desert spirit's fire!

Artplex Gallery

2026-05-07T22:30:00.000-07:00

• Artplex Gallery was my art-focused activity for Tuesday the 5th of May. it's a sort of commercial space because you can purchase any of the art works, and it nicely meets their "Discover Contemporary Art Beyond the Ordinary" tagline.

• Flower study 1 • Sally West

• Perched on the Tree of Life • Jennyfer Stratman

• A Design for Life • Jonjo Elliott

• Soft Daylight • Frederic Paul

• Flowers on Tuesday • Sally West

• One Day • Sally West

• Enchantment • Alessandro Casetti

• In the Above • Jeff Faust

• After the Storm • Jeff Faust

• Settling Into Dusk • Steven Nederveen

• Sooey • Kyle Paliotto

• Pale Green Dream • Taking Root II • Peter Kuttner

• The Frequency Of A Loving Heart • Amadou Opa Bathily

• Breaking News • Amadou Opa Bathily

• Sunny Beach Days • Elizabeth Lagreiters

• Mid-Hudson Inscape • Bruce Rubenstein

• Ultramarine • Kate Tova

• Tuesday was Cinco de Mayo but I opted for Tuna Tuesday at Subway. I'd planned to get a frappe afterwards, but Boba Time was closed again. Short staffed? Maybe, because they'd been advertising help wanted.

Five Minute Friday :: Beginning

2026-05-07T21:45:00.000-07:00

• Five Minute Friday :: Beginning Linkup

Have you heard the phrase, "every ending also is a beginning?" It would take eons to scroll through the years of your life and show how sometimes that was true, other times it was a loud false because a particular ending marked the conclusion of…? A pain-filled situation you couldn't wait to be rid of, or a glorious phase filled with achievement, support, and wonder. Some endings make space for new beginnings that otherwise couldn't be; other endings mean emptiness and heartbreak.

Like too many in this economy, I tell people I'm "between lives," meaning I consider myself in a transitional time between an established routine of employment, housing, and connections and (ideally) some of the same in the future. Most of us "between lives" people are working at other than our ideal job or the career we thought we were preparing for. Most of us probably are in temporary style housing and not in a place with a mortgage or a long-term lease, unless someone else holds the mortgage or the lease and we're renting from them.

I wrote that introduction because all of us between lives people can't stay there forever, although I'll admit it has a degree of comfort. Unsettled yet comfortable? Mostly because of meeting and commiserating with many many many others who truly get it.

How. Some. Ever. We need to figure out what it will take and how we will get to a serious new beginning. That new start probably will entail ending aspects of between-ness, so in that case, a particular ending is essential for a beginning.

The end of between lives may be a little bit bitter with a touch of sweetness. Have I ever mentioned how much I love the thrill of the chase? That I do, but this one has gotten very old. I'm ready to settle, not for less than I need or deserve—I'm ready to settle down again. The end of "between lives" had better make room for an excellent new beginning.

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Celebrating Live on Easter 5!

2026-05-02T22:35:00.000-07:00

Live at The Amen Jubilee!

1 we gather at the font
2 death has no more dominion
3 glory praise
4 listening, hearing, being
5 we give thee of thine own
6 broken and shed
7 we gather at the welcome table
8 thankful praise
9 jubilee, amen!

"The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine;
you are but aliens and sojourners with me.
You shall grant redemption of the land of your possession."
Leviticus 25:23-24

April 2026

2026-04-30T22:00:00.000-07:00

• On Tuesday the 7th, I visited the Vincent Price Museum and especially enjoyed art by Ofelia Esparza.

• The Los Angeles River on Tuesday the 14th

• Earth Day 2026 • Our Power :: Our Planet :: two versions of the same design

• Street Art Tuesday on the 21st

• On the last Tuesday of the month, another Santa Monica Lunch and the Armand Hammer Museum again. There were two new exhibits since my last visit.

