Happy New Year February 20, 2022

Early morning New Year’s Eve.  This is the best time to think about the year past and the new coming.  Quiet before the world awakes.  Gives you the time needed to actually consider the old and the new year.  A year is a long time.  The fact that we got it is such a wonderful gift.  We do not make time, buy it, create, conjure, or develop it.  It just is (at the moment).  The fact that today means we have almost had another full year of it is miraculous in the extreme, an abundance of profound kindness.  That is ample reason for us to consider how best to live in the new year if I AM allows us another one.  I don’t know who taught me this but seems worth sharing at such a time as this; all people desire to be but most never determine to be.  There is a mighty gulf between desire and determination.  Most of us desire to be a better person, kinder, more compassionate, more understanding.  We desire to be a better spouse, parent, child, friend, citizen, artist, Christian but determining to be is altogether a different thing.  The reason, desire is a mental thing, and determination a physical and not just physical but hard work physical.  Being better at anything just means working at it really hard.  I read somewhere that to be a master at anything requires 10,000 hours of practice.  If you aren’t going to do the math I will.  That is a little over 416 days.  So if you are determining now to be really good at anything next year give yourself until February 20, 2022—and know it will be worth the work especially if you are determined to be a better you.  

    

"And always be thankful."

I just learned a great art lesson this morning.  I have always made large scale work as one means to significance.  This is a deeply held understanding of meaning harkening back to when I was five and my mom and dad took me up Big Rock Mountain.  Those big rocks that gave the mountain its name towered over me, great monoliths laying across the quiet forest floor.  That experience was profoundly moving and remains one of my strongest and earliest memories.  Two days ago I held my thumb up to Rosemary’s foot and was so moved by its perfection that I took a picture of it.  Early this morning I am sitting with God, alone, quiet, and read this in Colossians, “And always be thankful.”  I thought of that tiny foot and marveled at where it was going to take my granddaughter.  It is one of two she has, by unfathomable grace, been given, free, and oh the wonder of where it will take her.  Overland, into classrooms, to our Lord, through forests, down the altar, to Glacier NP, Gimmelwald, and often into my awaiting arms.  Scale is a relative thing, sometime great significance comes in small packages with ten toes and that is something to always be thankful for.     

How Do You Meet A New Human?

I was reminded again yesterday that humans cannot adequately prepare for meeting a brand-new human.  Such was the joy of my heart yesterday when I first laid eyes on our newest grandchild, Rosemary Jean Benson.  She is so perfect, so tiny but everything there, just in miniature and brand spanking new, a brand new, bigger than the life she was physically being, big as all the cosmos, new, all new, human being.  And the best?  She is ours.  How does one meet a brand-new human?  I laugh.  I laugh and laugh and laugh.  It is one of the finest joys in all of life especially when you are an old human and you get to meet a new one and the deep and abiding meaning of knowing that you are sewn into her, that really, in the tiniest cosmic way your cells, your DNA, your very essence is flowing mightily through and in her, into her heart, into her lungs, into her toes and eyes.  And it flows deeper still because, in the most hidden, the most private, the eternal little soul that she has been given, your father and mother, her great grandparents have sewn a faith of faithfulness that someday this tiny little brand-new human will be eternally made a child of the Living God, for all time,—and we will enjoy our new human, Rosemary Jean Benson—forever.   

