Whispering Words of Wisdom

“Let there be” is so kind.  It is so simple but encompasses such authority, power, potential and goodness.  “Let there be” is not a force or an effort, it is a releasing of, a great transfer of creative exuberance from You to nothing allowing something.  “Let there be” is like unto an offering of your smile to another, it is a gift of tremendous kindness, so simple but profoundly touching.  “Let there be” is gentle, an overflowing of what is normal, a flooding slowly, a love spreading out, manifesting nothingness with charity.  'Whispering words of wisdom, Let there be.’

On reading the opening of The Ancient Text.

  

The Gift, Owner or Artist

I have been gifted a gift of the meaning of life experiences and the gift urges me on to greater experiences. By experiences I mean the gift allows me to see more, hear more, feel more, and love more.  It opens the world to me, a world I would never have seen or known before.  It gives meaning to meaning, real meaning, this is difficult to explain but it is like reading poetry in English class and the meaning is so cloaked in words until the professor begins to explain it and opens its fullness and you are transported by its beauty, and each verse gives you a keener sense of life, love, and meaning.  It is like the English language is mastered and you know all the meanings of all the words so you can choose the right word to say what you mean; it is this in reverse, the words of the gift began to be alive and open to you a kaleidoscope of meaning and the meanings is true and it trueness proves it true. You are set free to know as only it can let you know.  And one greater thing; it confirms there is so much more to know, so much more beauty, love, and truth which we are unable at present to see, hear, touch, and understand.  The gift has made me so much better; I am such a better human being.  Not that I am morally better, but that I am better at being a human being, like a towering Sequoia tree is better at being a tree than a Pine.  I have been made, not me making,  a more advanced lee, my heart, senses, and soul have been fully developed.  It might be understood by this; someone owning a great sculpture or someone being able to sculpt a great sculpture; owner or artist, the Gift allows you personal access to The Artist.

The Gift?  Reading the Bible everyday.

  

A Mighty Fortress...we have, (Thank You Dr. Patterson)

I have often found myself in the wilderness, alone at picnic table with The Ancient Word, a lantern for light, as my family slept soundly in our tent.  The same in hotel rooms, dark before dawn, reading with my God, my lover sleeping.  This morning the same. 

I am about to finish Roland Bainton’s biography of Martin Luther, Here I Stand.  It may be the greatest book of our faith I have ever read besides The Holy Bible.  Luther struggled terrible in his own faith, was often desperately fearful of his lostness and terrible depressed.  In the closing chapters of the book the author addresses this with Luther’s own words.  This is a long post and it might be I am caught up in my own struggles, that I am reading Revelation in my quiet time, or just I am a long way from home, in a dark hotel room with Betty sleeping.  However, I found this story of Luther’s about Abraham, Isaac, and Christ deeply meaningful and insightful for my own faith.  In a time in America when we can easily be despondent over the condition of our beloved country it is good to be reminded, our God reigns, not only over America but also over our lives and the lives of our loved ones.  That alone compelled me to share it. 

Dr. Patterson recommended the book
to me.

    

Thou

Music’s existence is the only proof necessary to believe in God.  Oh, the joys that flow out of humans' mouths.  Music draws tears out of our hearts and praises out of our souls.  It can transport us to past ecstasies and pains unimaginable.  A little pondering is in order.  Music is just wind pushed and pulled by the lungs across two pieces of meat in the throat.  It is vibrations from strings, wires, and wooden slivers.  No mind in the vacuum of the human skull could have invented music or its mechanizations.  Add lyrics and have the Psalms, Let it Be, Amazing Grace, and Free Bird.  How Great Thou Art is a fitting closing line to this blog.      

This was our go-to song when Sissy had cancer.  Our son Zac belonged to this church when he had his art internship in NYC.
 

  

You Have No Life!

There is no knowing God without the daily study of, meditation upon, comparing oneself with, and committing to actions which mimic, God, in Christ, as urged and encouraged by the Holy Spirit.  All things, spiritual, natural, cultural, environmental, and political, are only known in and through the personal relationship we cultivate with the God Three.  A lover’s warmth, a sunset, a kindness, and all like things are only known in their great mystery by an ongoing, vibrant relationship with the God Three.  Even a snail or a soft breeze is known as miraculous divine by this relationship.  To deny oneself this gift is like choosing but one breath adequate for a lifetime of living, when all the heavens are filled with the breaths of God.