• Space is the Place: Selections from the Hammer Contemporary Collection

• From the website instead of linking to it because Space Is the Place ends early September:

Space is the Place takes its title from the 1973 studio album and 1974 film by Sun Ra (1914-1993). The selected works in the exhibition consider "space" as a conceptual framework, through the themes of afro-futurism, belonging, placemaking, and the act of taking up space [The display] comprises installations, paintings, sculptures, photographs, and multi-media works by nearly thirty artists.

• Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials
• Act 1: Breathing, Bleeding, Crumbling Form
• Act II: Cosmic Abstraction and Communal Form
• Act II: Clay

• From the museum website:

Twenty-two artists from North, Central, and South America who embrace the unpredictable nature of living materials. These artists use materials such as avocado, cacao, achiote, cochineal, stone, clay, and natural dyes to create large-scale installations, paintings, works on paper, and mixed-media sculpture. They are rooted in the spirit, memory, and knowledge of Brown and Indigenous worlds … as records of the living and repositories of cosmic memory, organic decay and transformation.

Have I ever mentioned the commentaries from the Hammer Museum are beyond pretentious? Well, they are.

Five Minute Friday :: Decision

2026-04-30T21:45:00.000-07:00

The breeze at dawn has something to tell you.
Your boundaries are too small. Rumi
• Five Minute Friday :: Decision Linkup

Our days are packed with decisions already made that may include what to have for breakfast, what route to take to work in which conveyance, what time for your lunch break, etc., but Kate's kids especially are deciding about a road that stretches far ahead that's yet a trek they can start any time. To limit today's decision topic, those of us with more chronology already have decided about higher education, a possible profession, career training, a good company to work for. Sometimes when to quit and when to keep on keepin' on.

These are decisions regarding where you'll travel to your future, and the road you'll take to get there. It's about whether or not you'll carefully follow a map, or trust a more random intuitive approach. You already know "It's about the journey, and not the destination."

Although a young recent high school, community college, university, or professional school graduate has what looks like an endless road ahead, at any life stage we have the opportunity to decide the next step, a possible change of profession, workplace location, or type of employment setting. I love the quote from Rumi in my header! Although our dreams often start out boundless, they sometimes don't stay that way.

This has been about the road ahead. What about the miles, the highways, the decisions and their outcomes that lie behind us? William Faulkner reminds us the past never is past; it keeps overtaking us minute by minute. How are you, how am I, going to make the journey that's now in the rear view mirror happily affect your decisions today?

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Five Minute Friday :: Timing

2026-04-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

My header poppies are from 22 June 2020 – two days after the solstice –
because the timing of the seasons always is just right.
The peaches square comes from 12 June 2022.

• Five Minute Friday :: Timing Linkup

Theology blog here, right? Greek distinguishes between chronos (ordinary everyday time we usually measure on a clock or calendar, as in "chronology"), and kairos (extraordinary one of a kind time that marks a specific event we may have been awaiting or that happens unexpectedly).

It's super ironic and surprising that the Apostle Paul writes his only birth narrative about chronos and not kairos time. Given that it's one of the most poignant verses in the New Testament, who'd of thunk it?

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under the law. Galatians 4:4

Which of these timing renderings in English from that verse feels best?

proper time – time came to completion – fulfillment of the time – appointed time – time was right – right time – time had fully come – appropriate time – chosen time – set time had fully come – fulfilling of the time
I'm often grateful I didn't send an email or make a phone call when I'd planned it, and my lack of preparation or another circumstance delayed it. When I finally made the call or sent the email, the timing often felt providential, close to "kairos" even for something relatively small. Then there have been a few times I ended up not contacting the person or organization at all. Has that happened to you?

When I place larger events in the chronology of my life and my relationships with other people, the ways right timing makes seemingly disparate events and people come together often astonishes me. Every time it happens!

There have been times I've instinctively known other people's suggested timings were wrong. Then there were a handful of instances i refused to follow another person's suggested timing and regretted it.