 

Thinking On Resolutions

Christmas day after.  The lingering peace of our quiet respite.  The new year nudges us; our attention still kept yesterday, feels the beginning urge to turn the page, put to rest, lay aside the year that was.  This has been a good year despite the constant drone of dread manufactured by our politicians, media, and technology.  We are a good people, we’ve overcome a lot, kept our head lowered, and pushed through.  We generally like our neighbors, America, modesty, peace, and goodwill.  There is balm to be had as we begin the process of turning our will toward a new year.  We can determine to actively tune out.  We can hike more, read more, sing, visit, and create more.  We can commit to look at our hearts more, investigate our true beliefs, and see if there is room for A Faith in our lives.  We can be nice, let someone in line, move over, say “please, thank you, forgive me and I am sorry”.  We can just determine to be kinder.  If I have learned anything in this my 62nd year facing my 63rd,  it is, i NEED HELP.  It is something we all should daily confront ourselves with.  We need help to be better.  Who can help us?  That is such a critical question but one we often fail to ask.  The basic issue always remains the same, “How can Lee be moral?”  I do hope you will find the will to begin anew to be a better you and the determination to find The One who will help. 

Did You Accept The Gift?

It's dark.  It’s cold, 18°.  I check the fox’s food.  Gone.  He has eaten his Christmas meal sometime in the night.  I pour myself a cup of coffee and walk quietly back through our home to sit with You.  The Ancient Text is opened.  I sit stilled.  Wait.  Began the reading in a most quiet way.  Christmas Day begins with You and me alone.  I cherish this.  Time with God.  

The last sip of coffee, the journal entered, the Prayer Book, devotional and Your Most Treasured Ancient Word lay shut beside me.  I hear the patter of little feet.  Muffled squeals of excitement.  The gifts, the tree, the food—the family awaits.  It is Christmas Day and Your gift to me for the 62nd time has been accepted.  Merry Christmas God.  Happy birthday Jesus.  Let’s join the family. 

 

 

Warm, Light!!! Amen

It is a bitter cold, sunny Christmas Eve morning.  There are certain things that are so splendid that I am always moved to worship—if I had no God I would make one up to meet my need.  Warm is one of them, warm lover in a cold bed, warm water on my old body, warm heart when looking at a sleeping grandbaby.  There is no prize made up by man that can acknowledge warm, Nobel, Pulitzer, Congressional Medal of Honor, Oscar, all awards combined wouldn’t come close.  Light is another one, a category akin to cosmos; only better.  Last night we were all sitting around our Christmas tree snuggled up as only a big family can, watching a Christmas movie.  BOOM!!! The power went out and we were plunged into a dark vacuum.  Nothing.  No movie, no tree, no sight…NO LIGHT.  It was as it always is, SHOCKING!  We were naturally, just for a twinkling moment, struck silent.  Then a chorus of chaos.  You understand.  After a while our daughter-in-law, Allison suggested we do our Advent devotion.  Our tiny Pri Pri lit the candle, Allison read the devotion about a struggling crimson red bird and I sat staring at the four candles burning.  Warm!  Light!  In our darkness, utter, helpless, darkness—WARM! LIGHT!  

Pri Pri our light lighter.

A Christmas baby Preparing Us

We got her.  Never had one before.  A Christmas baby.  Our tenth grandchild.  Rosemary Jean Benson.  A Christmas Star.  A Christmas Baby.  All mysteriously sewn into our Christmas Savior.  There is a grand life in there and she is ours and no other families.  God is slowly preparing our hearts for the coming birthday celebration.  “For unto us a child is born, unto us, a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace” 

Rosemary Jean Benson

No Excuse; Because I Have Eyes

Did you see the star?  I did.  It was a disappointment.  Why?  I had eyes that couldn’t see.  So much of life is this way.  The great ecstasies, the profound beauty, the exquisite meaning is never seen because we don’t have eyes to see.  I came home sincerely fulfilled having seen the Christmas Star.  Why?  Because we had gone to see it.  My wife, daughter, and I had made the trip into the darkness to see a great light and that did not disappoint because it was what it was.  A light to be followed, two planets aligning themselves as they hadn’t done for 600 years, the Christmas Star the world called it, and there is the exquisite, profound, ecstasy; Christmas has a Star, and this star reminded the world, you have eyes for a reason, to see, so that I have no excuse for not seeing. 

What my eyes saw.

       

What my soul saw.  