Betty and I regularly stop in Catholic Churches to pray.  This one was in 
Greenville SC.  Catholics always leave their doors open.  Light inside a
church was invented by God and discovered by the church.  As
soon as we had windows, we added colors.  Sacred spaces are another
knowing of wisdom.   

I Am A Dreamer

I am a dreamer.  I dream.  I dream of the pasts meaning, of the many “I’m sorry”s I need to give, of the many “I love you”s I need to say.  I dream of the what ifs I could have done, trails I never trod, challenges I never took up.  I dream of what those past loves are doing now, those boys I ran with, those girls I held.  I dream of past gangs I held membership in, those “Glory Days” when we ran like deer, howled at the moon, sang, and played to our greatest tunes.  I dream of art that I never made, of my dad long since gone and what I would say now if I could say.  I dream of all the feats I did that no one saw, of all the crumbling failures as well.  I dream of all the wonders I have seen, all the nature which seemed like a dream, all the mountain tops, valleys long, oceans deep and oceans beaches empty but with me and my lover.  I dream of my body I use to have, the lean one, the go all day and all night one, the one which knew no pain, the new one.  My dreams are like aching for, great longings of being with.  My dreams are of people, all the mates and maidens, all the summer days, winter snows, firesides, births, deaths, the loving, and the fights.  I dream of what will be, the passing over, what use to be, the long bike rides when we were free, the road trips, the trips to come, the trips I never made.  To all those friends I held dear, hold now, dream of but don’t know, wish I could see, see all the time, the great loves of my life.  I dream mostly of now and today, the green world before me, the rain, the sky, the Fairest Haven, my lover sleeping, the joy of having the time now to dream.  I dream because I am a dreamer and have dreams to dream. 

     

caterpillar, How Great Thou Art

Yesterday, one of our children sent us this photo of a caterpillar with a single drop of rain, a perfect sphere, a water bearer, and an agent of praise.   I rejoiced in the picture because it gave testimony that my lover and I had done our job as parents, our children have eyes that see.  Not that they had eyes, but that they had had their eyes opened.  We all have eyes, ears, fingers, a nose, and taste buds, but these are dulled until they are anointed through salvation to work properly.  The Bible says when the prodigal son “came to his senses”, he went back home.  It also says, “In all your ways acknowledge Him…”.    Our child probably didn’t know they were moving me to worship but having your eyes open is one of the greatest testimonies of praise for the One who not only made them but opened them as well.    

      

Assurance I am Possessed

I long to know people.  I am never one who seeks to waste time on small talk or chatter.  I would rather sit quietly with you than come away not knowing who you are.  I find people and their lives fascinating and treasure their telling of their tales.  I celebrate their highs and mourn with them their difficulties.  Life is short and can end in a twinkling and demands we know each other, and have compassion and love for each other.  This is why I love the earth so much.  It never hides but bares itself, bears upon you, exposes it truest truth, never what it isn’t, but is always what it is, and above all accepts me as I am.  If I know you, you can accept I want to know you more.  I want to walk along with you.  Most are unsure of this openness, wary of being known but I assure you I am gifted the love for others.  It is my assurance of salvation for it is not me but He who possesses me.    

 

Get To Being Saved

A momentous event.  It is spring warm outside which means our doors are open to the wonderful sounds, smells, and life outside our home.  Right now, a mockingbird sings, a breeze is strong enough to sway the branches and Sissy’s saving chimes slowly swing notes up from the dock.  As one must look to see, one must listen to hear, and breathe to smell.  The art of coming to our senses is being rapidly lost.  The gifted reminder of the prodigal sons' move toward salvation is no longer a ready part of our personal memory which gives saving a lesser window to come to us.  77° is a good reminder to get to being saved.     

Earth Elder

I am an elder of the earth.  I know the land and sea. I have been to mountain tops, lived through ocean storms, have found my two great loves, Him, and her, and have given my whole being away.  I have survived death and returned to the living, been tormented by burns, broken-hearted by lost ones, and experienced births firsthand, and deaths of the living.  I have seen behind the veil, had angels come to serve me, fought God and lost, walked every mile the prodigal and every mile back home. I have lived in squallers, under bridges, in mansions, and on My Side of the Mountain.  I have opened myself to the Great Eternal and suffered the torments and ecstasies.  I see most dawns and sunsets, married people by waterfalls, and love my lover everywhere.  I have pushed my body to collapse, lain in hot springs deep in the Rockies, and lived above the Arctic Circle.  I am scarred from head to ankle from heart to soul from daylight to daylight.  I have lived and am living.  I am an elder of the earth.   