This has been a somewhat abstract five minutes. Is timing an abstract concept? Not usually. Timing most often is about the important stuff and when events that move life forward just happen to happen. And timing is about joys in life that become disappointments when we don't consider the whole timeline—like Kate's hydrangeas.

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Morning Has Broken

2026-04-23T21:36:00.000-07:00

City Resist

2026-04-23T21:30:00.000-07:00

Morning

2026-04-23T21:19:00.001-07:00

Beach Speak

2026-04-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

Street Art Tuesday

2026-04-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

For this week's Tuesday day off I happened upon a LA Street Art tour in an industrial section of the Boyle Heights East Los Angeles neighborhood. Graff Tours [Graffiti Tours Art Studio] offered it; Mala was my host for the 90 minute walkabout. Mala's website is La Mala Luna.

I won't list all the information I got, but I'll tell you if it's not illegal, it's not graffiti. If you ask anyone casually about street art, graffiti probably would be their first response. Some of the pictures I took are graffiti (illegal because it defaces someone's property) or graffiti-style (legal because the artist has permission), some have elements of fine art, while others combine different styles.

Whenever I present a banner workshop, I remind participants they're doing public art that needs to contain concepts or elements most people understand. In other words, art out in public generally is not an obscure insider pursuit, although if it's specific to a particular culture – like Persian New Year or a new Egyptian restaurant on the block – people may get curious and need to ask questions to find out more.

LA is full of graffiti everywhere and it's a form of public art, yet it still is somewhat of an insider endeavor. I learned a tiny amount and expect to learn more as I look around and when I have a chance to collect a few people and create my own graffiti-style art in one of the workshops Graff Tours offers. Remember, it won't be graffiti because it will be legal.

I hope you enjoy this collection of graffiti and other street art; I trust you'll appreciate the "Museums" tag for this blog post.

For a late afternoon lunch, i had an amazing big Greek salad and a peach lemonade at the new to me Salata: The Next Generation Salad Bar in the Fig At 7th food court. (I'm finally resigned to even that section of DTLA being gruddier than it used to be.) And later a large Mocha Frappe.

Earth Day 2026 :: Our Power • Our Planet

2026-04-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

Earth Day 2026 • Our Power • Our Planet

• suntreeriver design

Los Angeles River

2026-04-17T19:45:00.000-07:00

Here are pictures of the Los Angeles River that named the city from my Tuesday 14 April day off outing, along with a handful more from 2017, 2018, and 2019. Just as you enjoy a piece of music or a culinary specialty over and over again, visuals are just as good the second, third, and multiple times. The first two groups come from Lewis MacAdams Riverfront Park in the spring. All these photos are from a soft bottom area that supports wildlife and wild plants, and not from a concrete storm drain section.

From Tuesday

From Previous Years

Lewis MacAdams quote: "If it's not impossible, I'm not interested."

Around the Frog Spot in Late September 2017

Five Minute Friday :: Schedule

2026-04-17T16:30:00.000-07:00

World Communion Sunday Welcome Table Bread and Cup
• Five Minute Friday :: Schedule Linkup

Whether it's skeddule or sheddule, it's an essential for staying organized and productive. Schedules help planes and trains take off and arrive on time. They let employees, suppliers, vendors, customers, and everyone else know what hours they can shop. Etc. Etc. Society necessarily runs on multiple interdependent schedules, as do families. For the tulips in Kate's FMF "schedule" illustration square, experiencing winter is a necessary part of their schedule if they're going to flower in the spring.

Then there's Kate's reminder not to get so engrossed in making a living (overscheduled) that you neglect getting a life.

Aside from daily details for home, work, school, or various appointments, have you noticed how your week eases into a schedule that includes work, play, rest, recreation, and worship? These days I work second shift 2 to 11, Wednesday through Monday, a schedule I never thought I'd like. Although I don't exactly love it, aside from being grateful for a reasonable job in this crazy economy, I've discovered my body, mind, and spirit have achieved a comfortable rhythm, at least for the medium term (if not forever).

