Long Live the Queen

On January 14, 2024, the 52nd anniversary of her accession, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark abdicated her throne, and for the first time in over 200 years, the world was left with no Queen serving as Monarch.  However, in just over one year that ended, on September 19th, 2025, Reese Jane Benson was crowned Queen of her Monarchy (high school), when she was crowned Homecoming Queen.  Now, once again, the world has a Queen on her throne.  Long live Queen Reese and God bless her reign.  

Reporting from Kingston, TN. This is Aaron Lee Benson, her proud granddaddy.  

 

 

Living on LP

I am decaying.  I know that is harsh, but getting old is a harsh reality to live through.  However, aging has its rewards, and one of the most sincere is the serenity of the knowledge of being.  It might be my experience alone, but I have found that I only discovered the miraculous joy of a sweet bird singing when I became slow enough to listen to it.  You can only hear the music of water raining on your window pane when your spirit is silent and unbothered enough to hear it.      

I am not communicating well.  

That’s a downfall of decaying, trying to find the right words explaining my life experiences in a mind full of all the words it's ever heard.  The point I am trying to sharpen is this: hearing is a gift of listening, and listening is done better by those of us living on LP and not on 45, a reference also shared only by the aged among you.*

*My granddaughter Cora has discovered and is buying old LPs, a hope-filled event that gives an old soul new encouragement for new souls.

Fair Haven with my lover is a Triple Platinum LP.

 

An Obedient Tree

Yesterday, as my lover and I were biking through a mountain valley of East Tennessee, aptly named Swan Pond. We passed a dogwood tree in full fall colors of scarlet juxtaposed against a sky of lazuli blue.  I said to her, “Isn’t that beautiful.  That tree’s being just what it is supposed to be, it's being a tree and bringing glory to God.”  In every way, it was doing and being what it was supposed to be doing and being.  What a wonderful witness of encouragement to me and my lover.  We biked on changed; thanks to an obedient tree.   

Concieved

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  Sometimes a line is why you see the light. 

I Am The Light of the World

It is black outside, my windows just reflect the inside of my home, and me sitting in my easy chair.  It is never a good thing for a window to be a mirror.  No one needs to be reminded of what they can see with their own eyes.  A window is an opening to a wonderful world made just for me.  Many of us have replaced our widows with mirrors, a reflection of what we can already see, a reminder that all we see is all there is until all we see becomes all we see.  

I always see my windows as mirrors first.  I long for the dark indigo of morning, the first glimpse that a wonderful world is there just waiting for light to reveal it, to turn my mirrors to windows again.  Oh, if I only knew who made light, I would owe them my absolute devotion.  

“I am the light of the world.”  

One of my windows waiting for light.

 

Soft Soul Sunday Morning

Sunday morning coming down.  We lost.  Beat ourselves.  Duck season has opened across the river.  Can hear the muffled boom of shotguns fired by men.  My lover is busy in the kitchen making her fountain of youth breakfast, which is unnecessary; she is stately and gorgeous.   I listen to a piano play softly while the burning incense carries the last of my prayers to Father.  It is a soft Sunday morning made for an old soul needing a bit of rest and worship.  Sunday morning coming down.    

No Human Needed

I am almost always sitting by a window, the first thing in the morning.  I stare out upon the world, the earth, the sky, the water in all their glory, with no human help.  No one has to lift a finger for them to be and keep being.  It takes so much of my energy to mow my yard, but no human energy is expended to make it grow.  There is a profoundness here that I cannot even think the thoughts to write about it.   “The heavens are also remote from human influence and unchanged by time.”  A single sentence in a Bible commentary can change everything outside my window.  The glories of the God of our minds.