Mowing The Yard Worship Service

When I have placed Fair Haven in order there is a certain level of eternity I experience, it is a twinkling, a vapor, a brief touch of His full attention toward me.  The yard is mowed and trimmed, it has rained lately and the grass is fully green, the porch is blown off, the trees we’ve planted are all in summer bloom, the aroma of our earth ripe with care and the river is in a soft rhythm.  It is like this is the coming kingdom when we will continually keep the universes, when we will make green and every blade is fescue, when all smells new and we orchard cedars.  It will be a studio of unimaginable possibilities, when we have no time and forever is not a thought and we make for Him, for His glories and we will be so filled with honor and success.  Our gardens will go on into mountains and dales and will be filled with sculptures we have made and everyone will fly or ride horses.  Mowing the yard can be such worship. 

  

What Art Gives Me

I never dreamed of being an artist because I never dreamed it was someone you could be.  Art was just what I did when I had free time to do anything.  What I have come to know is that making Art is my most sincere realization of His image, of me being “in His image.”  It is a very frightening thing being in his image because you can never see how you will be successful in being someone only for the pure love of being him.  It is like being successful at playing; no one thinks while playing, “I am going to be a player!”  To me, being an artist is as real a fairy tale as Robin Hood except there is a Lee Benson

Tampered Temper Tantrums To Be Me

It is very difficult to live, by that I mean to live in co-existence with others, creatures, and the earth.  Much of our lives are spent attempting to isolate ourselves from everyone and everything so that our physical self can know complete serenity.  The greatest tragedy of this is that God is at the top of our bodies list of whom we need to be isolated.  He might know us as we are and He has a list of rules we will find oppressive.  However, one of the foundational truths of individual human existence is the reality that we are only truly alive as we walk in faith-filled relation with Him and in that relationship we are truly gifted with the grace of being our self, free from all fear of constraint and able to realize our being in living.  The difficulty is not in living it is in our rebellion toward an illusion of who God is and what His purpose is for us.  Oh, we can be such broken little children trapped in our tantrums brought on by our illusions—but the truth is, we can be free and free indeed—to be—me.   

     

The Mild Wild

Living next to wilderness offers a seat in some of the most intriguing experiences.  Yesterday an osprey hit at a fish in the river and then being unable to lift it out it used its wings to swim to the base of our seawall where it set for 30 minutes flapping its wings trying to dry them enough to fly.  Betty and I eventually found a log in the woods and placed it in the river next to him and he released the fish and climbed aboard.  The log eventually floated to our newly placed rip rap and he jumped off onto the big rocks where he spent the next two hours with us drying off and preening himself.  With exclamations and prayers, we celebrated as he soared off.  And in the middle of the night our motion light went off and I got up to find three deer in our front yard, two grazing, one bedded down for the night their eyes, silver orbs as they looked at me.  I opened the door and told them to go find somewhere else to be.  They lopped off like teenagers.     

Exercising Our Souls

I sit with the river and land every morning, me waking, them helping.  It is quiet and beautiful, wholesome nourishment.  I read The Ancient Text, The Puritan Prayer Book, a devotional, a word of wisdom, and have good coffee.  I write.  I notice every sound, every jet, most birds and bugs, and lots of mystery sounds that carry me away.  I am preparing myself to live the day ahead.  I will have breakfast, always the same, pray, dress, and joined by my lover, walk.  This normally takes about three hours.  Soul developing takes time, but only by it can life be lived. 

