Shine On Kind Star, Shine On

We are neck-deep in Canada, and there’s no one here.  It seems all the Canadians have moved somewhere else, leaving behind rolling hills forested with stunted, brilliantly colored trees, a vastness of uninterrupted creation with no one to tend it.  We are tending to it, paying attention to Him who made it, acknowledging Him, thinking the world of Him for making it all. It has turned cold, 44° in our camp this morning. Nothing says comfort better than a rated 20° LL Bean sleeping cover and a warm lover beside me.  

We are in this kind of climate now: when the sun is out, you are warm, but when it goes behind a cloud, you are immediately cold.  Everyone should often be in this predicament to put our star in its rightful place.  A relatively small star in a particularly small arm of a very small galaxy, yet all our hopes, dreams, and lives depend on it.  If I didn’t know its Maker, I would be worshipping it this morning and begin to build a temple to it.  And I NEED worship, somewhere to place all this thanksgiving I have as this star shines on my body right now. Thank goodness for my Three God who makes the seemingly insignificant truly significant!!! Shine on, kind star, shine on.     

We are on the Cabot Trail, a beautiful
byway there in the background.

 

Tender and Mild

2 Days Ago,

I lay around in the morning; the RV is all quiet. I sit by the window drinking coffee, reading the Ancient Text, today leaving Malichai and joining the glad tidings of Christ’s ancestry in Matthew. Listening to good clarinet music in a forest of quiet color, a breeze rustling my world awake. We sit at the border of Canada; we are lazy; we have no reason to get going: “All is calm, all is bright, round yon virgin mother and child, holy infant so tender and mild.”

Backroading Through Life

In a silent camp of old folks, long gone, homes abandoned for warmer climates.  Alone, 300 miles north of “Welcome to Maine.”  In a forest of color, a lake, a tranquil dose of peace, a hard won seven hour trip through a corridor of color named a New England fall.  One unmentioned, old-world village, after another, nuzzled between a one-lane road across the mountains of Maine.  Backroading through life. 

Sunset in our campsite.

  

Roaming Away from paradise

I am a roamer.  By this, I mean I have never stayed long in one place, been a rolling stone since birth.  My dad was a roamer; my mom always said, “He has itchy feet.  Can’t seem to find a home anywhere.”  I lived in Jackson for 27 years, and in all those 9855 days I never spent one of them thinking of Jackson as home.  But I was born to roam.  By the time I graduated from High School, I had been in 11 different schools.  I married a woman who said she wouldn’t date me but would go hiking with me, and we have been tramping around the world ever since.  We are explorers, down roads with no names; trails marked only by our compass; wilderness and byways, lonely plains, windy cliffs, mountain passes and hidden meadows are all places we seem to end up. But now something has claimed our hearts, a home like no other, Fair Haven, the end of a gravel road, a cleared acre, a river, big blue sky, full moons, and warm fires has now claimed our hearts and wondering off has lost a bit of its call.  We are off again, but I confess, I leave sadly.  Will we find a garden and vista more sincere than we leave?  No!  For once in my life I have found a home, have been loaned it till we will be called home, an honest piece of earth worthy of prepping us for Paradise with God.   

         

Sitting With The Moon

I sit just to the right of the full moon, its company a light for my heart, a daily gift of romance.  Romance is a word we make up to describe something indescribable.  Much like the words love or art, romance falls short.  Full moons give us a better descriptor because the moon, full over the river, is worth ten thousand words of romance whispered to my heart.  

 

I Don't Know!

I am reading a book that asked me the question, “What do you want to be remembered for?”  I thought about that question and tried to think of an answer.  As I was thinking about that question, it kept leading me to another question that seemed to occupy more of my thoughts than the first question.  The new question that came to mind is, “Who do I want to remember me?”  I haven't answered either.  

 

The Sacred People of Ancestry

They are family, distant maybe in miles but not in blood, that connection which is redder, richer, old blood, the sincere blood of the ages running deep into the earth's past.  I think of this as the nourishing blood that grows great families.  Such was the case this last weekend as the remnant of my paternal family came to call.  They are few, a true remnant, three quilt squares that make up a dear blanket of family warmth.  They come from Detroit, where their fathers fled the difficult poverty of southern life, worn thinner by a world war, to the north's promise of work, building cars and commerce that fueled much of the abundance of the late 20th century.  They are the connection to the old black-and-white photos saved in our parents' scrapbooks, old boxes, and hallway picture frames.  People we never knew but whose good blood now runs through me and mine.  It is always good to see these few three.  To renew the ties that bind, to sit in the shade and piddle over the long past, to eat, drink and be merry, to hold hands and pray and know as we are known.  We worshiped together in the church of our ancestors, visited the haunting homes that housed our struggling elders in an America that is much longed for today.  Oh the blood of land people, those that lived on what his good earth provided, so kind in their rich abundance of children, able to pass on and on and on the family that now spreads out because of their calloused hands, bent backs, and determined spirit.  To say my heart was renewed this weekend would be an understatement…my soul, heart, and mind sing with the blood of ages…even that sacred Blood of the Cross;  

“Blest be the tie that binds

our hearts in Christian love;

the fellowship of kindred minds

is like to that above.

When we are called to part,

it gives us inward pain;

but we shall still be joined in heart,

and hope to meet again.” 

The blood gathers at Fair Haven.

 

The home my dad's mom, Mamaw
lived in as a child.