next to I AM

There is no answer to the silliness or evils of humans, the earth is strewn with us and each live as individuals but with consequences.  The consequence of a human life is often undervalued or overvalued by the specific human.  Some humans have great power to bear up upon great numbers of others; some have seemingly no power at all.  But the real power it seems to me is the life between the one human and the one next to them—does the one next to feel cherished by the other—me?  I am the other one too many people, those that I am actually present with, not as passerby but as physically, emotionally and spiritually present with.  The great struggle is the One Other, God, the I AM that makes Him singular, for if there is only One God then He needs no name.  I have found only one way to be the “good other” to anyone and everyone I am next too and that is to always and literally strive to be next to I AM.   

Attempting To Say Something That Cannot Be Said

“There are two impulses in man: one is to accept and take for granted: the other is to look with inquiry and wonder…Reverence is the response of body and soul to lofty mysteries, deeply felt and only partially understood…There are essential elements in religion (life) which cannot be comprised in practice and conduct, and which are only faintly suggested by symbolism and sacrament.  Ritual is only justified when words cannot exactly explain what it means.  It is an attempt to say something, which cannot otherwise be wholly expressed.”

The Interpreters Bible, Vol. 1, pg. 872-73

Nothing I know, have read, heard or seen can explain the life that I have so often had the privilege and terror to live.  It is this that so ties me to the feet of my God in Christ in constant need of Savior and Personhood for my overwhelming gratitude and my constant need to know.  

The Pot Less Made

I see a strong trend in ceramics today, the seeking after absolute originality.  So many ways in which to decorate model or construct the clay.  There is another way I have seen and that is the spiritual ritual, liturgical for the believer, of finding in the material a meaning to living and a way to daily live in a perpetual state of gratitude.  It is this elusive idea that there is something meaningful already there, in a material that seems so common but does seem to whisper a soft revelation—very soft—to connect you slightly with The Devine.  It has something to do with the grace of bodily motion and the awareness that comes from slowness.  That whisper, when you can hear it, declares clay, can be known only by the most gentle and sensitive heart and hand. 

Littles Scout

The earth gained another citizen; another human added to the race, another woman who can actually bear another human.  I have never gotten over this Divine Magic, bigger than the cosmos, a human being made inside a human, a woman maker making a woman—here is another woman and oh, by the way, she can grow a human inside her.  It is almost easier to believe she could make the sun or cast several dozen stars into the heavens as to make a human, a real live human being.  Well the magic happened again and again I am unable to fence it in with words, to relate the Ancient of Acts, the birth of a woman, a living breathing, full of wonder, making me wander around with the Ancient Mystery trying to express gratitude for something I cannot fathom—miracles cannot be explained with words—but a name will have to suffice, welcome to earth, welcome to the family, welcome to the Kingdom of God, welcome Littles Scout Nell Benson.

On Elegant Leaves and Lovers

Aging lovers and leaves are both great examples of ways our attitude can be improved.  The key is to notice them.  To notice is not to look; to notice is to look with the intention of seeing.  There is a loveliness of a lover whose body has learned the absolute perfection of every movement to return maximum results for minimum effort—its called grace.  Grace with age is named elegance—Betty.   Leaves are the same, every moment of their lives they seem to give way to the flow of life but in a way that makes each of their movements graceful.  And at the end they softly fall, a fluttering elegant dance to the forest floor.  Elegance is a soft falling of the aged but is known only by those fortunate enough to be there to notice.