  

A Clarifying Beauty

There are times when life allows you to see the clarity of life that can often be overlooked.  It is our 37th wedding anniversary and we are celebrating in Ashville NC.  Yesterday we toured the Biltmore house and gardens.  It does a man good to see that kind of wealth on display.  These were not just wealthy people but people with a very sincere commitment to beauty, style, and what it meant to be a human being.  They cared for great literature, art, horticulture, history, and human advancements in science, and care for the forests, mountains, and lands.  It was such a meaningful experience to see what unlimited funds could create when the human mind is turned toward these things.  They were also elegantly committed to community and for not only the comfort of their guests but for the flourishing of their humanity in both body, heart, and soul.  I have no idea the moral character of these people but it was certainly refreshing to glimpse into the lives of those from a different era and to see what massive resources guided by sincere vision, can accomplish.  This was not a display of ostentatiousness but of minds and hearts turned toward the kindness of attention to beauty and a desire to live in community.  And it gifted Betty and me, to see modeled with unlimited resources what we have long known with limited ones, beauty is a sincere pronouncement that God Is. 

Because of the virus, we almost had the place to ourselves.

Merry Christmas Beings

 The fire is on, the tree lit, hot coffee in a beautiful cup, the Ancient Text, a cold frost lays upon the grass and the Great Tennessee mirrors the dawn above—Peace on my earth.  There is nothing to do today.  Be!  ‘*The act of being is the most fulfilling because in it we know we are and more importantly we know that God is.  You cannot be aware of being and think that came from nothingness.  By being I don’t mean your body, I mean that you are aware of being and we know that is not a physical thing but an altogether miraculous thing, something so profound that it is actually holy and there you have it.  To be is to be aware that God is the only thought (BEING) that would encompass the unfathomably, infinite meaning of being.  An example of this.  The Gettysburg address was a written document but its meaning was altogether a different thing.  In 5.7 billion years you might get a piece of paper and a pen to suddenly appear in a vacuum but you would never get the thoughts, hopes, and ideas the paper held.’  Merry Christmas beings. 

*These thoughts were prompted by reading The Wonder of the World, A Journey from Modern Science to the Mind of God by Roy Abraham Varghese.

A Savior Was Born For You

I had occasion to reread the Christmas Story in The Gospel of Luke this morning.  Will teach on it Sunday.  I confess again that my heart, mind, and soul are somewhat dull this Christmas season, a flickering flame only, not able to warm me.  As I was writing to God and apologizing for my coldness He directed me to this statement by an angel to the shepherds, “A Savior was born for you…”.  I hit the wrong key on my computer and my prayer was erased.  I had to write it all over again, and again I wrote and read, “A Savior was born for you…”. The starkness of this reality sank deep within me.  Those six words are the clarity of all understanding, the key to all wisdom, the Passover, the gentle fanning of the weak flame of my faltering hope into the warming fire of The Gospel.  Christ the Savior was born for me.  The Greatest Story has started, The Beginning has begun, The Savior is born, and born for me.  And the greatest news ever received—for you too!.  A flickering flame he will not put out.

No Need For Our Public Crucifixion

I was reminded this morning; “he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.  He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.”*  And; “a world that is marked by hatred, violence, injustice, racism, betrayal, disloyalty, selfishness, abuse and many other forms of relational sin and brokenness…”** Christ understands.  And all this reminded me of something I was taught years ago about grieving over my own sins, “don’t crucify yourself over it, Lee, Christ already did that.”***  It has become culturally sophisticated to see how much we can publicly crucify ourselves over our sins as a means of cleansing ourselves of our own unrighteousness.  It is a false and pride-filled engagement.  We are all sinners absolutely unable to help ourselves.  It is only through Christ that we can be cleansed.  And a sure sign of His cleansing being applied to our life is not a public crucifixion of ourselves over our sins; it is loving forgiveness of others as we have been forgiven; evidenced by our public caring by loving all those others. 