The Earth in Labor Rests

It is delicate this morning, softness flowing over the mountains polishing the river.  My consciousness of it is all that is known, my heart alone making it present, otherwise, it would be unnoticed, and then—what’s the use?  I often think that noticing the earth I am helping, like whistling at my lover makes her glow with being noticed.  Clarinets softly serenade and a water bird floats by.  Rain will come tomorrow and today prepares me for it.  It is soft and quiet as the earth in labor rests a morning before pushing on its birth of spring.         

"He Pulled Outta There" today.

I have known two great witnesses of the faith, my mom and dad.  All my references of how to live in the peace, love, and works of the faith find their foundations with these two great pillars of the temple of Christianity.  My dad has long since passed.  My mom is fading into eternity little by little her mind leading her body.  Throughout it all she has remained most lucid in her faith.  When she could not recall much, she could always recall her faith in the way she would pray.  Even this is fading now.  This week Betty and I visited with her.  We always close our visit by reading one of the familiar Bible stories and singing an old familiar hymn and then I ask mom to close us in prayer.  We talked about Easter and what it meant, and I asked her, “Mom do you know what happened to Jesus after he was buried?”  She looked puzzled for a minute and then exclaimed in certainty, “Well I guess He pulled outta there!”  Yes, halleluiah, He’s pulled outta there today!!!    

Every visit I show her pictures of her life 
long ago and all her loved ones who came from her.

The World in Silent Still Lay...Happy Easter

I live in a box, a studio we call it, 27/32/9 feet with a southwest wall of glass.  Our bed is on wheels and every evening I roll it to the glass, so we don't miss any of the wild things of night.  We are surrounded by wilderness, forested on three sides, the Mighty Tennessee in front, and mountains beyond.  We have a sincere art collection that surrounds us, a small wood stove to heat us, and screens allowing the smells, sounds, and breezes into our home.  Our closest neighbors are animals and birds who are endlessly present throughout our day and night.  We are off-grid, mostly have cell service outside, read, write, make art, talk, and live to be with each other.  We are constantly entertained by the earth, sky, and heavens, and live mostly unaware of human presence.  We hold our family close, our few friends near and our remembered ones dear.  God our God is always present, His reality ever before us, welcoming us to His world, showing us his might, power, and majesty.  We on occasion must cry out to Him, but mostly, quietly, are moved to thank Him.  This morning, I remember Him in the grave but His world, now filling with sunlight, forces my thoughts out of His tomb and into His resurrected light of tomorrow.  “The world in silent stillness lay, to hear the angels sing…”  He is risen.   

          

In Every Way Giving Everything

There is a way of being old where the wildness of your youth is reborn.  It is the passion and zeal of giving oneself completely over.  There seems to be no greater feeling of meaning than those experienced between the ages of 13 and 19.  The innocence of passion withholding nothing, in every way, giving everything.  This can eventually lead to a life where all has been spent and our reserves are as depleted as our lost youth.  But there is a miracle we can be gifted which fills our ancient years with a passion of love, of longing, of the wildness of youth fired with the reality of our brevity.  It is where we know true love, true compassion, true forgiveness, true life because they have been gifted to us.  It is as wild as a human can be, tempestuously primal, readying oneself for the eternal kingdom. 

Inner Harvesting

3-20-2024

There are dear friendships which are deeply held and felt but only last a season.  A short summer of knowing and being known, of laughter and meaning one only experience in their now ancient youth.  Those friends tangled only in care and kindness.  I talked to one of those friends last night, barely passing, me here, they there.  It was on the phone.  I am an image bearer, hearing voices but only able to know images.  They sounded 16 but time, that enemy of images, couldn’t connect me to them.  I am beginning the life of longing for the image, the person, the who these were to me those many years ago; a way to live meaning, knowing those dear old young ones. But regrettably and like the song, “Just for a moment, I was back at school, and felt the old familiar pain.  And as I turned to make my way back home.  The snow turned to rain…”, we never really met.     

 

Time is so quiet we might miss it.

Morning’s quiet seems to linger in time and spirit.  But it will fade and soon come to noon followed quickly by evening tide and night.  All time is as fleeting as a twinkling and should be thought of so as not to lose large swells of it twiddling our navels.  Morning is that thinking time, it is slow because we think of it.  We read well, may I suggest The Holy Scripture, and write honestly having been made honest by The Scripture, and we see well if we have a window and hopefully a garden and a sweet bird and have assured ourselves these all come from God.  Mornings are for us slowing down and noticing time as we are given it freely and it is most treasured because it gives us our only way to exist.     

