Grace, Grace, Mom's Grace

When I was a young Christian, I had relapsed and picked up an old habit of smoking.  I would hide it from my children by smoking outside and throwing my butts in the ash collection door at the bottom of our chimney.  By this time, we had three children, and one day they were playing kickball outside, and the ball hit the ash door and knocked it open, where they discovered all my hidden evidence.  They all three came running inside, exclaiming to Betty, “MOM, Dad’s started smoking again!!!”  

It was such a bitter defeat for me.  I felt so ashamed, I had let myself down, my children down, and ultimately my Savior.  

Later that day, I was sitting outside under one of our big oak trees, crying tears of defeat.  I called my mom to confess and seek wisdom.  After I told her, she started laughing and said one of the most wonderful statements of grace I have ever received: “Lee, don’t crucify yourself over smoking.  Jesus already did that.”  My spirits soared as they do now, some 40 years later.  I soon quit smoking again, this time for the last time.  Haven’t smoked since.  

The moral of this story is not that we shouldn’t smoke, I doubt God is much concerned with that, but that grace is often offered best by one of God’s servants who just happens to be my Mom.  

My grace teacher all my life, my mom

 

Spring's A Flirt

Spring always seems elusive, here today, gone tomorrow, always a hint but never the whole.  Tomorrow we declare its official start, and it had better be ready to get itself up and get going.  I am ready for a whole lot of spring, cool evenings, warm days.  I have no favorite season; they all bring their own special blessings to my life, but spring always seems to tease itself out, a flirt, flippantly tossing her hair and sashaying in front of me just before she flings a freezing, snowy wink my way.  

The snow storm this week.

 

A Sacred Task

I have set myself a sacred task.  We should all seek these and then walk, hike, and climb them.  Mine is a task of finding rocks.  Even the saying of it seems sacred to me.  Rocks are an exquisitely profound concept to begin with, and a good beginning is critical to a sacred path.  So I walk his woods every day and look for rocks.  They are natural nature so they blend in well and require a certain amount of my attention.  Paying attention is another part of a sacred path; if it is sacred, attention is important, having eyes to see and ears to hear.  I often strike a rock with my walking stick, and the ring informs.  What makes this walking task sacred?  The rocks will be the wall around our family graveyard where my lovers and my body will lie in wait for the resurrection.  Now that is a sacred task.   

 

Fading Away Thoughts

I can just see the buds turning the tree a slight green that goes on and off in my sight, old man eyes.  I sit in the hot tub as two eagles flirt around in front of me, trying to lock in love.  I can only imagine if they nest on our loaned mountain.  I sit still, my lover sits across from me, and I can feel her warmth through the water.  We are old dogs, been around the star a few times together,...she is singing, “Thank you, oh my Father for giving us your son…”  And the years fade till she is transformed into a new angel, which she makes me always believe.  The angel of my only.  Only is such a gift He gave me, my only, one and only, and only one.  We fade into one.    

Our hot dates are coffee and fudge by a stream,
 we know as our own, deep in Appalachia.  

 

Lasts

I now see more lasts than firsts.  When young, one sees the many first coming his way, but as one ages, it is the many lasts you are privileged to see.  The races run, the jobs well done, the tasks accomplished, the relationships you cultivated, and the students who inspired you.  Such was this past weekend, as two inspiring “young punk delinquents” came by to visit.  They were in the last art class I taught at Union.  In them, I was reminded of what a wonderful gift students gave me to have lived a life of such meaning and purpose.  Thank you, Micah and Annabella.  

The Aged Body of Splendor

There is no accounting for the love an aging body can draw out of me.  My lover's body openly sings of the years we have lived together, experiencing life, its ecstasies and tragedies.  Every mark on her is verse upon verse of exquisite prose.  It draws me in to her because we have made them together, and deeper still, on occasion, have inflicted them on each other.  Her body has not aged but has been sculpted, politely so, and is present with me, a living work given to me.  There is no explaining this to the dullness of youthful love.  This love has to be lived to receive; the aged body of splendor.   

 

Come on in and stay awhile!

I can hear the early birds singing.  I stop and record it in my Bible.  If I can hear the birds singing in the rose of night, it can only mean one thing: my windows are open because spring is coming and we are open to her being with us.