*Isaiah 53

**New Morning Mercies by David Tripp 

*** my mom, Mary Nell Benson

So much wisdom passed to me and mine through this woman, my mom. 

 

What Happens When Your Body Meets Your Soul?

Our body is a kind place to live.

There are great meanings in life, love, and being loved, the birth of your children, critical injuries being overcome by wellness.  I have had these several times.  The thing they most affirm is life has deep meaning.  There is one thing that continually and clearly awakens me to this deep meaning, it is the happening of weeping.  Nothing prepares one for weeping, weeping is not crying.  Weeping is the overwhelming realization of one’s soul as it encounters its Maker and at that encounter, your body becomes completely realized as to its main function, housing the soul.  When the soul meets its Maker the body responds by weeping.  It is not only or primarily in a moment of grief or sorrow but mainly in what I would call times of great ecstasy.  Those times when you are most aware of Him, of His attributes, of His actual presence in the cosmos and with you personally—His reality is overwhelming to the soul, and the body, like darkness meeting light, can only weep for it knows nothing of what is actually occurring to that which lives in it.  That is appropriate and affirms the delicate and sincere nature by which our bodies are made with the ability to weep when nothing is actually happening to it but to that which it houses.  Our body is a kind place to live.

 

Day

What is the grandest light in your life?  Mine is the light from the east, the first light, the end of darkness, and the beginning of day.  Day is a marvelous invention; nothing tops it for humans.  It is the grandest gift on earth and it happens all the time, regular as clockwork. (what would you have liked to invent, day or clock?).  Day is being allowed to see unaided, free, without charge.  Day is when everything is present to us, we are a part of it all and it all is given to us.  Day is the cosmic “high-ya kid, great to see ya!” and it does because it is day.  The light from the east is the knock on your heart, the gentle touch on your soul, the whisper, “I AM”.  This is the 344 day of this year; an abundance of kindness unfathomable in its extravagance.  A good morning acknowledgment might be in order.  A good day deserves a sincere; Thank You!!! 

Un-limiting Your Limitedness

One of the great gifts of growing old is the clarity of our own limitedness, our limited strength, limited knowledge, limited understanding, limited living.  Another great gift is gained wisdom as to how to overcome so much of our limitations.  An example, economy of movement, self-preserving actions and amassing more efficient tools, riding mowers over push, leaf blowers over rakes, wheelbarrows over backs are all ways of overcoming our limited strength.  This is wisdom in action.  There is another great joy that I have found.  It defies all the basic understanding of growing old, it is always increasing to the point of unlimitedness while so much of me is decreasing, limiting my realization of me as a person.  It is eyes that see, ears that hear, and a heart that knows I am seeing and hearing.  It defies the physical because in reality my physical eyes and ears are becoming more dim and dull and my heart often, (scarily so) allows me to feel its not altogether perfect presence.  What then is this I am seeing, hearing, and feeling?  It is the clearer and clearer sense of the wonder of all things and a heart that is able to be more and more grateful.  It is a clarity that I never had in my younger years but one that is growing in such exponential ways to give me an honest sense of eternity—as if kindnesses of this magnitude could never be limited.  Another gift, knowing that I am not generating this seeing, hearing, and feeling, it is a gift. 

My attempt at making a tree branch if I had to be in charge of that.

 

328.2 Million People Are Expecting You To Be At Your Best. Boy, Do You Need Help!

Do you find it hard to be you?  I do, and the older I get the harder it is to be me.  The reason?  More people are in my life who are really dependent upon me being a good me and not just me.  Life’s complexities, most of which are human to human require a Lee Benson that I can’t pull off.  I am a self-centered scoundrel at heart and those are traits that do not foster good relationships with others—and life is mostly just that, relationships with others.  The main relationship is with God for in that all the others find their rightful place in me and my attention.  God is so kind in that He is present, personally, and backed up by the world He created.  That, the personal part, and it, the created world, are all fundamental for me to be a me that will and can thrive in community with all other humans; every one of the 328.2 million in America, a few of which I will run into today.  Again, it is hard being me, and that’s a lot of humans, and the ones I will bump into today have a right to expect me to be at my best.  Boy, do I need help!!!  Thank YOU!!! 

