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.  

 

Thank God

I am sorrowful.  I am broken.  No need to say.  Many who oppose will oppose to death and in death.  Hearts are deceptively wicked.  Who can understand?  Who can save us?  “Thank God!  The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord.” 

 

Baubles of God

Oh, the deep; the very, very deep things of our hearts.  The ecstasy of pain that knows no name, the joys of meaning that can fill our being.  Our hearts’ raptures can be as full as the moon and as there as a handful of air.  Meaning is everything.  As the sky is blue, so is meaning, the color of our being.  We name its house, heart, but who can place the blue of the sky in our heart?  Our heart is the treasure box of our meaning, filled with trinkets of stars, baubles of God, lost jewels from heaven.  Oh, the tender, aching, deep, deep things of our hearts.   

A deer swimming from our yard to Long Island.

 

A Stake Pounded in the Jungle

The earth is a jungle, a force always demanding a reckoning.  It is relentless, defeating every tool we have to tame it, including man.  My lover and I bought twelve acres of jungle 15 years ago.  We carved out about an acre to cultivate and live on.  It continues to grow and push into us.  Our lawn is the small plot we war over, us against the jungle.  The jungle sends out underground roots to reclaim it, seeds of wild plants blow over it, and wild animals see it as their feeding ground, literally eating everything we bring in and plant.  We keep marching over it, cutting back its grasses, planting more flowers and fruit trees. adding nutrients to the soil, tilling, and killing wicked insects.  At best, we can claim a stalemate, but as I have grown older, I am realizing nature will have the final say.  If I were to walk away today, the jungle would have it all back in a year.  

It is a full-time job dominion-ing one acre.  That “sweat of the brow” declaration is a stake pounded deep into the jungle that no human can ever remove.  

Part of the taming is cutting up the jungle 
Sentinels that fall, which also provide us heat in the winter.

 

A Practice Prayer

Once upon a time, in a cosmos, very, very near, there was a God; a real God, not like Superman, but God.  He is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-present, all the time.  Forget “faster than a speeding bullet,” he thought up light and made it that fast.  He wrote this Book to tell of all the marvelous things he made to make our lives wonderful, like light, love, taste, mountains, blue skies, and baby elephants.  However, the main thing this God wanted us to know was that He is for us, He made us, He loves us, and wants us to acknowledge Him for His kindness, grace, mercy, generosity, creativity, and abundant blessings, which shower us with blessings every day.  It should be easy to be grateful.

A practice prayer;  “I am so grateful for your Word and you leaving me with this great story of you and your love for me, the earth, the cosmos, everything you have created you love and want me to acknowledge you for your kindness, grace, mercy, generosity, creativity and abundant blessings, showers of blessings, rain down on me every day.  Thank you.”

God's sun setting and lighting up our home like a cathedral.