Trying to Keep Those Many Memories Ago

I have known my mother longer than I have known any other human.  She is the first person I can remember knowing.  Her actions toward me are my earliest memories.  I can remember on cold mornings she would lay me on the clothes dryer to keep me warm while she folded clothes.  The story I am trying to write is how wonderfully beautiful and kind she was, how present and vital to my life, how filled with life and meaning.  This is how I first knew her.  These days, I often think through these thoughts, hoping to keep the memory of her now that they are juxtaposed beside the mom I now have.  The vitality of her life is so important to my knowing her.  I am trying to keep my memory from being deconstructed by my current reality.  It’s like clinging to a vapor, a vague dream upon waking.  But her current condition is startlingly clarifying, bringing the vapor into absolute, solid remembering.  She was so alive, so beautiful, so important to me.  She is the video of my earliest life, the one person who was present in those many memories ago.   

Family Photo, mom holding me at 4 months.

    

 

Growing Up In One World, Growing Old In Another

When I was growing up, there were only two ways to say anything to anyone.  You could say it to them face-to-face or on the phone.  This was my technology.  It was also limited to a very few people, those with whom I wanted to have physical contact.  My talking crowd, my friends, were physically near me every day.  It was a very small world, but filled with meaningful relationships.  Those friends I loved!  As much as a young teenager can love, I loved them.   Such was the small, loving world of my youth. 

It would be hard to function in my world if you did not grow up in it.  Person-to-person, physical contact was the key to all my enduring relationships.  It still is today.  However, it is hard for me to function in a world that is best suited for those who didn’t grow up in mine.   

A Blood Filled Fountain In Laughed Filled “Hollars”

We are at the Benson Family Reunion.  Every three years, we get the entire clan together. We number 50 something of which 39 are here.  All came from two only children, my Dad and Mom.  Dad died many years ago, and Mom is 9/10ths in heaven.  Their four children, of whom I am the third, are all here, as are many of each of ours.  

Yesterday we were all sitting around visiting, and my brother, talking of getting old, said, “We were going like gangbusters, forging ahead, and then all of a sudden you get old and you just fall apart.”  

I added, “And the fall is so much faster than the rise.”

This morning, I am sitting in a quiet corner thinking of our family.  We are clannish, all for one and one for all, mountain people, Tennesseans, and it's passed on by blood.  We don’t take each other serious, but we take the blood serious.   We are followers of Jesus Christ, and it's his blood we take serious.  He is all we have.  Nothing else matters but passing on His blood to our next of kin. 

We are as goofy a family as you will ever find.  Our laughter fills the mountain hollars as we once again tighten the ties that bind, that blessed “Tie that binds our hearts in Christian love…”  

“There is a fountain filled with blood, drawn from Immanuel’s veins and sinners plunged beneath that flood, lose all their guilty stains.”  

From Fall Creek Falls State Park, and the Benson Family Reunion, sinners all, plunged beneath the blood-filled fountain.  If you pass and hear the laughter-filled mountain hollars, it’s just us. 

  

 

Why An Artist?

Art is a word we have made up to identify what we do to declare our overwhelming desire to praise whoever made the universe.  It is this one ecstasy we are always trying to express.  We often confuse the object of our desire with the self, and then art is not made but only a self-expression.  Art is reserved for the deepest desire of our soul, to help us be in a personal relationship with Whoever made the universe.  The universe is that good, its beauty that beautiful, its existence that spiritual.  If the universe and art are anything, they are a Spiritual/spiritual expressions.  This is the most sincere reason one chooses to become an artist.   

My daughter, Sissy, gave me these roses for Father's Day.
They have been a constant companion for me during my time with 
The LORD.  They remind me that even in death, their beauty is a part
of the Divine realm of love, that art can never play in but can only
lead the artist to a life of praise and worship for the example.

 

 

Tired of Hearing Myself

“Gray hair is a crown of splendor; it is attained in the way of righteousness.”  Getting old ain't for the weak of heart. the frail of spirit, the weak of character, or the uncommitted to Christ.  Old takes such wisdom.  Wisdom to find meaningful and practical ways to compensate for the ongoing failings of our bodies and minds.  It takes grit, true grit, to muster on even in pain and hardship, and to do so without complaining or giving voice to it.  At one time, I made a New Year's resolution to not make any sound when standing up or sitting down.  I got tired of hearing myself moan and groan. 

Old age is the time when you gain so much wisdom because life requires so much more. I now have grown children, with spouses, and grandchildren, and all of them need me to live a life of righteousness and reason, and to often share it with them.  However, I must be wise enough to do so in a way they can kindly accept and apply.  Frequently, it takes greater wisdom to know how to share wisdom than the wisdom you are sharing.  

 

Meanwhile, At Fair Haven

 

Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!

As one grows old, one receives many opportunities to be reborn as old things wear out, new things are given.  As we see less, we begin to look over more.  As we hear less, we are more forgiving.  “Oh well” comes to mind more and more as we accept the things we can do nothing about.  As we slow down, we give up more of the horizon and see more of the earth beneath our feet.  We sit more, so we see more.  We are cold more so we hold each other more.  We have more time, so we begin to love more, pray more, and allow empathy, sympathy, and caring to take up a greater amount of our feelings.  Getting old is a tough role to play; it's like when all your children were small and needed constant attention and care.  Being old requires constant attention because so much of our body is vying for our attention. Remember when your small child used to stand beside you and say, “Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! Dad! That’s how your old body does, Hey! Hey! Hey! it says. 

I once read a book about a hiker who, because of a hiking accident, had to live with constant pain.  He eventually realized pain was the only way he knew most of his body existed.  His example was when your fingertips get cold, you are suddenly aware you have fingertips.  Being old is the only way we will ever know much of who we are, and of many of life's goodnesses.  

The cicadas were out in 
force this year at Fair Haven