is that I was becoming far too cynical for even my own good. When that happens, it begins to be reflected in my outlets...those being either my teaching or my writing. Since the teaching/preaching thing is a paying gig, I needed to focus on that and then let the other go. At the time I didn't even know if I would ever come back. I will tell you that it's been ...

While many of the rest of you are still wrestling with wind chill, snow blowers and shovels, I’m enjoying the view near the fireplace as the sun peaks over the skyline and gleams rose colored on the mountains across the water. It’s a pretty exceptional day for a place rumored to be the gloom and gray capital of the world. Te ferries are making their trek to the islands and the cargo ships are heading north towards open water. It’s a fairly normal day here on the beach, with The Civil Wars playing in my headphones and people lined up for their morning fix. I just finished another round of grad school discussions online and now I need to begin to put my mind into the realm of my paying gig, that of being pastoral artist to a wonderful community o’ faith. Wednesday morning is my transition point. I’m off on Mondays and I enjoy spending the day with my princess Lily. Tuesdays are a sort of admin, make sense of my office, day. Wednesday I transition into what is really going to b...

One of the things that I most appreciate about life is that it is different every day. Don’t misunderstand… some days just suck. The promising thing though is that there is always another that might suck less. It also could be magnificent, beyond anything you could have imagined. It could happen. This day is hardly the latter, but it could pass for one that sucks less. In the life of a pastoral artist, you look for inspiration and promise wherever you can find it. I’ll let you in on a few trade secrets. Some days in the life of one attempting to be a follower of Jesus, it’s not all Joel Osteen. My own personal opinion…with a smile like that, either he’s not really a pastoral type or he has Rembrandt for a tattoo artist. Here’s some insight into reality. Some days it’s hard to find Jesus. Some days the last people I want to be around are other people who claim to follow Jesus. Some days the sermons are just terrible. It’s not a reflection on the message…strictly the messen...

Did you ever have one of those moments that forced you to question the real value of all of your efforts? What I’m talking about is a moment that draws deep into your motives and methods and causes you to ask the underlying, “why do I (we) do all of this anyway”? It is a profound “What’s the point of this exercise” reality check that helps one look deep into Alice’s mirror and wrestle with what is real and what is not, what matters and what doesn’t. Let me just say this; if you haven’t then you need to, everyone does. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the ones that we need to have do not happen with our choosing. They are thrust upon us unexpectedly. They are often induced by tragedy, either our own or others who might be close to us. For me, in my position as pastoral artist of a vibrant community o’ faith, it often comes as I witness it in the lives of the people I serve beside. My problem is that I am a planner. I live in the future and I’m always planning on how we’ll all ...