Love Is Hard Won

The reunion is over.  All the stuff, stuffed back in our cars, the merry go round of hugs, kisses and I love yous complete, the quick linger to try and hold it, record it, imprint it.  The youngest leaves first, then the second youngest, the oldest, the first daughter, and then it is just Betty and me, and Cora, who will soon be asleep, sitting in the driveway below the Smokys—quiet.  We are drenched in love and pain, sorrow and ecstasy, filled and loss.  Family is hard-won and hard kept.  Personalities that amaze us are the same that dismay, loves that ache are also aches of love.  It is the longing for perfection, for Eden, for sorrow free life, for life when a splinter was the greatest hurt you had to remove.  But as families grow and love increases so does the difficulty of allowing love as your only theme, to bite the tongue, to carry your sorrows close to the vest.  I laid awake in the middle of last night nursing the aching pain of love that longs for only joy in each of their lives while knowing I no longer can provide it.  One of the greatest joys of fatherhood is being the one that can get the splinter out.  But there was no eternal sorrow in Fair Haven last night.  Reunions are bitter Sweet, you are hurt by all the hurts you can’t fix but you are joyed by all those that are a part of your life and no one else’s.  Family and love are hard-won and hard kept.   

Bounding Beauty-So Dangerous

We were all in the mountains again yesterday.  All spread along a cold, boulder-strewn stream, each on a rocky patch watching the youngsters play.  Several times I would go in.  It was cold and swift and I could only occupy a small section, a little sliver of a few feet.  I was snorkeling, holding onto the rocks on the bottom looking at fish and the beautiful stream bed.  I would make myself as ‘watero-dynamic’ as possible, keeping myself parallel to the rushing water to keep from being swept away.  It occurs to me that even in this mildly wild wilderness it could really hurt me if I were to let go and it would sweep me away.  Such bounding beauty—so dangerous.  The Fall is going to take us all, we are eternal and are in the battle for our lives and even exquisite beauty can kill us.  Jesus said, “in this world, you will have troubles!”  A beautiful mountain stream can sweep me away to my demise but—Jesus finished that truth with this, “take courage, I have overcome the world.”  I returned to my snorkeling and rededicated myself to my God because, in the beginning after the end, He also promised to “make all things new” which means mountain streams that won't hurt me and me that can’t be hurt. 

  

A Hike With A Moral

Oh boy, I’m beat.  Loving on a big family can be exhausting especially if they are a family of adventures.  We spent the day yesterday in the mountains beside a cold Little Tennessee, nice wide pebble beach framed with massive boulders.  We played, swam, built sculpture, ate, and just loved on each other.  Only one problem, wilderness takes a certain amount of agility, a litheness that allows you to navigate the wild but you are now being dragged around with a 62-year-old body.  When you have to hold the arm of your 12-year-old granddaughter to boulder hop from one deep green water hole to another you’ll know what I mean.  The moral of this story is this, you had better raise children who will raise children who think it is ok to help their old granddaddy live the adventures they are living.  God is good.  All the time.  God is good. 

The Twinkling

There is a tie that binds that is as quiet as the heavens and deep as Eden.  You experience it when all your family is sitting around, sunburned and tanned, all washed fully in The Great Tennessee, well-fed, evening full-on, and the conversation has begun.  Rekindled memories, exploits, deeply held faith experiences, and new adventures are shared.  And the laughter, the holding of everyone close enough that none of us can take ourselves seriously but seriously tighten the knot of love we have for each other.  And then it comes, your lover looks at you and you at her, the sound fades, the brain quietens and the heart begins its quiet melody that only her and you can hear, the tune goes something like this; “look at what we have done these 36 years, the treasures of love that transcends our own lives.  God, oh God, how our imagination would never have imagined, what glory of Yours You share with us.”  And you are winged into the hills and mountains, and into the heavens, and into the Great Beyond, and there it is, The Tie That Binds, The Quiet, Eden, and you are, in a twinkling, aware, HE IS.   