One of my latest pieces, Number Your Days.

 

Good Tidings of Great Joy for me!

I am earnestly trying to engage in the Christmas spirit.  Whatever does that mean?  To me, it is a glad heart from good tidings.  But this year is different, I just seem to be living any old month in any old year, the latest in my current 62.  The setting is good, Fair Haven, a fire in the stove, grey and cold out this morning but clear blue skies await the burning clearing of the sun.  And it is Sunday, we will gather with some body of believers in some church, somewhere, today.  The Advent wreath is here.  It travels with us every Christmas season in hopes that preparing our hearts is not in vain, that Jesus will come, that he will be with us, live and breathe along with us, strengthen, guide, and come along with us in our journey on his earth.  It just that this year I seem to be duller, less moved, not altogether into it.  It is our children, grown, gone, and separate lives.  This year I am sadly aware of their absence in my life, their ongoing living woven into mine, the family quilt being sewn, strengthen, mended, and patched.  Now—fewer squares in mine, more in theirs.  There were times when we slept elbow to elbow, ankle to ankle, all of us under one tent, one family, one for all and all for one.  We are now five families, truly five, that now try to occasionally push into; under one roof.  I have gone on enough down this lane of grey.  The mighty Tennessee just now visible in the tiny ripples of its surface changing its color slightly from the fog that colors it above and it is cleansing.  It is Christmas.  The good tidings come again, Glory to God in the Highest, the Babe God is coming and the world he made is clearing in front of me.  I am washed again in the Blood, the Babe Blood and His Birth remembering is good tidings even today, childless, “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders.  And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  And the Square that binds our five quilts back into one.   

 

Such Good Gone Bad

Sometimes; in the utter loneliness; I sat and weep over the growing old of my body; such a marvelous good has gone bad.  I was once so strong, so fast, could go and go and go.  All that is now gone replaced by something that brings me more pain than the fleet footedness of youth.  Superman, Spiderman, and Captain America had nothing on me, my abilities were not comic book hero’s or Hollywood stars with a dozen stuntmen to perform their feats.  No, I could do it all myself.  Carry great burdens, run for hours, climb mountains and waterfalls but now the greatest burden I bear is the burden of the weight of me carried by a body that is more and more, just not up to it.  Oh, the body to come must be a marvel, eternal Superlee, where there are no more tears in the dark of the home while sitting in the pain—of just being old.     

A Great Time For A Do-Over

Have you ever wished for a new beginning?  To just wipe the slate clean and start over with a fresh new sheet of white.  What about a start over with a fundamental idea of how to begin again—well?  If there is one thing I think we can all agree on it would be to begin 2020 over with a fresh year and a plan to ensure it remained so.  What would be that plan?  Let me make a suggestion.  Today is the first day of Advent.  Advent is a time when we begin anew to the welcoming remembrance of God in Christ coming to earth to be with us.  Believers, agnostics, and atheists alike can agree on two things, Jesus Christ himself had a grand idea of how to make the world better and our world really needs to be made better.  What was Jesus’ plan?  It has two parts; one, love God daily with all your heart; and two, love your neighbor as yourself.  No one can say that loving God, yourself, and your neighbor would be a bad idea or that it wouldn’t be a good basis for starting over.  And that is what Advent is all about.  It is to push aside all noise, turmoil, and conflict to give yourself four fresh weeks of refocusing.  You don’t have to believe in the religious sense if you don’t want, but you can say “I am going to believe in the human sense because I, we, us, all need a start over.  2020 has been tough, rough, and often not kind.”  And there you have it.  What would be a good plan to start over, a plan that works well and is good for you?  Why not try loving?  Now you might say, “I don’t know how to begin!”  Advent does that for you.  It refocuses you.  You must admit we need a better 2021!  Why not try love and see what happens?  You don’t have to believe anything to believe that Jesus and love are good and a guide to help you for four weeks to start over.  Here are a couple of guides that can help.  

http://ccca.biola.edu/advent/2020/

https://www.desiringgod.org/great-joy

I will pray daily for you and for your desire to make your starting over a success.  Merry Christmas!

