dear beth and debbye,

It's been a full day of following the "jaw on the ground". That's what my wife has been all day... a woman who has had the breath knocked out of her, starting with this time last night when she won an honorable mention in her very first Plein Air painting competition. It was a total surprise, especially after considering the caliber of talented artists here. If you want proof, check out the artist's websites and read some of their bios! Kathie came here to stretch and grow, not for any awards.

THEN, today she actually won the final challenge... yep, first place for the complete-an-oil-painting-and-frame-it-in-two-hours competition. Actually, they call it the Quick Draw that is open to anyone, not just the juried artists. (One of the fun parts was the quick friendship Kathie struck up with Julianna Wells, the blue ribbon winner for highschoolers!).

To be recognized by folks that she doesn't know (strangers) is one of the highest forms of flattery for Kathie. And then to be honored twice by the Director of the Georgia Museum of Arts! This will take a while to seep in. A future she is looking forward to.

Big Bear Farm, 8x16, Oil on Linen

dear duck-huntin, truck-drivin, blue-collar, good old boys,

My wife has been working this week.

Yes, I'm sure you would like to question the truth to all this, but try it once. Just try to be chosen as one of the top trap and skeet shooters in the Eastern US. Just try to rebuild a transmission with your own tools in another town with a clock ticking in your ear. Just try to find the perfect fishing cove and pull out an eight-pound largemouth with all your peers watching. Just try to write a redneck joke on the spot and have Jeff Foxworthy grade your accomplishment.

The only thing that would make that different than what Kathie is doing this week? She sees it all as opportunity to fall more deeply in love with what she loves. 

In thirty minutes we go to the Collector's Preview Reception where ticketed art enthusiasts enjoy the unveiling of the works from thirty professional painters, some watercolor but mostly oil. Each submit three paintings for judging and up to six backups to replace in case one sells.

You get the sneak peek... here are a few of Kathie's eleven she painted en plein air this week:

Above It All, 8x16

Living Together, 12x24

Midday Blush, 12x24

dear matt,

He was forty-two years old, and he could see nothing before him that he wished to enjoy and little behind him that he cared to remember.

Thanks for Stoner by John Williams… I finished reading the novel last night and was reminded how deep and wide the arm of God can reach. On one hand I have restricted my thinking on the ways of God because He says that there is only One Way. On the other hand, when I open myself to personally know this One, then the breadth of my thinking welcomes my own heart and soul to enter.

How often I have become anxious and urgent when talking with a man who is like Bill Stoner as written in the words above! Or even when futility or acedia sits on me, leaving me wedged between nothing and nothing, my fearful ways of sorting and resolve begin to own me. I then subtly demand that someone (or myself) GET BETTER.

Or is it possible that I could simply rest, and start to love my life and the life of my friend that God is redeeming. How strange and mysterious His ways.

dear greg,

a picture is worth a thousand words.

dear jason,

My life with Kathie continues to shape me, although I rarely marvel at her as I should... another good reason to write, because in writing I stop my little ferris wheel. You can check those notes on the blog link at Kathie's website if you like.

I kind of ask your forgiveness. The intention of writing a letter like this one each day is beginning to wear on me. And I'm sorry, kind of. The "kind of" is more resolute for Wendell Berry. He calls me to chain myself to a tree, as in this line from his poem, How to be a Poet:

Live

a three-dimensioned life;

stay away from screens.

I'm starting to feel him. Sitting in front of an electrically-currented machine daily is not a desire of mine, plus it pulls on me like a tired three-year-old. So, I hope to keep writing for a few more days, if not but for me. Don't be surprised though when there are no more posts. At that point you can trust that I've picked up a pen and paper.

No Repair Needed

This poem will not end with

The word I search for to

Explain away the

Old arousal within.

Resurfacing more frequently

But now through

Green song beyond

The winter binge

That gives me briny

Eyes of soul than I ever knew

Could be in a sort

Like me, one so akin

To Judas. Caring for

Pocket change I thought grew

Into long money with time.

