NEW

How quickly our lives are drawn back into normalcy, all the sacred and secular of a few days ago forgotten for the hum and drum of today.  One thing that has long sustained me is the sacredness of every moment often heralded by beauty that permeates so much of what exists.  Every human needs to be renewed, to, as I heard lately, return to the rhythm of life.  Every moment, day, week and year offer us that opportunity.  Today the world will set itself to the task of renewal as we all enter a new year.  Will you be made new, as 2020 will be new?  I encourage you to take some quiet time and examine your life in light of “the unexamined life is not worth living and the un-lived life is not worth examining.”  It takes some a year to be renewed; some longer and some just never see the need.  However if you might indulge me for a moment, there is a way to be renewed every moment in which beauty for me plays a role.  Beauty is not what renews me but it always points me toward and awakens me to The Renewer.  I do hope every moment of your new year is filled with you being made—new—because you can be!  

On Loving, Eating and Knee and Elbow Conditions

There is nothing like a gathering of living, breathing, loving family.  Yesterday we had our annual Benson get together, 36 of the 47 of us all gathered for indulging in loving, eating and playing.  We eat and then we play or cheer in the Mud Bowl, our annual football game, and Joe’s won 8-7.  Two things always stick out, there were 72 elbows and 72 knees all in varying stages of working order, the ones with the bad knees overwork their elbows eating and poking each other as we watch the young kneed and elbowed ones play football.  The second thing is how funny the mid-life knees and elbows fumble and stumble around playing football with the young kneed and elbowed.     

The Wait Begins For 1986 Years Ago

The day after Christmas is here, 364 days until Christmas.  The day after always comes bringing with it the end of the year, the wrap-up, the final push.  The Christmas season is always for the heart and soul, it is the beginning of the rededication, the soul searching for meaning, as the song says, feeling for its worth.  The event marks the march to Calvary, 33 years 1986 years ago, 108 days from today.  Then Christ begins His reign as Savior.  He is a Baby King for now but in 108 days He will rise…

And He shall reign forever and ever,

King of kings! And Lord of lords!

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah! Hallelujah!

Note: There is no greater adventure for a human than being lead to search for and live out the worth of their soul.  May each of you always be on that most Holy expedition.

  

Doris Day As Bengay™

We cut and split wood for much of yesterday.  Needless to say, it took its toll on us.  Betty is always game, slinging the sledge splitting and stacking, still an Amazon.  Afterward, we sat in the house, still as warriors after the war, absorbed into our chairs moaning like old trees in a high wind.  We were a sight.  Fair Haven is fairly isolated and no river traffic to speak of.  We eventually got cleaned up, put on our pajamas and sat on the dock listening to Doris Day Christmas album.  We laughed at each other in our pj’s before dark but both agreed we weren’t old, just goofy.  The river rolled along and with it took more of our aches, a load Doris had already begun to carry off.    

Advent Evening

Each night we lay in bed, my lover reading the Advent passages as I stare at the three lit candles, the only light in the room.  Such a small addition to “the Light of the World”, our light hidden, not “under a bushel”, but in this small dark studio lying beside the river between the hills; but it is all His light nonetheless, as a “cup of cold water”, each token duly noted.  “God is good, God is great, let us thank Him…”

Years ago on the western plains another
light of the world made by The Light
of the world.