June 21st, 2020

A Fisherman pulls fish out of the sea by both his skill and his inspiration.   Without skill there is no fisherman.  Without inspiration there is no man.   In the same way, the artist incarnates heaven by drawing attention to it as separate from the veil--he pulls it up from the depths of the ocean.  
In a real sense, heaven erupts out of him and draws attention to itself.

Life is not my job. It is my work.
A job is skill alone, without inspiration. A job you do because you have to— for the promises of lesser gods: be they blessings or curses.  For money—which is nothing more than paper and nothing less than symbol.  And the great danger lying within this symbol of culture’s promise is that society will fail you as a faithful bargaining partner at the shaky-legged table where sacrifices are exchanged for pleasure and hopes and dreams.  A table whose only possible location is inside temple grounds since it is also an alter to the gods.  A job is just a means to an end—a blind, unwitting hammering of nails into a coffin-lid from the inside.
But work...work is something else.  To destroy kingdoms, skilled craftsmen and artisans were always included with the kings, priests, and the prophets taken into captivity.  To make new kingdoms they had to be there, for a Kingdom must be made if it is to be lived in; if it is to be enjoyed.
We are called to be skilled craftsmen incarnating inspiration into joy—pulling men, by hook or by net, out of a sea in which they don’t even realize they swim—incarnating the kingdom of heaven on earth.