Green's Joyful Noise

Green is beginning and it brings to life our souls regenerating our bodies to good deeds.  To opening the earth and planting dreams, and hopes for the future of beauty, even those we will not live to see.  The earth provides for us a legacy, a living on after our living is done.  To give to those we leave behind, to declare the joys of the Lord long after our joy here is complete.  Planting apple trees and irises, forsythia and flowering cherries, buttercups and maple trees are all prayers to our Father, a liturgy of hope, faith, and love for sharing His creating nature with us.  He who planted and nurtured Eden has Himself given us the gift of gardens which will grow.  Yes, green is coming as an invitation for us to help, “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.”  Amen and Amen. 

Fair Haven All The Time

Back home in all the old familiar places.  I discovered something several years ago; no matter where we are on earth the thought of returning to Fair Haven is a great comfort.  Along with this is the assurance that nowhere is as beautiful as here.  Can you imagine the joy of that?  To live out one’s days in unrivaled beauty awaiting the journey to an unimaginable rival that will surpass all our hopes and dreams.  God is good.  All the time.  God is good.  

The sun's assurance arrived on the mountain beyond. 

You See HIs We Don't

I know a Little Blessing who every day walks into the least of these bringing love's warmth to our unkept.  Oh, to be about His Kingdom’s work, to daily build His castle in the sky, to set the gems, to polish the littles' hearts.  You raise the shadowed valley, fill the great chasm, lower the mountains they could never climb…your heart spilling out His, you touch our untouched.  Most shout, “Unclean, Unclean” and hide away in the cleansed numbness; you touch, stroke, hold, care, and grace-filled; see them.  I see you.  I AM sees you.  You, broken-hearted, broken spirit, broken intentions, broken, broken will.  You live to go back the next day on a call and a prayer, and they live to see you, see them, every tomorrow.  

   

The Bride's Room Treasure

I love an old church and have spent my life tramping around the world looking at them.  From St. Peters to unnamed ones hidden in olive groves in central Greece, we find ourselves in them.  Yesterday while piddling in the middle of Alabama, we came upon the First Baptist Church in Sylacauga.  It was a stunning example of what humans create when they set out to build a House for the worship of God.  But this southern cathedral had something I had never seen or heard of.  Just off the back of the sanctuary was a beautiful room named The Brides Room built for brides to ready themselves for their wedding.  It is now being used as a meeting room and a stack of Tupperware sits admiring itself in the bridal mirror.  But the charm of creating a room for the bride to ready herself for Holy Matrimony is a treasure I have now experienced. 

  

Warm Varnish On My Ancient Body=Spring

Yesterday we found ourselves in the most ancient of Appalachia, a preserve named Catoosa, which lies atop and on the western and eastern slopes of the Crab Orchard Mountains, the foothills of the Appalachians.  I am beginning to feel an oldness creeping into me made aware by these old lands.  I sense a tie to them as if the trees, boulders, and streams are ancestors, my most ancient kin.  They are just beginning to show signs of springs rebirth, a varnish laid on a deep primal.  This varnish of spring on me is not lost but is so thin on my oldness as to not be easily noticed.  I reached over and held my lover’s hand.  It was warm.  Her varnish applied to me.  

     

True Self Expression Expresses I AM

“Every life needs the possibility of expression.”  Anam Cara, John O’Donohue         

This is the great role of the preacher, teacher, artist, and never has there been a greater need for their services.  We need to express ourselves with our bodies, our hands, our voices, our imaginations.  Self is best expressed in the creative act and in service to others.  The expression that best serves to build positive expression toward others is done outdoors in the wild.  If you want to build positive, creative self-expression in yourself find yourself regularly immersed in the wild. 

PS: Media, cell phones, TV, and the internet destroy creative self-expression.  One cannot find adequate expression of self digitally, in a video game, or on the internet.    