It doesn’t. To win

Nothing is my prize.

To eat the hollow stew

That promises to nourish

Is an act of Hope… again.

Well there it is. Manna called Hope.

The word from nowhere

Looked for. With a half grain of

Salt to help me begin.

dear tuesday painters,

I’m discovering that most of you artists work better when you have fewer resources. At least that’s the way it is for Kathie. I remember the day we drove to Cade’s Cove in the Smokies for an evening paint, only to discover that she left her palette at home. With a few tubes in her backpack and the flat, glass-like surface of a CD case for mixing (found in the car floorboard), she forged ahead. It seems that the creativity it took to get set up primed her inspiration pump.

Artists need very little, if anything… with the exception of Space.

Callaway Gardens is a manicured and babied land of gardens. I'll bet the entire season of Spring is birthed here before spreading across the remaining states. New Green. Black Dirt. Non-Stop bird song. It’s breathtaking… and a little too perfect.

Our interior senses are more inclined toward Process, Unfolding and Not-Quite-Yet. So, with floppy blue hat and a brush clinched between her teeth, Kathie motions me toward the property’s working vegetable garden, a wide expanse of slow but active production.

This week I’ll read and write a bit, but my prime job is to be her Sherpa. Hauling art supplies from car to designated spot of the moment. She can do it all, but she likes me and gives me the job. Yet, being a Sherpa is more about creating space or, better said, getting out of the way. We’ve had countless discussions (I’d rather not say arguments in this letter) about my knack for subtly pushing her to begin. I forget about the space thing easily. I’m a slow learner.

But a Sherpa’s most important work has nothing to do with manual labor. A Sherpa’s most important work is this: Don’t miss the moment.

So often service impedes my ability to mature, to ripen. Paradoxically, I can preoccupy myself with being available so much that it weakens my ability to be truly available in the moment.  Missing the opportunity to live out of a centered place within myself can actually extract the beautiful gift of space.

Obviously this is not an exclusive lesson for the spouses of artists. It’s actually a call for me to be me… an artist too. And here is another discover I am making: Artists love artists.

Be who you is, cuz if you ain’t who you is, you is who you ain’t. 

Anonymous Gravestone Inscription

dear roger,

Kathie attended your painting workshop last September, because she was jumping into her life, what she would admit to be "her calling"... to be an Artist. 

Over those four days of painting outdoors and guiding the already talented small group, you said two quite impactful comments to her. 1) After watching her paint for only an hour or two, you said, "So, when are you going to start doing this full time?" 2) Toward the end of the workshop - "It's time for you to enter Plein Air Competitions". A good friend of mine is fond of saying, you spoke Words pregnant with life.

Tomorrow is Kathie's first competition.

We leave in the morning for Georgia's Callaway Gardens annual Plein Air Paint Out where you won second place last year. She's not going with the idea of award, but to stretch into this calling you helped envision. Yes, there might be more exposure and certainly some comaraderie with others who had to compete just to be selected... but the hope lies in the jump.

I'm sure you can remember the nervous anticipation of your first one. Five straight days of painting. Time constraints. Maybe bad weather. People watching, interrupting with their comments. The final night's art show and sale. Am I good enough to be with these other talented painters? And these are just my thoughts! There is no telling what's happening in Kathie!

What courage she has. And what desire... to be a woman alive to the presence of God in her!

Kathie purchased this little sign yesterday in Asheville and placed it in the window above the kitchen sink when we got home. Tomorrow we go to her River.

dear larry,

What is it like to peel away from the world for a week to listen to your profound teachings? What is it like to speak with new friends in inviting ways through conversation?  What is it like to huddle with rich believers and consider another approach to listening well?

I might like to know, because I did none of that this week.