The Sunday assembly centers the rest of my week around Word and Sacrament. You might say Word and Sacrament schedule my week with constant awareness of God with me.

There you have my reflective considerations about "schedule." Then there's the schedule I'd choose if I had the choice…

What's your current schedule? And your ideal?

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Five Minute Friday :: Remnant

2026-04-10T19:30:00.000-07:00

• So, too, at this present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace. Romans 11:5

• Five Minute Friday : Remnant Linkup

You may know Elijah and his contest with the Ba'als as the scriptural and historic context of "remnant" that the Apostle Paul refers to in order to make his point of God choosing us:

• 1 Kings 18:20-40

I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the scripture says of Elijah, how he pleads with God against Israel? "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars; I alone am left, and they are seeking my life."

But what is the divine reply to Elijah? "I have kept for myself seven thousand who have not bowed the knee to Baal." So, too, at the present time there is a remnant chosen by grace. But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace would no longer be grace. Romans 11:1-6

If you've sewn or quilted, or had quilting or sewing family members or friends, you know about fabric remnants. They're typically the tail end of a bolt of fabric that's not big enough to sell by the yard. Or sometimes it's a discontinued pattern they cut into sellable sizes. I used to sew a lot until I no longer did. I'm not sure why I quit, but I wonder… is remnant the same as leftover? Please let me know!

Instead of attempting some heavy-duty theology of gracious election that more than a few have done over the centuries, I'll go more in the direction Kate took. She wrote about her offspring leaving behind remnants of their visits, but I'm considering…

Last Sunday was the Day of Resurrection, Easter Sunday. Especially Orthodox churches celebrate the seven days from Easter Sunday through Easter Saturday as Bright Week; they consider the entire week a single day—the first day of the new creation. We sometimes talk about Eighth Day Theology. Some baptismal fonts have eight sides (octagonal) to help demonstrate our baptism into the new creation, our baptism as a new creation Into Jesus Christ's death and resurrection.

Remnant is this week's prompt, so why am I saying so much about Easter? Jesus had scars in his post-resurrection appearances. It's important to remember the new creation is not pristine; it carries scars and leftovers from our old, deadly pasts. And because the New Creation is the rebirth, the transformation of the old, it contains remnants of what used to be.

What aspects of your past has God already resurrected? What's going on – or not – in your life and world that needs to experience death and resurrection? We look forward to the reality Revelation 21:1-3 describes:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

See, the home of God is among mortals.
God will dwell with them;
they will be God's peoples,
and God will be with them and be their God;

God will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.

But right now?

A remnant of hope will carry us home.

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Vincent Price Museum

2026-04-08T22:30:00.000-07:00

• The Vincent Price Museum is on the East Los Angeles College campus in the Monterey Park neighborhood and it's not creepy (as a person might think).

• Only one of the third floor galleries was open: Form and Function in the Ancient Americas.

from the website:
"Form and Function in the Ancient Americas highlights the wide range of cultures represented in our Ancient American collection. Cultures from the Nayarit-Jalisco-Colima region of West Mexico (2000–1000 BCE) to the Chimú of Peru (900–1500 CE) are featured.

• A retrospective of art by Ofelia Esparza was the highlight of my visit. At 94 years old, she still is is active as an artist and teacher! Ofelia is yet another denizen of LA (and elsewhere, too, of course) influenced by Corita Kent.

• Since I've been including my lunches/meals on these Tuesdays blogs, I'll mention I went to the Panda Place for the first time in eighteen months. Orange Chicken and Beijing Beef was a good choice because I'd been wanting to go there for a while, but I still prefer something with more veggies and more variety. The watermelon-mango crafted drink was delicious.