Can I Get A Wittness

Everyone should have a body of witnesses; people who continually keep watch over you to encourage you to live well and appropriately.  I am “prone to wander”, as I suspect all humans are, but knowing there are others that are in the same walk and are walking with me helps me to stay the straight and narrow course.  An added bonus is that so many of my witnesses have traveled the same rebellious path that I did.  And thus, comes the moral of this story.  You should set aside times, several annually, to gather your witness together to assess the member's progress.  This is done quite naturally, first by observation.  Are kindness, helpfulness, and courtesy the norm in the group?  Does the goodwill include all the members?  Are the absent members missed?  Secondly, it is done conversationally.  The group should talk about the deep issues of life, religion, family, politics, work, health, and ensure we are basically on the same path with regard to the non-negotiables and listened to on the issues we might differ on or not fully understand.  Thirdly we should play.  Football, horseshoes, board games or cards, it doesn’t matter, play builds bonds.  Lastly, the younger members should be celebrated by the older members, they should be attended to, acknowledged, listened to, and expected to take part in all the above.  But there is one thing that must undergird all the rest in order for these witnesses to effectively serve one another.  There must be an agreed-upon standard, person and/or rule book that governs everything, a moral and ethical standard that serves as a guide to give stability to the group.  This standard must be outside the group to establish the fair treatment of all and also in the group to give each individual the tools to be a contributing member of the group.  In our family, we have given this role to God in Christ by the leading of The Holy Spirit.  The main gift They give to each of us, loving, forgiving, understanding grace, and—a demand we act the same toward all members of our group.  It makes for lively Happy Thanksgiving as many of our witnesses gathered yesterday to re-establish our family is on the right path. 

About half of our wittnesses.

    

1000000000000.0 Thanksgivings

It is the day before Thanksgiving and I am considering the idea of thankfulness.  It is no secret that on November 10, 1986, I had a cosmic life change and as a result of that I have been given a much more grateful heart.  That really doesn’t begin to explain it because what happened to me was more like I had grown a third arm or two more ears. It was that dynamic, this change of ungrateful to grateful.  I had never really been grateful until on the day I was shown how truly ungrateful I had been.  It was like having no arms or ears and then because I had come to my senses and acknowledged I didn’t I was given three or four in the bargain.  That was a change that I couldn’t and still can’t account for.  It was the gift of thankfulness.  I was reading essays on the existence of God this morning and one writer put forth the argument of the “fine-tuning of the universe” as perhaps the biggest obstacle atheists have to overcome.  Stephen Hawking’s describing how science did not support his unbelief said this; “If the overall density of the universe were changed by even 0.000000000000.1%, no stars or galaxies could be formed.”  I thought if you reversed that number, 1000000000000.0% you would come close to understanding how great a change occurred to me on November 10, 1986, just in the thankfulness of my heart.  Numbers don’t lie.  Happy Thanksgiving.  

