Christmas' Laughing Tears

I live in a state of great joy and great sadness.

“A truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanly sensitive.  To him…a touch is a blow, a sound a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover a god, and failure is death.  Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, and create–so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or building or something of meaning, his very breath is cut off from him.  He must create, must pour out creation.  By some strange, unknown, inward urgency, he is not really alive unless he is creating."  Pearl S. Buck

I put this up in our sculpture studio years ago.   Merry Christmas!

 

Philosophy of a Good Life

I have always been blessed with a simple idea of life.  God in Christ and me in a personal relationship.  Be married to a like-hearted person, have children, and create family.  Live in nature as much as possible, free from the influence of popular culture.  Work hard with the land, be and enjoy quiet, and sow and entangle by family in this.   Philosophy.  

This was and is a singular pursuit.  However when I added beauty by being educated in it and its practise, all the above were significantly enhanced and understood.  The creative act of striving toward making art for God, in and using nature, is as closely divine as a human can become.  It seems the most sincere and true meaning of ‘working out my salvation daily.’

A quiet sculpture in Appalachia.

 

We Where The Wild Things

It took a day to celebrate 42 years.  We tried!  We flung caution to the wind, we cut a rug, and howled at the moon.  We danced, kissed, and indulged.  We saw wild things, ancient things, and sang the night away. Lying my head down at 11:47 pm, I whispered to my lover, “It takes old people a whole day to celebrate 42 years.”

She whispered back.  “Let's stay up till the clock strikes midnight, and we will celebrate it into the first hour of our 43rd year.”  We did…but barely.  

PS Flinging caution to the wind when you’re 67 means eating fudge and drinking coffee by a stream in Cades Cove.   

And as the bear walked off, he couldn't wait to get home and tell his lover what wild things he had seen that day.  
 

"You're The Greatest"

I was very nervous.  I had been sick all night.  I had tossed and turned in my waterbed and, at some point during the night, dropped my bottle of cold medicine, and it still lay shattered on the floor.  I eventually called my brother, P.R., and he rushed me to the emergency room.  There, the doctor laughed at me, said it was just nerves, gave me a vitamin B12 shot, and sent me on my way to get married, 42 years ago this morning.  I got married later that day, and this morning, as I sit by the fire, my lover wife of 42 years sleeps behind me, and I reminisce about wanting to do it all over again.  Happy Anniversary, baby, “You’re the greatest!”

 

Christmas Traditions Left

I can remember when my Grannie stopped buying gifts for Christmas and asked me to place cards filled with money on our Christmas tree for each of us.  I remember my Mamaw eventually did the same thing.  Now my mom doesn’t even understand it is Christmas time.  I write this because I, too, can feel the fading of many Christmas traditions that used to be such a sacred and solemn part of this time of year.  I rub balm on my heart, hoping that in the last days, only Christ will be left of all my Christmas traditions.   

Advent is one tradition I hope will never
end in our home.

 

A Leaf of Violet Hope

We were walking through our woods, my lover and I, and were talking of hope for our hearts, which are always in need.  As I was walking with my head down, an ailment I have acquired with old age, I saw a bright green leaf.  Now, any other time it would be quite unnoticeable, but on this winter's day with all leaves carpeting our woods in earth tones of brown, a green leaf was as noticeable as a warm kiss before bed.  I leaned over with the help of my stick and picked it from its winter residence.  It made me glad, and my lover as well, as she exclaimed, “Oh! Where did that come from?”  We both began to look heavenward at the tracery of dark branches against a lapis sky, but none seemed to miss this most exquisite gift of hope.  I turned it over, and my lover softly whispered, “Oh, how beautiful.”  Its lattice work of violet was as delicate as it was serene.  “See,” she said, “it’s God's gift to you to say he knows you and has a hope-filled plan for you!”

We turned and, slightly bent, continued our ritual walk through our woods and over our mountain.  I stuck the leaf in my pocket.  I hopefully believed.  

 

A Brutal Thought

Yesterday, I happened to glance at my dog’s bed lying near our Christmas Tree.  It struck me that my dog has a nicer bed than Jesus had when he came to earth.  It was a brutal reminder of the life of wealth I enjoy, and to whom much is given, much is required.  Help me to live out of my abundance with an open hand and heart, sharing, always sharing with my neighbors in need.  

 

Blue Brought You Here

Through difficulties, I have found beauty to be a helpful reminder of the author of beauty is my Father, the maker of beauty is my Savior, and the reminder of this in the Holy Spirit who lives in me.  All Three of Them proclaim, “Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the LORD will personally go ahead of you.  He will be with you, he will never fail you or abandon you.”  Blue brought me here.  

 

Dec 7, 2025

It is cold.  Our fire can just keep up.  It is Sunday, the same day of the week that will forever "live in infamy” but forever more in fame.  It is Sunday, December the Seventh, but praise God, it is also Sunday, the Lord’s good and holy day.  The Gospel marches on like a fire that always keeps up and will eventually extinguish all fires of evil that threaten cold and darkness to the human heart.   

   

 

A Body Decorated

I see my lover softly float across our home, quietly moving here to there.  She is slower now, and her body is aging.  I see her.  I watch her to see her.  Her body is now 72 and fills me with such meaning of being.  I see in her body all the years of our love, our births, our adventures, hikes, travels, and a physical love for God in Christ have all marked her with the times of all these; marks of decoration. It's a great longing of love for her to know how I see her as the years of us born out on her body.  Truth comes in beauty, sincerely told by her as her body can only tell me; our years together scaring her into an ever-increasing elegance I see.     

Thanksgiving evening

 

"Like Working In Santa's Workshop"

I had a great spiritual experience yesterday.  My lover and I worked at Samaritans Purse, Operation Christmas Child processing facility in Boone, N.C., where we helped to send several of the 13 million Christmas boxes to children all over the world.  Yesterday we were processing boxes that will go to Benin, Africa.  As she and I checked each box, one of the workers came by and told us, “Remember, you will be the last person to see inside these boxes until some child opens them on Christmas.  

I spent the first hour looking down into each box, crying tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears from the Holy Spirit deep within me, crying for and with the children of the world.  God tears as He longs to “suffer the little children” as they come to Him.  

I have never had a more profound Christmas experience.  As we quietly rode home in the dark and blowing snow, my lover looked over at me and said, “It was like working in Santa's workshop.”  Yes, the one in heaven.  

https://www.samaritanspurse.org/our-ministry/broadcast-occ-ads/?utm_source=Ggl&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=m_YGOC-B25V&utm_content=OCC-Bcast-Ads&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=155943035&gbraid=0AAAAAD2XO8cONHxSeJTCve6bi-lYky4Kg&gclid=CjwKCAiA3L_JBhAlEiwAlcWO5wxNzXg2H12eIBnjgzhpPTfCotoc3T2eKKDcO5nnluNFkWReXPTNwBoCLVkQAvD_BwE

My Santa's helper is in the purple.