March 2026 :: Around Town

2026-03-31T22:00:00.000-07:00

• Getty Center – early March Cherry Blossoms – Orchid on the eve of the March 7th LA Marathon

• LACMA visitor stickers on a traffic light pole – later in March Sakura – MOCA signage

• Tuesday 03 March and Black Arts at the Getty

• Important note: Tuesday 03 March was the first time I knew my usual Subway was closed due to a water main malfunction. It still was closed on Friday 27 March. That's a month. Almost definitely I ate lunch at that Subway on Friday 27 February. Update: it finally finally reopened on Friday 17 April. That's seven weeks, approaching two months.

• Friday March 6th Cherry Blossoms!

• March 10th and another free Second Tuesday at LACMA

• Tuesday March 17th and my first time in Venice since Covid began. I didn't consult my phone a single time, so these are three captures from before.

• "Grace to you and peace from God who raises the dead, who makes all things new!"

• On the fifth Sunday in (but not of) Lent I preached again—this time on Ezekiel's Dry Bones

• Tuesday 24 March lunch in Santa Monica and new exhibits at the Armand and Hammer Museum

• Sunday 29 March Palm / Passion Sunday

• New art at MOCA on Tuesday the last day of the month that's also Tuesday in Holy Week

MOCA on Tuesday

2026-03-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

• Tuesday I visited MOCA – The Museum of Contemporary Art – again.

I love this picture I got of the museum's location and position on Grand Avenue.

• My first exhibit was Star-Crossed Rendezvous by Haegue Yang that "Brings together two major installations executed using customized Venetian blinds … made nearly a decade apart."

• From the MOCA website: "Haegue Yang (born in Seoul in 1971) is known for large-scale installations that employ utilitarian objects." I understand how intriguing the interplay of shadows and light often is, but I don't get this Venetian blind art at all.

• Haegue Yang is on Instagram

• My notes weren't careful enough to separate what I enjoyed from Gifts of Michael Asher and Good on Paper: Works from the Gene J. and Betye M. Burton Acquisitions Endowment. Here's three I liked a lot:

• BUS by Mason Williams

• I didn't record the artist of this lovely scene.

• This large imaginative piece is by Ree Morton who didn't get serious about art until her early 30s, and then earned an MFA.

• The book store is exciting and packed with color; here's a display of mostly cat books.

• After Tuna Tuesday at the Subway across the street from MOCA and beside The Broad, I went to FIGat7th because I've long loved the name for the complex at (South) Figueroa Street and (West) 7th Street, and mainly because I needed a few things from Target the very small format Target near me didn't have. I hadn't been there since long before Covid, and the entire area hasn't aged well. It was a little depressing.

• McDonald's frappés are so good! Even though they don't have hazelnut, choosing between Caramel and Mocha is tough. Didn't they used to have chocolate chip and maybe another flavor?

Santa Monica Tuesday + The Hammer Museum

2026-03-27T17:30:00.000-07:00

• Santa Monica lunch and meeting. Didn't I mention the ascendancy of kale proves people are more mimetic than thoughtful? But I picked what probably was the best choice of four salad dressing options, and the soup rocked with flavor.

• I had the rest of my day off afternoon for another trip to the Armand Hammer Museum.

• Two "systematic and intuitive" Hammer Projects by Mike Cloud near the entryway: "Painted Clothing responds to consumer culture" and his "Modern Timeline series interprets modern day tragedies."

• Because The White Album by Arthur Jafa had a violence warning label, I didn't view it.

• Corita Kent's illustration from 1967 of "Loves That Man" by Daniel Berrigan forms the entryway for…

• …Five Centuries of Works on Paper at the Grunwald Center. On Tuesday's stroll I took pictures of a small print of "Loves That Man" that also captured the celling lights, along with a most intriguing "Untitled" (2003) lithograph from Mark Bradford.

• There were at least two Installations in progress. There's always a good reason to visit the Hammer again!

• At the bookstore I bought a chrome orange tote bag with the Hammer logo.

• My usual Subway still is closed due to a water main malfunction that's turned into a disaster for the shops and restaurants at that small plaza, so for Tuna Tuesday I went to the one in mid city from two weeks ago. And last week. Next week, too? I hope not!

