How to know there is The God

Trees are wood.  They grow.  They grow all over the earth.  Wood can transform into fire.  Fire is wood being really kind.  Sit in front of fire until you know there is The God.  Instant gratification route: Do this when it is bitter cold.

How to worship The God:  Do this a lot!     

Soft Covered Ancient Matriarch

Went hiking yesterday, in the Crab Orchard Range, near Brushy Mountain, in Frozen Head State Park up Panther Branch Trail by DeBord Falls and beyond.  It was cold, made bitter down between mountains following the north prong of the Flat Fork.  Betty and I are made to be on trail.  We each thrive there and flourish as one.  The Appalachian Mountains are old, Eden old, and the most serene of all the mountain ranges we have explored.  They are aesthetic in their beauty, every rock and moss, every tree and rivulet and falls, all the smells and colors and hard boned edges are perfectly matched for splendor.  Every track you make is a miss stroke, which provokes in you a care for her as a soft covered bedded ancient grandmother.  She is the grand matriarch of all ranges and we spent yesterday with her.

DeBord Falls

Good Morning

I rise early, when you can see the river and mountains beyond but as soon as the lamp is on it all disappears so you can see what is in front of you.  I turn on the coffee, take two extra strength Tylenol with a glass of water, walk to the stove and open the door.  The nights fire is now embers, the middle of the night stoke survived and I place a few sticks of wood on to sit in the warmth that will just exist a few feet around the black iron box.  It will be a lazy morning, 27° and time to read, think and write, mornings I seem to only have here.  The coffee quits perking and I go and slowly pick the one beautiful hand made cups that I want to live with this morning.  The one made from the dirt off Mamaw’s grave wins.  It has a thick glaze of Yellow Salt that breaks brown at every ridge.  I pour myself a cup of Starbucks French Roast and return to my couch corner beside the stove, pick up my Bible and read.  This morning I read four pages in Leviticus trying especially hard to pay attention wanting to hear from God in these long unclean and sacrificial passages.  One of life’s greatest quests is to hear from God.  If He is then it would be perhaps life’s only quest.  To hear from God would be like walking peacefully on the deepest sea floor examining the truth of all you see while simultaneously knowing full well the dangers of where you were.  It is so good that you dare not share it, those that believe think you sanctimonious, those that don’t, a loon.  I finish the chapters, not sure I heard or not, and then read my Morning Prayer from the Puritan Prayer book.  The words and phrases of these prayers are from the sincere hearts not caked with modern technologies and incessant information.  They are clear and clean and coming from a heart whose days are filled with thoughts of God and tending nourishment from the earth; a time when all one’s influences where Him and it, creating a more human human who knew to Whom and for what to pray.   After that a few moments preparing myself to be a better husband and then a chapter in my new morning book, What Light Can Do. (My day and evening book is Washington, A Life a lengthy biography of George Washington).  By now the day has well begun, this morning clear and cold, quite as only rivers and mountains can be with every glimpse causing a pause in your routine, a pause that always deepens your routine.  I have sat my second cup of coffee on the stove to warm it up and have decided the theme of today’s blog, A Morning.  My wife and dog still sleep soundly a few feet away wrapped in flannel and fur.  This brings me peace knowing we all are enjoying the quiet of the morning.  I look up again and notice several tiny winter birds flitter about keeping the winter freeze out of their ounce-less frame.  My prayer list waits hoping that God will hear me as I hope I have heard Him.  Most morning here remind me of that old line from the Cat Steven’s song, “Morning has broken, like the first morning” and I decide to change the title of todays blog; Good Morning.     

Warm And Memory Lost

Of late I have been forced to look at a couples lifetime accumulations and decide how they are to be disposed of.  It is extremely difficult because the value of each item is not measured in utility but in sentiment.  It is much like parting with your personhood, familiarity of the common things of life creates for us a true sense of secure belonging and belonging is the peace of life.  That is what has shocked and hurt me, that these objects posses such a security of history for “me belonging” and are now being given away.  No!  What hurts so much is that collectively they made absolutely familiar the place I had for 59 years known as home and that home is now, not being moved, but being dispersed of.  It reminds me much of a warm fire.  As a fire it serves me well but once that heat energy has dispersed itself into the cosmos it is forever lost to warm me. Having ones things, even after the one has passed away, means still having some of them.  Disposing of all their worldly goods almost means an ending of me “having them.”  It is very true that objects help to make “conscious awareness of” possible.  It has become for me one of the greatest losses of my life. 

My most beloved father, Wayne Lee Benson, my mamaw, Thersa Cora Ferguson
standing in front of Big Rock Mountain.  That man and that mountain has
shaped most of who I know as Aaron Lee Benson.

  

The Tennessee River Is Not A Cause Celebre

The Great Silver lies before me as it has lain upon the earth from the beginning of time.  I find being near her a great solace and cause for meaningful contemplation.  When we place ourselves in relationship with the greats of the earth, her rivers, mountains, rifts, canyons and waterfalls we bind ourselves to her seeming eternity and our own desire for that.  A great longing for our continuation, our "valueness" to be recognized and even honored.  To be alive is the most profound achievement of a human (but you have to choose to be made alive).  This relationship with earth caused one man to say, “what is man that Thou are mindful of him?”  It is Who answers back, when we choose to be made alive, that gives us the value we crave.  However, most humans today, never finding themselves anywhere near a relationship with earth, view your Great Find as a minor cause celebre.

Fair Haven when we first started the grading to give us nearness to The Great Silver.