 

If You Have A Window You Can Be Saved

Living with an unobstructed view of the natural world is evangelizing.  We live in a rectangle, our home is a studio, 32’w/27’d/9’h.  The SW wall is all glass.  When it storms, we are separated from it only by a ¼” clear pane.  Lightening, rain, sunshine, dawn, gales, and all manner of wildlife are intimately one with us.  The overwhelming power, clarity, and aliveness of nature are part of our living space.  In all of this, we are constantly and consciously aware of God and His Creative Power.  I have had a coyote stand in front of our window looking in, 22 wild turkeys in our front yard, and hands raised toward heaven and pleading with God to rebuke the gale that was forcing the mighty Tennessee to come washing four feet over our seawall (atheists are not in foxholes or tornados).  In all of this we have been brought to life in a manner we had never experienced before.  There is a “blessed assurance” of night rain filling our trees for their work of spring accompanied by lightning that illumines our home like a flash of ten thousand bulbs, instant blinding light followed by instant blinding darkness.  It is then you can fully say, “Oh Lord, my God, when I, in awesome wonder, consider all the worlds Thy hands have made…” and cry out in your soul, “How Great Thou Art!!!”

Please come to God, through Christ, His only Son.  

        

 

The Pioneer of Your Life

I spend most mornings alone, meandering through my soul and heart as a pioneer pushing deeper into the unknown wilderness before him.  There is no end to the worlds buried deep within us.  My mind, dulling now, can still grasp images of long ago that hold meaning for me as great as the Big Bang and just as far away.  All the giants I have known, the mighty men and women, the peaks I’ve summited, the valleys filled with the shadow of death.  God met in solitude is always whispering, “Come away with Me and we will walk in the coming light of the morning.”  The mountains that spread out in front of Fair Haven always invite me to the microcosm of my heart searching the macrocosm of His.  If heaven is for anyone it is for the redeemed explorer.         

How an Old Artist Knows When to Retire

“We live in an intense and visually aggressive age: everything is drawn outward toward the sensation of the image.” John O’Donohue, Anam Cara    

When I was a teacher one of the best lessons I taught was that sculpture was the object not a representation of the object.  It is the one thing that has always captivated me.  I am a learned draftsman which means I am not naturally gifted to render but was taught to satisfactorily reproduce.  40 years later one of the signs I observed to acknowledge my need to retire was the overwhelming force the image had become.  It wasn’t the artistic image creating the canon of thousands of years of Art History, but the image of capitalism married to self.  It is a heinous coupling of capitalism of design with the rise of self as the primary focus of creativity.  No image is so alluring as self, and nothing can’t be enticed to meaning by the self being idolized awash in consumer kitsch. 

 

 

Being Creative Being

Oh, the love of the creative urge, to do something imaginative.  I have come to see this as the eternity God has placed in each of us (Ecclesiastes 3:11).  What could be more imaginative than eternity?   I have been gifted to spend my life fancying art needing to be made.  Art is only always meant to be an imagining of the Imago Dei, the search for God to underscore the meaning of all things.  It is second only to the longing for Christus Salvator, for Him to find and save us.  Once saved we spend a lifetime trying in our unique way, as remade in His Image, to live a gratitude of thankfulness.     

My last artwork for retirement is an Illuminated Bible.  It was begun as a 5 year
project which I soon realized was a 10 year which I have
now realized will be passed to my grandchildren to complete.  Began in the 
Minor Prophets.  This is the drawing for Haggai.

Blessed Assurance

That moment when you are assured the light has come again is itself a great awakening to the joyous assurance, that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for you today.   

I looked up and saw the red assurance atop the mountain beyond. 

Live this day with IAM

The daily life is a kindness we can give ourselves.  We often waste or live our life one day at a time.  A new day is a great beginning, a chance to explore, build, create, invent, rest, write, marvel, and wander.  “The earth is the LORD’s, and everything in it.”  This is an invitation to know Him intimately.  His unfathomable glories can be explored, can be a daily living. Coming to our senses is a pathway to living each day, looking begins the journey, looking to see.  Our son and daughter-in-law gave us these flowers.  This morning while reading I paused a moment to look at them.  In that moment I realized their absolute declaration of God IAM.  In a world of time and chance, the kindness of flowers would never be.  A moment's ponder of a daisy brings with it a testimony of kindness unknown from the hands of man.  Oh, Who is this God who loves us so, a flower, a delving into the depths of unfathomable; an utter kindness, bringing us closer to knowing some twinkling of the unimaginable.    

I often feel as if I am trudging through life, waist-deep in sludge forcing myself to live.  Tasks laid down to accomplish, do this, do that.  Will spring ever come?  Will green finally bring color to what is now all grey.  Will I ever be pain-free; feel the warmth of a body I do not feel?  Oh, the hikes I would take, the mountains I would climb, the paths less taken I would take.      

