The Fountain of Youth

I watched a fox this morning, him unaware, me worshiping.

There is great meaning in the earth and cosmos and both are marveled at in the human heart by the mind.  The heart of man is made to wander and marvel and behold the Divine and the human mind is made to first, accept The Divine, and then to live in a grateful exploration of dominion.   Natural forces lord themselves over the body but the heart and mind can sit in the lap of The One on the throne of their maker.  Exuberant awe is the fountain of youth but only as practiced reverence for God.

On Being Grass and Me

Being is the ultimate gift, the fact that what is, is, is the preeminent miracle.  I looked at my front yard this morning and wonder if each blade of grass could speak how long would I have to sit here to hear each of them thank God for being a blade of grass.  The odds of anything being, versus not being, are unfathomable.  In fact, the whole ball of wax could just as well be nothing.  A side note to this is that grass being grass is its praise for being.  In light of that fact, what does it mean for me to be me?

The Bullet We Bite At The Searing

I sit here and write, my lover and dog warming me, alone in need of warmth as the morning chill of God’s sovereign dying of another woman, (women dying is somehow worse than man, as women seem more made in the resistant image of living) has taken up much of my heart’s room.  I hate death.  I read about her last night, cried into my pajama shirt, held my lover’s hand and prayed, trying to change God’s mind which often feels like trying to change a glacier with tears warmth.  I shook my fist at the dark heavens one night, mad at Him for letting someone die, the heavens mumbled something back like, “If I can take care of this, I can take care of him!”—Cauterizing at best.  I guess searing a wound is as Godly as it gets for the gift of life, life is the grandest thing ever imagined and if you get it you should expect some cost when it is threatened, a red hot blade on festered flesh is just a reminder that all of life is a fighting off of death.  “The Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.” is the bullet we bite at the searing.  

Alive Living Lessons

Fair Haven allows me to daily sit quietly with the earth which offering me meaning that only the earth can.  Everything presented to my senses is alive, purposefully alive.  Even that which is decaying is diligently working to keep other things alive.  Being near aliveness gives you the knowledge of your own aliveness or lack thereof.  It is The Divine’s way of calling you to Himself—by giving you an example of being alive in all its stages, the soaring osprey to the lichen growing colorfully on the dead stump, places your own existence into clarity, asking, how well am I living?  Living becomes not the act of doing, not vocation or skillful production out of your gifts; it is the awareness of Him and you in relationship, Him teaching, and you being made alive by it.  Alive is not as much doing as it is a keen awareness of being with Omnipotence.  That is what the earth does, it is always purposefully alive as if it is, in some divine way, aware of its relationship with The Omnipotent One and that gives it purpose to always be about being alive, gratefully doing what it does, as a way of being thankful, for being able to be alive.  Being alive is its praise song of thanksgiving. 

That seems to always force me to ask myself, what does it mean for me, Lee Benson, the human, to be alive?  And then always be found alive living.     

Father's Few Joys

A man has few joys in life, joy meaning the ultimate meaning of the word, so many words get used up in our overuse of talking, I can count only a few, very few.  One would be “being forgiven” for a life wantonly abused in spite of my full acceptance of God’s offer of redemption, while I was yet sinning—grace is so wounding even now to a scoundrel that used up so much of it.  Forgiveness is a joy.  My lover is an ongoing joy.  And then there is the joy of fatherhood, being given the responsibility to be a father and knowing the love of those you fathered.  Fatherhood has brought great sorrow and hardship but when weighed on the scales, joy pulls the pan solidly down, a weight of joy unmatched by all the other experiences of my life save those other two.  I have also been gifted to be father equally to boys and girls, two of each, and I say this because each has their amazingly different fatherly needs thereby giving me amazingly different versions of joy—again using that word specifically.  I could write on, (writing can also use up words better left reserved) but when one expresses absolute truth, the less said the better; a man has few joys in life and fatherhood has been a special joy for me, a supreme knowing of gratefulness! 

A joy day!