Instead,

• I begin to realize that all my words are pregnant with something. I want them to have power not neediness.
• I'm thinking that my preparation is really a mask for control.
• I believe I aim too low in conversation because it's a natural appeal to the culture I live in.
• I'm praying for a supernatural appeal to rise up in me that aims high.
• I find myself defining Spiritual Formation as finding and releasing the power of God within me and identifying the obstacles to it.
• I begin to consider that confusion is an opportunity for me to my quiet soul.
• I find myself wanting to get lost in relationship with others instead of getting lost in their particular circumstances.
• I'm seeing how much I live for relief.
• I am starting to see God's sovereignty as His stubbornness for me.
• Trying harder to understand a technique becomes a way of holding back the God in me.
• I more clearly see that my exercises have much to do with confession and repentance.
• I remember how much I long to worship and know God in Trinity.
• I'm beginning to see myself as a prisoner of Hope.

Thank you, my friend.
Thank you very much.

dear bt,

I want to write you, if for no reason but to say I love you, you matter to me, I thought of you today.

My favorite part of living in west Knoxville, the one thing I miss the most, is you. Who in their right mind would leave you as a neighbor? Only a street separated our lives and houses. Countless conversations in the front yards. Regular back door surprises. I miss you dragging your tarped leaves down into my backyard. And who else would go to the trouble of getting a sleep study simply at my suggestion... and then send me a photo?

How else would we have known your children?

We had a great with-ness, you and I. And for the record, I still have a few of your tools that I'll never return as a reminder that all we have is really each others. Well, I love you, you matter to me, I thought of you today.

dear Windy,

Not Gene Kelly I say.
More like King Kong
When coming to the art of
Floor and song.
Not my feet that are
The concern, you say,
More my gaze that might
Lure your heart to stay.

Chin up, young master,
Comes the royal request
For my eyes to feast on
Porcelain face,
High cheeks, sure brow,
What lines can compose
A neck and an ear
With the scent of a rose?

Is there music in my dream
Or the Victrola's breath
Sending spring to my legs
Before near to my death
I now know it's your tummy
Flat-flat onto mine
Sweet rocking our boat
Step-stepping to time
As the wax plate now skips
As do I, but not not falling.
Might I bolt to both of
The double doors calling?


What holds in the end?
Is it hand on the waist,
The sure gaze of love
Or the terrors we face?
It's our birth scars of old
Regenerate. Anew.
Blood and Song
That attach us like glue.

dear renda,

Yesterday, in multiple ways, I was aroused to love Jesus more.
That gladdens me because I came here to be stretched in a way (Spiritual Direction) to allow others to be aroused to love Jesus more. What I'm saying is this simple thing, and it's for all Christians: It's me and Him before anything Missional that includes me.

I have been drawn again into Trinitarian theology. Now, don't let the word "theology" bog you down... it just means "think hard on, study". When I think on God being Always and being Love, then how could God be love then (when absolutely nothing else but He existed) without having another to love? Thus Trinity. And that's why His being is also Relational. Which is why He created you and me! Not because He was lonely (They had each other), but so He could show His Trinitarian, Relational way-of-being off!

The other element? Space.
A Trinitarian Theology is steady and trustworthy, but it's also distant from me without space to know myself that I might know Him. And this "knowing myself" is ongoing that my knowing Him might also, until the day.

Well, there are all kinds of words of beauty flying in the air from God, and some are landing... penetrating me. James Houston once said, "If we were to understand the pourosity of the human soul, we would know God better."

Help me to know how deeply permeable I am, my Lord. And then continue Your deep plunge! Amen.

dear tl,

I trust that you remember our regular daily schedule here at the School of Spiritual Direction (SSD). All morning we sit in class beginning with a long devotional from Larry out of Colossians (that he writes each day before the sun comes up) and then a study on the Seven Questions of Spiritual Theology (Who is God? What's He up to? Who are we? What went wrong? What did God do to remedy the problem? As a result, what is the Spirit up to now? How can we join Him?)... all as a foundation for listening to God's Spirit when we are drinking coffee with someone.