 

Truth and Beauty

TRUTH: you have a greater experience of living as you get older.  In all respects the longer you have lived, the more tuned your life is to knowing how to live.  Living is a learned skill.  I was one of the lucky ones.  I was raised by a preacher and a preacher’s wife, and they lived in the country and hiked mountains.  God, gardens, and mountains are the greatest teachers we can have.  Here is an example.  My lover’s body is 71 years old.  It is the essence of the beauty of what 71 years can create of a human body.  What most will see as aged, I can see as exquisite loveliness.  My eyes are 66-year-old eyes and allow me a greater experience of seeing than say the weaker eyes of a 24-year-old.  It is painfully meaningful the unadulterated life of becoming ancient.  It is an adequate preparatory for eternal life.   

PS: I often think of the ruins of antiquity as more beautiful than the actual architectural structures.  Like a dead branch that has spent 50 years in a river washed up on shore a beauty worthy of the living branch.  So, my lover's 71-year-old body is the only true visual worthy of the truth of the beauty of the human body.   

        

 

How old would you be if you didn’t know the day you were born?

If you ask my body, it would say 80.

If you asked my heart, it would say 16.

If you asked my mind, it would say 66.

If you asked my spirit, it would say 25.

If you asked my dream, it would say 10.

If you asked my desire it would say any age with my lover. 

If you asked my soul, it would say ∞.

 

Imagine There's a Heaven

I wonder if the mountains were all turned upside down, and rivers flowed in the sky.  If the sun rose in the west and set a dazzling green in the east and dogs flew and trees were blue and leaves purple.  If our faces suddenly appeared on our bellies, if laughter were small blue birds out our mouth and hearing were chimes floating above our blank head.  If the sky changed to golden glitter, and flowers sang lullabies, the moon was a nightly smiley face and fire grew in fields to harvest.  Would we then fall on our knees and worship God or just complain the apple tasted like a banana.     

Joy or The Great Lake of Fire

Is it difficult to always be joyful, or thankful in every circumstance?  Because of my current circumstances, I am thinking about this a lot.  This morning, I can see a slight hint of my knee’s definition.  I am wrapped in ice most of the day and washing my hands in warm water feels as if I am washing them in Holy Water.  Someone should build a great cathedral for the gift of warm water.  I have had long periods where I doubt joy and thankfulness, when ache inflates my whole body as air in a balloon, my body feeling like a great glacier buried in ice water.  The point I am trying to get to is my joy in circumstances has been the gift of being an American.  We are drowning in wealth and with every passing day we sink lower and lower.  Our privilege knows no bounds, it is not white or black, rich or poor, legal or illegal.  In every case, from the person on death row (there’s not a waiting row in North Korea) to the person in the White House, our American blessings overflow.  But in most cases today, blessings have become the curse of privilege, an iron yoke around the heart dragging it to the bottom of death's great lake of fire.  

              

A Grand Great Awakening

Time is often what is lacking in life.  I opened all my classes by asking the students how much time they had that day.  Obviously, the answer was 24 hours.  Everyone gets it and not a single second more.  So, the question is how we will use our 24 hours.  Socrates said, “The unexamined life is not worth living” and someone later added to this, “The unlived life is not worth examining.”  Time gives us a chance to examine to live.  But when we examine, we must have a baseline, a standard by which to measure our self-examination.  This is the role of God in Christ in our lives.  It is the very thing that calls us to Him and keeps us clinging to Him, once there.  Our desire to be more like Him is the basis, the only sincere basis, for how one might choose to examine and thereby live one’s life.  The only way by which we can daily work out our salvation.  Retirement is a grand, great awakening of this truth and relationship.     

Probably More Like 100 of Ours for 1 of Them

When suffering through the pain of rehabilitation from knee replacement, I remind myself; “You asked for this.” It’s a tremendous privilege to live in a country where you can elect to have a new knee and your insurance will pay for it.  I work with a man.  I am not sure he is an American citizen, never asked, don’t care.  He was helping me into the woods yesterday, my cane not being enough.  He told me his knee hurt also.  Seems a log had hit him in the knee.  I think he told me he was on a walker for a time and had fallen using it.  Our communication is hit or miss.  I pulled up my pants leg and showed him my scar.  He exclaimed, “How much cost?”  I wasn’t expecting the question because I had never thought of it.  It dawned on me again how fortunate I am to be an American.  I shrugged and said, “I don’t know.”   He said, “Oh, insurance!”  I nodded yes.  This is not a blog on our immigration crisis, it is about how fortunate I am to be an American.  I wish we could trade all our privileged whinners for all their willing workers.  I would also throw in most of our media, their ilk, and most of the government but we would have to sweeten the pot a little there, maybe 5 of ours for 1 of theirs.         