Five Minute Friday :: Lazy

2026-03-26T22:37:00.000-07:00

• Five Minute Friday :: Lazy Linkup

What a great prompt! Are cats lazy? Or do they just not want to do what anyone says? Then again, cats sleep many many hours each day; is that laziness or is it preparation for the hunt? Getting ready to be extra adorable?

What is lazy, anyway? Relaxed? Shiftless? Pointless? Simply disinterested? Undisciplined, maybe? I did a quick check of its etymology and I didn't care for what I read.

Or has lazy become a word related to rest that often leads to rejuvenation? A rest in music may seem like absence of sound, but rests are necessary for the music to happen.

As Kate pointed out, contemporary Western society admires action and active people; too many of us do our best to become human doings rather than human beings. She used the word, "productivity." I've mentioned human doing-ness too many times on this blog. Like many, I admire my own productivity in all my endeavors. I don't necessarily make a formal readable list as I accomplish whatever it is or whatever they are, but I tally them in my head and want to do better next time. I want to do more the next time.

I don't know that it's been a header before, but this time I've used one of many versions of one of several paintings I made of the beach house in the town of Truro on the vacation peninsula of Cape Cod. You could have – probably would have – called those times lazy. We slept latish, lounged on the beach, rappelled down sand dunes, and laughed like crazy as we did it. We took a few jaunts to the tourist section of nearby Provincetown. Each year I drove back to Boston late Sunday afternoon to get ready to be present and productive during our upcoming summer program.

As I typed that last sentence, I realized the kind of unfocussed, unplanned laziness I described is a good way to get ready for the next step that's not only productivity—it's also presence.
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Lent 5 Sermon

2026-03-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

Typing up a sermon afterwards always feels so last Sunday, March 22nd, but I had a couple of requests for a copy and I need blog content (or fodder, maybe), so here it is, more or less. By the way, it preached better than it reads.

• Ezekiel 37:1-14

I really liked my opening prayer:

From all the ends of the earth, come to us, breath of God.
Breathing life of the Divine, embrace your people and your land.
Let us live again.
In the name of the One Spirit-sent for the life of the world.
Amen.

Two days ago on Friday we celebrated the Spring equinox, a verdant greening time as days get longer. And now we celebrate the Persian New Year with our friends—thirteen festive days of rejoicing in creation!

We're two-thirds through Lent, as Jesus and his followers draw closer to the holy city Jerusalem. They draw closer to Jesus' trial, conviction, crucifixion, death, and burial. Nearer to the day of resurrection, Easter Sunday.

Throughout scripture, hints and types and realities of resurrection foreshadow Jesus' resurrection. New life out of ashes, ruins, destruction, devastation. New life out of the death of the old.

Less than two weeks from the Friday called Good, the lectionary that gives us our scripture readings pairs Ezekiel's provocative and pictorial dialogue with God as Ezekiel raises dry bones from death to life, with the seventh and last of Jesus' "I Am" statements from John's gospel. After Jesus' raises Lazarus back to life from death (he really was dead, already buried in the tomb), Jesus declares "I Am the Resurrection and the life." John 11:25

* * *
Ezekiel was a priest in the holiness tradition of the Jerusalem Temple. About 600 years before Jesus, during the last years of Jerusalem and the Temple before the exile to Babylon, Ezekiel ministered with words from God and words of God. Deep into the long book that bears his name, chapter 37 happens when Ezekiel's proclamation moved from discouragement and lament to hope and a vision of the future.

This is pivotal because it came about when news of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple reached the exiles.

"These people" somehow had developed bad theology that located God in a special way in the heart of the temple, accessible only once a year, only to the high priest under certain circumstances.

Had they forgotten the God who liberated them from slavery in Egypt? The God of the Exodus who journeyed alongside them and ahead of them throughout those forty years in the wilderness? God who provided gifts like water from the rock and manna from the sky? The Ten Words or Commandments of the Sinai Covenant that showed them how to honor God by living together faithfully honoring their neighbors?