There are a few notes I've taken but mostly I just sit and let the lectures and 30-person conversation pour on my head. Here are a couple of notes I've made for myself, about myself, to myself:

• All my words are pregnant with something... what? Neediness, Power, Emptiness, Pull, Hope?
• When in conversation with someone about things that matter, am I hoping to repair damage or release life?
• When confused or don't know what to say, do I use it as an opportunity to quiet my soul or figure someone out?

And my favorite scribble to myself:

• I like the phrase "deifically alive"!

And I do. It comes from 2 Peter 1:4 as he speaks about you and I being participants in the Divine nature of God. And in doing so, I am Deifically alive! Although it's hard for me to pronounce, because of God's Spirit living within me, it's not so hard to believe!

Wow.
Do you today?

dear damon and lea,

We send you our love from The Cove in Asheville. Kathie said that it felt like a reunion, being with Larry Crabb's team whom you also know... folks who love my person, not the persona I've learned to live out of most my life. The only thing missing is you.

Kathie and I are here for you. And all our other friends that care to have conversations that matter. The present  conversation I am having with God looks something like this: "Lord, will you help me discover more stretching exercises for the ears of my heart? When I sit with a friend over coffee, the old ways of listening still push their way to the front of the line... helping, sorting, amateur diagnosing, arranging, explaining, etc. And the funny part is that often those ways lead to productive results for my friends. Yet, eventually after a good chat, I feel quite empty. Because my assistance, as good as it might be, helps only to lead to a smoother and more understandable way to live. But Lord, above every good thing is You, and I want for my friends to know You more! And I want to know You more! Help me discover more stretching exercises for the ears of my heart?"

I guess I could say that we are really here for us.

dear mrs. bogart,

I've been writing letters to a few people this week who have both made a deep impression on my life and "moved on" to be with our Lord. Although they are gone, you may not be. And I'm not worried that you may be offended by that, for I'm sure you will never see this letter anyway. It's just my chance to transition my writings back to the living by offering my gratitude to you.

Thank you for introducing art to me.

As my eighth grade teacher you had the capacity to allow both math and art to exist within you. (As I remember, those were the only two subjects you taught!) And I like how you went about it... not an intro of me to art, but an intro of art to ME. You saw my comfort with both abstract thinking and linear logic living together within me. You saw my inclination toward creating space for myself to explore with paint and pencil. You saw my young openness toward gaining a new way of seeing.

Thank you.
You would love my wife.
You would still love my often wild thinking and inclinations and love for good poetry.

It's amazing what a good teacher can birth.

dear ryan,

The two of us sat together countless times over a biscuit, talking of life. A couple of moments are branded to my memory:

I'm sure you remember sitting on the front stoop of Chisca. It was my favorite old cabin at Frontier Ranch where I've slept many a night. That's the place where you gave your life to Christ, giving me the privilege of sitting with you under a matchless Colorado night sky. That was June of 1993.

But the next year was tough... for both of us. None of your buddys wanted to walk the same rocky path like you did. Each week we would meet at Hardee's on Campbell Station Road for that biscuit, hanging on to the Hope that was alive in both of us. And the business I owned was floundering. You didn't know it, but those mornings together were not just for you.

Our very last time together was May of your junior year. I decided to stop my years of being a Young Life leader so I could bring more focus to my business. And this morning I would tell you... you who "needed" me so much. But it was that day you walked in with a new friend, a guy on the football team I also knew, the FCA president, a believer! That day you and I saw so many said and unsaid prayers come to fruition. That day changed my life. Within a single moment God brought each of us to a new direction: You - the first real high school friend in Christ to walk with during your last year in high school. Me - a new career path at the age of 36.

And off we went.

I saw you a couple times during your Senior year, but Young Life staff had carried me to a different school in a different part of town. And then to Asheville. Maybe it was eight or ten years later that I heard of your overdose. For some bad reason I couldn't get back for your funeral and I still regret that. I was caught up in my own little world.