I've Bet My Life On It

This truth deserves full acceptance; I am devoted.  I give myself totally.  This cuts both ways; I can be devoted to good things, loving God, or have been devoted to bad things, drugs.  But the truth is still there, I give myself totally, I want to, I am only satisfied if I am all in.  This also limits me in that I reserve myself for these few devotions and accept I cannot for so many others.  I am devoted to Christ.  This is my greatest challenge in life.  I am “prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.” daily, even at times moment by moment but by grace He keeps me.   I am devoted to my lover.  The ecstasy of this I alone know, but a hint, which has captivated me for several years is, the older her body becomes the more alluring I find her.  I am devoted to my family, they being more valuable to me than my very life.  I am devoted to the life of being an artist.  This, only an artist will understand.  Making art is the byproduct of being an artist.  I am devoted to beauty.  Beauty plays a significant role in all the others.  Beauty is God’s cleft in the rock where He often hides me so that I might safely see Him.  Beauty is in every line on my lover’s body, every mark, the parts as important as the lily of her whole.  Beauty enfolds all mine.  I can recognize the beauty of them being them, the beauty of who they are not what they look like.  To these devotions, I have committed my life, nothing short of my whole life.  

       

A Needed Bathing in Beauty and Eternity

The longing.  What is this profoundness, this eternity we know?  The Bible says “He has made everything beautiful in its time.  He has also set eternity in the human heart;” I will confess beauty and eternity go hand in hand, the latter being the ultimate realization of the former but along with that confession comes this one; I know neither.  But it seems beauty gives us the inkling of eternity.  The same Bible says everything now is cursed, so all there is exists in a fallen state, not complete, not whole, and I also fallen so that eternity cannot be had in my current form.  I am having a long season of sitting quietly and being fully conscious of my body.  I once read a book titled “You Gotta Keep Dancing” which made the case that only in pain are we fully aware of ourselves, pain alone allows us to feel ourselves.  I looked out over the earth from Fair Haven and said to my lover, “I need God’s beauty to wash over me.”  

  

A new scent; The Almighty River Maker

Late last night I walked outside, as is my norm, a final abiding with the earth before retiring.  I was greeted with the rich aroma of our ancient river.  It smelled ripe and full of earth, and plants decaying back to soil, and wild things, rocks and fish, and shelled creatures.  It smelled alive, abundant, primal as it carried, baptized in itself, all the elements of life and flourishing.  It was its spiritual self, the aroma of what makes water such a part of Holy Scripture, the worthiness of it to surround us in Holy Baptism.  It was flowing from the first four rivers which flowed from Eden which flowed from God, which flowed to me…last night.  I turned and invited my lover out to be with us, the river, me, her, and the scent of God, The Almighty River Maker.   

The Good, The Bad, and The Beautiful

A great joy in TKR therapy is being at Fair Haven.  Here are last night’s joys.  We often awake at night to our motion lights coming on highlighting wild animals.  For several weeks it has been two rabbits playing around our porch.  There is also the slightest trembling of the earth and Fair Haven as a tug pushing barges happens along in the middle of the night.  Invariably one of us will be awake watching her ply her way upriver behind her mighty spotlight.  Presently I am wrapped from toes to hips in ice and compression machines watching our winter seagulls waken from the white island they form every evening and begin their day hunting for breakfast.  The good, the bad, and the beautiful, total knee replacement therapy at Fair Haven. 

Betty up watching the tug come up the river.  To the left is her shadow
being cast on our bedroom wall from the tug's spotlight.  

      

Dilling Pickles at my Pity Party

I am having a destination pity party, Recliner Resort. Routines mean so much to me, those blessings of regularity, biking, walking His Fair Haven, hiking, and riding the back roads have been replaced with icing, elevating, pill-popping, exercising, walking, rest, repeat.  My wife has been reborn as special forces commander just prettier.  She clasps her hands under her chin, leans her head sideways, and says, “Have you done your exercises?” her way of ice-cold commanding.  If she weren’t so beautiful…  To be honest I am very grateful.  I live in a country where I can have my old knee replaced with a new one attended by the most cheerful, helpful, and brilliant people dedicated to their craft.  My rehab is at Fair Haven.  My wife truly was born for therapy and caregiving.  And I have insurance to pay for it all.  As I heard a grandmother say yesterday, “This just dills my pickle!” which means, I’m doing fine! 