Since the temple was gone, did that mean God was dead? They were away from the land of promise that yielded such agricultural bounty. Did that mean all of God's promises were null and void?

* * *
We don't know if Ezekiel's conversation in the Spirit with God was a physical event, a sleeping dream, or a waking vision. We do know his experience of God's initiative and the subsequent call and response as Ezekiel spoke words in the Spirit from God and words of God convinced him there was a future.

Although the human Ezekiel spoke words from God and words of God and raised dead bones to new life, we often consider new life and resurrection primarily God's thing.

But wait! In the second reading for today (that we didn't hear), the apostle Paul tells us:

If [since, because] the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, God who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the same Spirit that dwells in you. Romans 8:11

Earlier on, in his first letter to the church at Corinth, we hear from Paul regarding us as the gathered body of Christ – the church, the assembly of the faithful – and us as individuals:

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? 1 Corinthian 3:16

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, which you have from God, and that you are not your own? ! Corinthians 6:19

So we've moved from bad theology of God being contained (God in a box?) in the Jerusalem Temple, to biblical theology of God indwelling us, making a home with us. We are temples of God, filled with the Holy Spirit, moving, walking, and talking alongside the people.

* * *
Ezekiel's words from God in the Spirit revitalized people who had been reduced to bones.

What dry bones of loss, death, disappointment is God calling you to resurrect with Words in the Spirit? Words from God? Words of God?

* * *
Today Jesus again invites us to the table of grace, the feast of new beginnings.

In the Lord's Supper, the Eucharist, we reenact and remember the history of the world's salvation that also belongs to us.

God remembers that we forget.

Jesus welcome everyone. You are welcome. I am welcome. We are welcome!

To God alone be glory.

Amen!

Five Minute Friday :: Harmony

2026-03-23T21:00:00.000-07:00

Music from the Fifth Evangelist :: Johann Sebastian Bach.
Summer worship bulletin cover featuring Ben Shahn's portrait of Bach

• Five Minute Friday :: Harmony Linkup

Sometimes we describe something by saying what it's not. Or is apophatic only a theological thing? Assuming the concept applies outside the realm of theology, does that mean harmony isn't dissonance?

Discussions of harmony may be quintessentially about music, but harmony and dissonance also are major components of all kinds of design and many aspects of design—maybe especially color. My color theory instructor mentioned red, yellow, and blue "always go well together." Does that mean they can't be done badly? No. But it does mean a skilled artist can tweak a RYB palette so the colors harmonize.

Harmonious and inharmonious relate to the wide range of human relationships, as well. You can take a cue from art and design as you rejoice in variety of many kinds that sometimes complement, sometimes add interest and spice, occasionally clash so much you need to ask how can this harmonize? Or can it?

Everyday life in general, too. As you've probably learned, experiences of discord are almost essential if we're going to appreciate and be thankful for days that unfold as we'd anticipated, events that transpire according to plan. Last Friday, the date of this linkup, was the spring equinox, when it feels as if creation harmonizes with itself.

In the witness of scripture, harmony is shalom that goes far beyond irenic peace as an absence of conflict into wholeness, justice, goodness, bounty, and commonwealth.

Sixty-two versions of Edward Hicks' Peaceable Kingdom paintings still exist. I've included one of the four on my computer in my array of footer pictures.

The wolf will dwell with the lamb,
The leopard will lie down with the young goat,
The calf and the young lion and the fatling together;
And a little boy will lead them.
Isaiah 11:6

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Tuesday at LACMA

2026-03-12T22:00:00.000-07:00

Second Tuesdays at LACMA are free, so there I was, feasting on the glory.

• Entrance welcome banner along with the late Chris Burden's Urban Light project.

• The foliage accented with red metal around campus is a photographic treat. Here's one view of many possibilities.

• I always enjoy capturing angles and geometry. Here's one.