Mixing Love and Blood

I am at our annual family reunion, 19 total, and three dogs, wall to wall Lee and Betty Benson’s; you can’t walk without stepping on one.  I can remember when it was only one, me alone.  I don’t do alone well but I am also almost clinically introverted.  I need really, really strong ties to tie me to someone and blood is about as strong a cord as there is.  But it wasn’t blood that made the ultimate knot, it was love.  Betty was who I only wanted even though she was completely out of my reach.  Me a wretched mess and her a Godly catch.  I cannot tell you how many times I have thought about the amount of Grace God had to expend on me to allow her and me to become married lovers.  I would watch her walk around the deaf campus and long to marry her.  Another great gift of Grace, God giving me Godly parents who instilled me a deeply seated desire to marry Godly (even if at the time, weighted completely on the wife's part).  But from that love knot came the blood and the blood has born to us 17 and no one seems to be slowing the blood making yet.  Family Reunion’s are just that, a re-tying ourselves together into one family which is what blood does, here and eternally; and as we all held hands and sang last night, “There’s a better home awaitin, by and by Lord, by and by.” 

Magic Carpet Dreaming of the Adventure Beginning

Last night I watched several satellites glide overhead, mysterious in their man-made-ness so far out there, like a star only made by us.  One was so brilliant that I am sure it was the space station—humans riding our own made star.  In the middle of the night, I awoke to the soft rumble of a tug, slowly the barge moved until it lay entirely across our windows with the tug quietly under running lights, its searchlight beam of white haloing it all.  It silently went on its way, a night river train, my windows were once again dark.  I lay there thinking of our space station star and this night train and me in my place and the adventure we had all shared and I went to sleep.  I dreamed of the beginning of the second coming, the sky a rainbow, and then it began to shrink like ripples in a pond in reverse.  It scared me.  I woke up.  Our longings for adventure, the things humans make, and ride like magic carpets of steel and solar sails will one day be like twiddly dees and navel lint when He returns to get us.  It will be scary to begin with until we hear Him say, “Fear not, it’s just Me on My Magic Carpet coming to get you!”  and the Adventure will finally begin. 

The Pot Harping On The Kettle

Yesterday I wrote about being fed up with all the craziness in America.  Ever since then I have felt a certain level of gratefulness and shame that is greater than the growing sorrowful frustration I have in the State of the Union.  I confess that I know myself, in many ways, like those that now mar the public image of America.  For many years in my youth, I was every bit the living wretch I now see daily on my many screens.  Oh, what grace spared me from cell phone cameras, videos, and public exposure.  There are only two people that know and remember all the sorrowful depravity of the years of my youth; me, who live it and God who not only forgave me and disciplined me but then gave me an abundant life I could never have imagined when I was screaming down the highway to hades looking for it.  What Amazing Grace I was FREELY given that no one had a camera to film those years. 

The second greatest grace of my life was even in the
midst of my wretchedness this angel married me.

I Have Had IT!!!

I have had it with all this stuff.  If you don’t like the way the world is build us a better one.  If you don’t like who has been honored then build monuments to honor those you honor.  If you don’t like the police become police that you can admire.  When American was built it was built because they didn’t like the British.   They didn’t tear down Britain, they left and built America.  Why march if you are not going to get up the next day and do something.  Most positive change comes from a heart determined to make it better, every day.  All people desire things to get better but very few of them are determined to make them better.  Here is a good test to see how well you are doing.

--Is your personal space clean, squared away, daily put in order? 

--Is your room, apartment, home and/or car clean, really clean? 

--Is your yard squared away, mowed, picked up, having curb appeal? 

--Do you own anything, something that your own hard work, sweat, and sacrifice allowed you to own?

--Do you support yourself by working?

--If you are in school do you earn all A’s and B’s?

--Do you floss?  Do you recycle?  Do you conserve water, power, and resources?

--Do you physically, actively practice a faith system that demands you care?

--Do you actively, physically take care of your family?

--Do you actively, physically take care of the people who live adjacent to where you live?

--Do you give a significant amount of your money, 10% minimum, to others in need?

--Do you vote at every election?

--Do you regularly grow something, trees, flowers, vegetables?

--Do you actively, physically commune with others that do the things listed above?

These are just the beginnings of what it means to be a human and are prerequisites to being a good citizen.  Once you get these squared away you can begin to work at changing others to be more like you. 