Part of the joy of Fair Haven rehab is we 
always have the wildest creatures in our front yard.  This 
was yesterday.

       

A Befuddled June Bug in Velcro

I am befuddled, in a brain fog of pills, exercises, and schedules.  I am head down, worn down, wrapped, squeezed, and iced.  I am always tangled in Velcro, enslaved by 2000 outlets, and 3000 cords.  I am in no particular place, doing nothing particular, and thinking how peculiar, particular sounds.  I have been manhandled.  I try to tie thoughts one to another, pick up a book repeatedly, lean back, and will my body to operate.  I pray, quote scripture, and try to “always be joyful.”  A perplexing, joyful, puzzle of unmatched pieces with a picture of me on the box cover.  I am a June bug tied to a thousand strings.  I am befuddled.   

A Mackerel In The Operating Room

I am two days out from total knee replacement.  To say I feel like I tried to play a series of downs against some local high school football team would be an understatement.  I am sore from head to toe.  I have learned two things; one, I am not 30 anymore and two my body is not 18 like the surgery attendants thought it was.  Don’t get me wrong.  I’ve never had better treatment or been helped by so many committed people.  These are perfected professionals, and it shows in their every move, efficient, succinct, and precise.  But I am still 66.  Here is an example.  I had a spinal block for surgery and as all you mothers know it makes the lower half of your body nothing more than a floppy appendage.  When they rolled me in the operating room it was like rolling down the assembly line of a Ford plant.  At one point they had my leg pushed all the way up and over my body in a position it hadn’t seen since HS football practice.  Today my hamstrings are soarer than my knee.  If you’ve ever been to the Fish Market in downtown Seattle, I would say I feel like one of those big mackerels they toss around for the tourists, flopping from one set of hands to another.  The end of that fish’s day was a frying pan, for me, it was a recliner which I am still trying to get a single part of me comfortable in.   

  

Route 66

Wednesday, January 31, 2024.  I am 66 years old today.  Unfortunately, I feel every year of them.  I never knew age would be so filled with pain.  I stopped writing and began to just smile.  Smiling always helps.  It helps the smiler... (picked back up writing here today) ...and the one being smiled upon, both being me.  66 has been a long highway for me and sometime yesterday while my lover drove me on a long road trip through Appalachia, I realized it has been my favorite road.  Been filled with potholes, tragic accidents, and detours.  But it is my road trip, the greatest blessing of all time, I am getting to take the road trip.  And I know it has truly been wonderful, full of great scenes, great co-passengers, and finally a Driver Who can get me home.  What a ride. What a ride!!! 

  

 

Routines, Rituals, Liturgies

Routines are comforts for soul and body.  I like routines, often thinking of their return as encouragement for the present.  The best routines are rituals, those acts of daily liturgy we create to bring joy and meaning to living.  The choicest of these is those we share with a loved one.  My lover and I have several and most of those are done holding hands.  I once read a book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum.  One of the things he listed was to hold hands.  I took that to heart.  We love to fling ourselves to prolonged abandonment and often do but we always abide by our daily rituals and those I look forward to the most involve me and her holding hands. 

PS:  Good marriage advice.  The last thing to do before going to sleep is hold hands and pray out loud.  We have done this since the day we married.  It resolves a lot of things. 

One of our favorite daily rituals is our bike ride.

  

       

 

River Dreams Begin Sabbath

My lover awakes, sits up in bed, and begins to stare downriver.  I ask her what she sees?  “A barge, I think.  I see a red, green, and bright light.”  She continues to stare.  It finally comes into view.  We turn off our reading lights.  It is a large one, a petroleum barge, and a big tug.  We begin to invent stories about her and what her crew is doing.  Then we sit silently as she rolls on by.  I turn my light back on.  She leaves hers off lost in the dreams a great river gives you.  I write this.  Fair Haven drifts back into peaceful solitude.  I check on her.  My lover is sound asleep.  Our Sabbath has begun.   

   

A Working Out of My Salvation

There are great days in life.  Days you know God as He will someday be known by you.  Days when His creativity is suddenly revealed in a place you discovered, a place you had been near your whole life and never knew was there.  My lover and I found one yesterday.  A falls which flows out of five caves, drops, and flows immediately into another.  The falls lie in front of another massive cave, a great hole in the earth at the base of a tall cliff.  We hiked to the bottom and the top.  We had the place all to ourselves.  It was a beautiful day, a lost trail, a 24 caret find and another working out of my salvation.  God be praised.