• My Very Own photograph of David Hockney's Mulholland Drive (1980) for my Very Own archives. Notice the oil well. Do you know how many are in Los Angeles? Today's search results say over 5,000 in Los Angeles city, with thousands (up to 20,000 more) throughout LA County, in a mix of active, idle, and abandoned.

With my back to Mulholland Drive I watched Five Decades of Contemporary Art at LACMA 1965-2020 (twice).

• Staircases and angles again.

Galleries from Tuesday:

Though they allowed photography without flash, almost no one was taking pictures. It wasn't that type of exhibit or that the kind of day for me, either.

• Made in France, 1880-1930

Art by favorites Lyonel Feininger, Raoul Dufy, Henri Matisse, Fernand Léger

• The Art of German Expressionism

Ernst Kirchner, Emil Nolde, Wassily Kandinsky

• Picasso's Portraits

• Paris 1900-1920

Jean Arp, Paul Klee, Diego Rivera, Piet Mondrian, Jean Dubuffet

• Metropolis by Chris Burden. The same Chris as Urban Light.

• Still on-campus, yet more palm trees. WIthout knowing (I could google and find out), I imagine most Southern California palms are date palms.

• I keep my stickers, but this decorated traffic light pole outside the museum inspires multiple visits.

• Early evening Tuna Tuesday at a Subway some distance from me. My usual Subway still is closed because of a broken or non-draining, or otherwise dysfunctional water main.

Five Minute Friday :: Polite

2026-03-05T21:15:00.000-08:00

• Five Minute Friday :: Polite Linkup

The first Five Minute Friday for March is another instance of the picture Kate provided being so lovely I had no choice but to participate this week. I'm politely responding by including two of my California golden poppy pictures. The short version of why only two out of my dozens of photos of golden poppies? Part of being polite is not making a conversation or a situation all about you, the speaker or actor, but doing the best you can to defer to others who may be there.

Our host Kate's report of a not polite kindergarten girl (in church) was sad. You can make the excuse parents are overwhelmed, and parents are overwhelmed, but teaching politeness from day one and enforcing it along the way is doable in almost every case and has the immense benefit of making a parent's job easier along the way.

Polite

All these years later, I still recall some quotes from our Conference MInister's newsletter columns "way back when," as I always loved hearing my grandmother say. One month he wrote, "Kindness is love in action." (For people in independent or unaffiliated churches, a judicatory such as a conference, synod, presbytery, diocese is an accountability and oversight structure.)

Since kindness is love in action, politeness is an important aspect of kindness. Politeness is about not causing discomfort to any person of any age in any situation. (For example, Kate told us how she gently suggested to the little girl how to politely reword her demands into requests.) Being polite entails being familiar with social conventions and habits. Those manners help us situate ourselves – and our kids – in the larger society where people maintain certain ways of being, of speaking, of dressing, of interacting with others.

Does that place all of us within a certain establishment, or "established order?" To an extent it does. It also helps provide a way to connect with others so they can hear our opinions, plans, and ideas without needing to cut through extraneous body and language clutter. Because being polite is part of being kind.

Politeness is part of our behavioral and cultural vocabulary. Being polite helps create a civil society where everyone does their part in fulfilling the social contract.

What are your favorite polite practices?

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P-22

2026-03-04T22:00:00.000-08:00

I've long wanted to blog a tribute to urban cougar P-22, the SoCal Puma (American Wild Cougar, Mountain Lion) who lived in Griffith Park at least since February 2012. I have no wise or poetic words of my own, so I'm posting pictures and tributes from others.

• This head shot is from Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, 23 April 2019.

• Large Map showing scale of P-22's range

• P-22's location in Griffith Park

• P-22 billboard!

• P-22 graffiti!

• Poster from Tongva artist Weshoyot Alvitre

• From LA on the Move at Union Station last October. The exhibit explores how wildlife and people travel through shared landscapes and follow paths that overlap; a picture of P-22 was essential.

• Tribute from Mountain Lion Foundation

• Tribute from PBS SoCal

• Tribute from Save LA Cougars

• Tribute from LAist