Sitting Quietly Under The Damp Blanket

This morning the woods are as still as a stone, wrapped in heavy air filled with damp heat, a weight on all the living.  Movement would be exerting, waving, and rustling about

while pushing against the shroud would just be too much.  Wind and breeze have slept in, leaving light to awaken the woods to sleepily sit on the side of the earth trying to find a reason to get up.  Even the world has the blahs sometimes, just can’t seem to get going, the battle with gravity aided with humidity seems a morning burden too great to overcome.  Well as long as the trees aren’t going anywhere no reason for this blog to do otherwise.  Think I’ll just sit quietly among them.     

         

A Magic Carpet Comes With a Stereo

Yesterday I rode alone through the mountains of East Tennessee in a restored 1975 red VW convertible with the top down the speakers to their max.  I was listening to the old gospel hymns and country tunes and being transported into heavenly realms of joy.  Nothing has prepared me for the meaning of life after living it for 62 years, meaning that only comes from a long distillation of actually living.  I was so blessed to have parents who set my foot early to the tune of service, goodwill toward others, and finding something productive to do every day working to build better.  None of this matters except that all this early building and serving seemed to always be accompanied by old hymns playing silently or loudly as the backdrop music of living.  It is a mystery for sure, and one I was never prepared for or saw coming but it can turn a ride in the hills into a magic carpet ride. 

Even a leaf from an American Basswood tree can
be a magic carpet if you know Who made it.

The Revelations Of A Lifetime or For Cora

“Even in a crisis, God still gives us small pleasantries.”  We were shooting fireworks last night.  All around the river for miles there where firework celebrations as families gathered and howled at the full moon.  It was such a celebration of life, unlike the small-town big works Kingston normally hosts for the 4^th, canceled this year for the Rona, (Benson slang for COVID 19). The mountains surrounding the lake were aglow with life and American’s being free and God joined in, the full moon outdoing us all.  As it all began to die away, our own works finished and we sat quietly on the dock, late-night seeping into all of us my granddaughter turned to me and said, “Hey granddaddy, you can post one of my pictures on your blog and call it, Even in a crisis, God still gives us small pleasantries.”  It was one of those moments when love has cosmic sway and your heart knows its perfection of being, the still small whisper of God confirming ETERNITY.  What actually happened at that moment was not “from the mouth of babes”, or that Cora had thought a beautiful thought.  Here is what happened, THE UTTER JOY OF KNOWING IN ALL TIME ETERNAL GOD PROVED HIS ULTIMATE KINDNESS IN THAT OF ALL THE FAMILIES IN ALL THE WORLD HE GAVE THIS CHILD TO US AND TO NO OTHER.  And again, this morning as I sit alone by the river, I am shaken to my being at God’s acts of kindness so pure as to shrink the cosmos to minor.  There are God Ways that only a grandparent can know and they are the revelations of a lifetime. 

Cora's picture of one of our fireworks last night.

    

Birthdays, Blood and Bob, Let's Truly Celebrate

It seems appropriate that I should consider July the 4^th, Independence Day.  First of all, my firstborn, Aaron Tennessee, was born on this day which makes it special no matter what.  I am not a flag-waver but I am a flag flyer, just put mine out which is my daily habit.  I don’t love America, I love my wife, family, and neighbor, but I am loyal and committed to my country.  America has afforded me a kept peace that has freed me to work for and enjoy a certain level of success.  I am very aware that this peace has come at a price, a deadly, brutal, and bloody price.  The kept peace that we all sunbathe, riot, hike, march, ski, eat hotdogs, and make art and love under is actually that, KEPT.  It is kept by men and women who guard it all over the world, right now, yesterday and hopefully tomorrow.  My wife’s father, now dead some few years fought in the Pacific Theater in WW II, up those bloody islands ending at Hiroshima.  He never talked to his children about it but toward the end of his life, he unloaded a lot of broken horror to me.  Years before, my wife and I had bought our first brand new car, a Toyota Van.  He never looked at it or even acknowledged we had it.  Two of my wife’s uncle were pilots in the European Theater, both shot down, one became a prisoner of war under brutal conditions and the other died, Uncle Joe, over Belgium, his parents never saw him or even his grave, again.  I stood holding Betty as a few years ago she wept over his grave.  The last full measure.  The world is covered in American’s blood, evil exists, exists in abundance, and evil, when confronted, will draw blood.  Today, somewhere on our earth, it is likely that another American will die in this KEPT process, in our brutal times it might be right on our own soil, America, this country that I actually do love.  Many Americans will not consider July 4^th, Independence Day, today, it’s just another day, another holiday and the KEPTNESS we all enjoy will be lost on them even while they are enjoying all its rewards.  Once again, Bob, Uncle Ken Wisner, and Uncle Joseph Zitnik, thank you, I am grateful I knew two of you and look forward to one day meeting the other.  Most Sincerely, Lee