We will be together again.
No sitting this time.
And no biscuits. At least none from Hardee's.
In a Holy City.
Where God will live with us.
We will be His people.
He will be our God.
Every tear will be wiped away by His hand.
Death will be gone forever.
So will crying.
And, hard to imagine, but all pain too!
Everything will be made new.

Including what was made together between us.
Meanwhile, I'll hang onto the Hope.
You pull for me.

dear jody,

You were always the easy one, so easy to be with.
The romantic.
The crooner.
The one who carried the ball but didn't need to.
The one who was always one with the crowd, wanting them to be at home.
You were just an inch off center... close enough but not.

Some people survived that US Air crash nineteen years ago in Charlotte. This morning they are waking up to go to work and eat lunch and have an afternoon beer and watch the nightly news with Brian Williams. They are glad to be alive. But they have no idea how alive you are at this very moment. Nor do I completely. But I do believe this a little, which you know in full: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love Him".

You are with Him.
I am jealous over what happened to you in 1994.
And what's happening in you now.
But I'll wait my turn.
Pray for me.

P.S. I'm still refusing to shave my upper lip like you suggested.

dear lee,

Where do I begin?
Almost eight years later we still bear the marks of your friendship...

We loved to laugh with you because you loved to laugh.
We felt at home with you because you were at home.
We saw you with wide eyes because you had a wide vision for us.
We confessed to you because you had confessions of your own.

You embraced our uniqueness because you were odd too.
You never waited on another to lead the way because you were being led.
You screwed up because you were foolish.
You felt free to live large because you knew you were forgiven.
You were stubborn because you were faithful.
You said wild things things because you were free.
You loved because you were first loved.

You linger in your absence because you were fully present when here.
Thank you.

dear bob,

This week I've decided to write to you and other friends of mine who have risen ahead of me. And you are the first I write to. I don't know how this works though... can you hear my words to you? Do you care or are you too busy in worshiping the Lamb? Or do you know the words I'm going to say before I write them?

Anyway.
I miss you.

Remember the summer of 1977 when you led some Young Life leaders in a Bible study? There was a moment I'll never forget... my friend Warren was asking us to hold him accountable to having a morning quiet time. How many, you asked. Warren replied, "I want to start with a small goal - have a quiet time at least three mornings this next week". And you want us to hold you accountable, you inquired. We were each assured, yes.

I wonder if I'll ever know, but I'm pretty sure you prayed hard for Warren that week. Seven days later you casually but purposefully asked him about his quiet times. "I had two morning quiet times this week" was his response. Well, the short of it is this: You railed on him like he had slapped his momma. I thought you were going to barbeque him for lunch! Finally you took a breath and sheepishly Warren dared to ask, "Bob, why are you being so hard on me?" And here is the moment I learned more about following Jesus as a 20 year-old. You said:

"Do you know what time a bank teller goes home every day? She goes home AFTER she has reconciled her money exchanges with the bank customers. If she is one penny short, she will have to find it before clocking out for the day... this is what it means to be held accountable. If you don't want to be held accountable, then you might want to choose a different word next time."

You were a loving, loving, loving hard ass.

On the other hand, I was simply an ass.
But you believed in the Christ in me deeply enough to put me on the YL team at Farragut high school... with you. How God shaped me through you! Your pursuit of the coldest kid, the way you took me with you on meaningless errands, our countless hard conversations. You celebrated the goodness of God in my life and you simply celebrated me. You fathered me to the Father, you brothered me to my brothers, and you showed me the Spirit of God when life was real hard.

You had no care for foolishness. Like a ghost you would show up at the times I was most in need, then in a flash be gone. And I've never known a greater example of servanthood and intentionality.
All that you owned was mine. (Even when I knew you had no money, you sent a $500 check to my son for a summer mission trip to Honduras!)

Almost seven years ago you left us... and again, I miss you.
I long for an integrated life that is half what yours was.
Pray for me if it works that way.
And if it does, I'm sure you are praying hard.