400 Quadrillion To The 150,000 Power

Can you carry the daily burden of being you?  Personhood, the fact that you exist and the chance of you being you actually happening, that your parents had you, is a great place to start to answer the question.  I read an article that said the probability of you being you is 400 quadrillion to the 150,000 power or the number 10 followed by 2,640,000 zeros.  That puts you and me being us into, well let's just say, Pretty Lucky.  But that presents one undeniable fact, it not only makes you lucky it makes you special, unbelievably special.  That’s what I mean when I ask the question, “What can carry the burden of being you?”  What do we daily do, how do we live, that can carry the burden of the reality of just how special we are?  We should ask before we start.  

   

The First Other Even For Toddlers

I love watching toddlers.  They are so unafraid of life’s meaning.  Adults are afraid of the meaning of life and spend most of theirs hiding from the question but not a toddler.  He knows all too well life’s meaning; ME.  Life to the toddler means only one thing, ME AND ME FIRST.  Any restrictions on his ME are met with an unabashed tantrum, crying, throwing himself or anything in reach, in such a pure demonstration of his understanding of life’s meaning.  What is so amazing is how quickly a one year old will learn that “tantruming” is not as effective as conning (manipulating) and begins in earnest to learn how each of his human contacts can be conned into doing what he wants.  It is a much more nuanced method of “tantruming” and truly demonstrates the brilliance of the human mind.  Granted the toddler’s brilliance is based on a toddler because they will immediately revert to the earlier response of “fit-pitching” if the coy and cute looks and actions don’t work but even that is a display of the brilliant adaptation of the human mind.  One of the great skills of parenting is to learn to live out “others first” in front of their “me-first” child.  Nothing affects a child’s understanding of their own meaning than to watch their parents live out their understanding of life’s meaning.

The first other?  God.   

Now Go Forth Aware

Readings From The Exodus

What is the meaning of a man sitting alone in the darkness of early morn?  The daily realness and realities of common culture lay mute about him.  There are no consciousness’s that reflect selfhood on him, acknowledging him as human, much less a human made in the Image of God Almighty.  He is alone, consciously speaking.  But there are markers he has left himself, reminding himself of the Way Everlasting, to assure him that he is not alone but the Greater Reality, The Way Truth is always with him.  The greatest of these steles is The Bible.  It is not, as many suppose, a book.  It is A Living Thing more like the swords, rings, and scrolls of ancient lore that tell tales of primeval magic, light and clouds as guiding shamans and fire that transmits guidance from the spirits divine.  But it is not a fairy tale, it is The Logos, as common as carpet, as Mysterious as Manna, laying there beside you, reminding you to tread softly as you go because it is all, everything that is and is now surrounding you, apart of The Holy Everlasting, The Great Tale of Truth and you are indeed a magical human, the Eternal Lee, son of The I Am, Lord of All.  Now go forth aware.

I can only imagine humans allowing This Book to lay dormant upon the winter soil of their cold souls because I was one once myself.  

The Moon Above

     

Strained Branches

We have made the rounds, Ohio, Tennessee, Kentucky and back to Jackson late yesterday, a great circle of love rubbing our hearts, elbows, and appetites along the ring of Bensons.  It’s a sight more akin to a circus than a clan, young and old, thick and thin, tiny and momentous we are all for one and one for all and all the binding left to God.  The family is the gold ore of human life on planet earth, the real treasure but must be mined with labor to strike it rich.  Family just doesn’t happen, it takes a lot of hard work, the work of compassion, forgiveness and treating others as you would like to be treated is never more important than when trying to grow a healthy and strong family tree, and a healthy tree never grows better than when planted in the Garden of The God!

...need a really healthy tree to support all the overfed Bensons. 

Thanksgiving Across Eternity

I awoke this morning in the dark lying beside my beloved Tennessee River.  I got up and stoked the fire, went out into the bitter cold moon glow and gathered an arm full of wood, made the coffee and sat down with the Ancient Scroll.  Israel blessed his children and was gathered to his fathers.  I thought about the Benson family, spread across the eternities of Heaven to a small hamlet in Ohio, those ancient of days to those barely of days.  It is almost Thanksgiving when we who are this side of Glory will gather and be thankful, warmly folded again into the wholeness of us awaiting the day when we will all be gathered to our fathers to live forever in Thanksgiving.