Dawn Dawning On Us

Man is made to witness dawn.  Dawn is a gift of a magnitude unconceivable until one has observed many, lived and looked at them, watched the sky go from speckled black to living dark indigo. Dawn is Gods declaration that “anew” is possible, that “afresh” is given once more, that we can always start over, begin again, clean the slate, be washed whiter still, be Re-born.  There are very rare things in life that we often take for granted because of their familiarity.  Dawn is one of them.  I dare say if the sun didn’t rise and we awoke in the dark we would cry on our faces for one more sunrise to be reborn.

Olafur Eliasson's The Weather Project

Born With A Golden Spoon Coming Out Your Mouth

At times God is so good and kind and real that that “filthy rags” part is too generous, maybe the filth but never the rags.  It has to do with heir and access and prodigals right to Him that are incomprehensible in their magnitude but mine nonetheless.

The hard part is not being the beneficiary but figuring out how to spend the unending wealth you now have. 

To put this into perspective, think of talking, wind flowing between tightly stretched flesh in your throat creating all the sounds possible by humans.  Warm, nutrient rich, moist breath being pushed out by your lungs transforming air into “I love you!!!”  Oh the possibilities that wealth gift gives me.

Maybe spending the wealth is not the problem, maybe it’s knowing what is wealth.

Gustav Klimt, The Kiss

Disney, Dads and Dying

On Love

No one having experienced love would conjure up evolution. 

We left Jackson yesterday morning at 4:12 a.m. temperature 1° in my baby girl's car no bigger than the Command Module above the Apollo rocket.  It was dark and bitter cold like my heart.  I pointed the little rocket south and we raced into the unknown listening to The Little Mermaid singing “I’ve got whozits and whatzits galore…” There are some things fathers do that are as unnatural as death and I was doing one, I was taking my baby to Disney World in Orlando Florida where she will start her Disney College Internship.  To young girls just turning 20 Disney World is every movie they’ve ever seen, every damsel in distress, every Prince Charming, every dance at The Ball, it is, quite literally, A Magic Kingdom.  To a stooped over broken down old father its just another dangerous place far from his protective arm.  The car was dark and quiet now except for the muffled roar of the engine doing 80 mph, half its speedometer claim.  Some Disney movie tune played softly and Betty and Sarah were asleep.  These are those dark moments that fathers have that never get spoken of, mean thoughts, primeval, born before Eden, when “human father” was just being thought up in the Deep Reaches of God’s Eternal Eternity.  I slowly slipped into Eternity, into the deep recesses of fatherhood.  What would I trade for the safety and security of my baby girl?  All humans on earth except Bensons, blood Bensons.  All humanity would perish at by command if that were the cost of my baby girl.  And deeper still.  All Bensons, blood Bensons over thirty would go next and then it would come down to all of us to age twenty.   And then what, a dozen or so human’s left in the entire cosmos… “wanderin’ free, wish I could be, part of that world”  I was rescued from the primal state of life and death by a red haired little angel singing a love song.  She was just like my little girl; she wanted to live out her dream, to walk on her on two feet, “part of that world.”  It reminded me of another song of my youth.  “Well another man might have been angry and another man might have been hurt, but another man never would of let her go.   I STASHED THE BILL IN MY SHIRT.”   I clung to the wheel of her little rocket, gritted my teeth in resignation and raced off into the night holding desperately to God!!!

No one experiencing love could ever conjure up evolution.

The 5:15 Train to 6

The grandfather clock just chimed 6 a.m.  Why is anyone awake at this hour?  It is a good time; it’s peaceful and able to bare the burden of peace.  It’s also dark but 6 a.m. is hopeful of sunrise and is likewise able to offer that gift of faith.  Early morning holds a certain notion of optimism, an expectation that things are probable and great things possible.  Sleep is always given up begrudgingly in the early morning, 5:15 is only there to remind you that you didn’t get the luxury of sleeping till 6, but 5:15 not the time but the event, always reminds you that 6 is coming.  That’s when to put ones feet on the floor.

optimism

Where green and God never existed

As I grow older I am continually struck by how much more enjoyable little things have become.  I often marvel at a patch of green moss, the sound winter branches make in the wind, the warmth of a body against mine.  There is an added phenomenon that has come as well.  It is the severity of my feelings toward bad things.  I hate cancer, I loath litter and I despise the wanton waste of character by lewdness.  I often ponder this newness of life that I am living.  I cannot account for it in any effort of my own nor any conscious attempt to be more aware.  It can be terribly burdensome as there always seems to be more bad but also supremely enjoyable because there always seems to be more good as well.  The overarching theme though is that the good always seems to be Devine and, I say this with all seriousness, seems destined to Victory.  That is very odd because what is green to be victorious over.  That is the reason I seemed to have written this this morning, to get me to the point where I get to truth.  I did not have the understanding that the good seems to be endowed with Victory but as I wrote it came to me as naturally as finding the letter v on my key board as I typed Victory, as if it had been there all along and I naturally knew how to think it. 

Green is victorious over there being no green or, more truthful, that green never existed.

Maybe hell is more than the absence of God but where God never existed.  That truly seems to be the natural will of man and would truly be a place of hell, a place where green never was.