I keep this picture beside my chair.  Two men I dearly loved one of which,
the one in the corner, I wrote on today, Robert (Bob) Claggett Brown Jr. 

Bravely You Must Go

Thoughts on others and praise for Megan.

To lose a gifted one is akin to losing a portion of God’s shared splendor.  I have seen many young art students who certainly had the gift walk away to lesser lives.  Over the years one becomes alive to this aliveness in others, the ability to see behind the veil and the courage to look.  To open themselves up to the cleft in the rock that is God’s place for them to see Him thereby seeing all else as He sees it.  But it is ecstasy with a cost, the awareness of your own frittering away the Devine which makes it doubly difficult when you see it in the young.  There are times of great, quiet, clarity when you know the perfect joy of knowing God, Betty as my bride, love, and the gifts of that knowledge, the children that are ours, the created world—what the Ancient Text would call, “eyes to see and ears to hear and hearts that understand.”  Being given the gift to be an artist is in that category, a calling that comes with a sincere need for great courage, to avail oneself to Him who lifts the veil—and a bonus of those young ones who bravely gaze along with you. 

My Oxblood Red glaze and an apple.  Both reside
behind the veil.  

I'd Like to teach the world about, Honey Bees and Apples Trees and Dragonflies

I try to stay uninformed; my soul, heart, and mind cannot take the abuse.  Instead, I try to listen to God, make cookies for my widow neighbor, grow tomatoes, plant trees, make art, and do something good.  Yesterday while climbing out of the river there was a baby dragonfly just out of his exoskeleton hanging on to our dock piling allowing the sun to bring his new body to life.  I had inadvertently splashed him and he was a struggling toddler trying to hang on to his perch.  He slipped in fell into the water and I scooped him up and placed him on the dock.  However, in the process, his back-left wing was damaged.  It was as delicate as a moonbeam.  The sun continued to enlarge his body, doubling in size in the few minutes our paths crossed but nothing could repair his wing.  I found myself praying for God to intervene.  Betty came down and she too became involved in this young dragonfly.  

When I was young, 6^th grade, there was a song that was a hit, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.”  It as an anthem for a young heart still soft from my parents daily sowing God into it.  In the middle of the night last night I awoke with that song on my heart.  Oh God please help our country.  Oh, how young and passionate we used to be to sing of “apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves” and terminal dragonflies. 

The New Seekers sang the song but Coke made it famous. 

Betty holding our friend with a damaged wing.

21535 Years Old

The world is as quiet as it gets at Fair Haven.  An artist needs quiet otherwise the golden reality of life becomes so overwhelming that we collapse under the knowledge of it.  Quiet allows us to know our littleness in it all, the “day is a thousand year and a thousand years are a day” thing.  But our littleness is redeemed by the magnitude of our God, in Him we find our grandeur, our size, and Him who can encompass all the glory that will crush us if left alone. 

The title comes from that day, a thousand years verse. 
At some point, I had calculated it as to how old I would be an written
it in the Puritan Prayer book I read every morning.