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Inside the Heart of An Angel

You have to wait.  For those that have never looked into the deep heart of an angel, it is just like Christmas as a child, the eager, joy filled, waiting to open the gifts under the tree; so, we wait.  After her long intense presence being fed the eternal element of earth, water, fire, and air it takes time to digest it all—to realign all the atoms, the dirt, hydrogen, oxygen, and earthly oxides, minerals, carbonates, soda ash into the gifts she is making.  This process also takes tremendous heart 2300+° over an extended period.  Human’s don’t experience that kind of energy except in worship or love.  That kind of energy is reserved for the most special human experiences and must be lingered with but also respected because the ecstasy it brings can also bring devastation.  So, we wait.  Yesterday the wait ended and her heart was opened and what you would expect to find in an angel’s heart, beauty, unimaginable beauty, was visibly imagined.  Beauty is never to be overlooked or taken for granted and when you are allowed a part in its making it requires altar-building living.  Living is such a kind act and it also is reserved for the most special of His creations—humans.  Being a human is like winning the cosmos mega lottery times infinity—you get to be…you.  And one of the best things about being you in finding angels’ hearts in your life to look into.      

   

All The Time, God Is Good

It’s dark.  I pull up in the woods and park.  Grab my bag of books which include That Living Thing, my thermos, and brace for the cold.  I can hear the angel even before I open the door.  She is roaring like the great thing she is and glowing bright orange.  The forest floor and nearby trees all hallowed in her halo create the holy ground I walk into.  I quietly sit down beside her, deep in the trees, the stillness of the dark forest made even more welcoming by her presence.  She and I have sat together for years but it’s always best in winter when her warmth enclose me in her benign embrace.  I begin to check her making sure her time alive on earth is going well.  It is my task to give her those Eden Elements, fire, air, water, and earth that makes her brief time on earth productive.  It is a gift to embrace her, nurture her, provide her basic nourishment as she then allows me to live with her.  She is alive, vibrantly living, roaring about her task of making beauty, a responsibility of Godly delight.  I envy her, her job is to make beauty and sit with me, her only task in her short life here on earth.  I return to my chair beside her, pour a hot cup of coffee, sink deep into eternity, and open the Ancient Text that birthed her.  God is good.  All the time. 

                                                                            My dawn.

You Must Have Light to be About Living

What must it have looked like to see that very first morning on earth, the void now visible, the vacuum of formlessness and then light upon it?  It is a marvelous thing to think You made light first because there was nothing to see; it was just brilliant light.  Light to work by.  It is the truth that there is so little light to work by today, most of us stumbling around in the dark with no way to see but worse yet nothing to see.  God that is a brilliant understanding that we first need light, “I am the light of the world” before we can see.  There is nothing much there to see in our life, nothing of any value until The Light is accepted to show us how to begin creating out of the things his light shows us are available to us.  God, you as light, manifested in your son, gives us eyes that see because The Light has been turned on in our lives and in our studio.  Then we can be about the Father’s business because we have light to see and eyes to do the seeing.  God, I am so grateful.  Thank you.   

Sunlight Is For Seeing (deer) Indeed

I looked away across the river and saw a pinpoint of light.  What is that I wondered; a dock light, a porch light, a light of a settled fishing boat out for the early catch?  There was no knowing.  I paused and thought how much more comforting sunlight is.  It is pervasive, unstoppable, exposing all, and illuminating everything.  Our light gives us knowledge of light, sunlight gives us knowledge of everything.  Sunlight is for the seeing, not peeking, it is kind, generous and for the eyes that see, another reason for praising.  Sunlight is for seeing and for those with eyes to see, seeing indeed. 

                                                Can you see two of the four deer in our front yard?

Dear Mrs. Milam

Early this morning I was typing and thought again of what a marvelous gift it was that I was taught to type.  Gifts that serve you almost every day of your life and offer you the ability to be known but also to acquire a great deal of education, being, and meaning are not to be taken lightly.  I have often said it was the only thing I learned in high school that continues to serve me every day.  How many gifts have you been given that you use every day and have for 46 years?  The person who taught me how to type was Mrs. Linda Milam, my typing teacher in high school.  After I had come to my senses after living out on the road for several years I wrote to her and told her thank you and apologized for how I had lived.  I had not lived up to the man who had been given such a fine gift.  For years I continued to write her every time I had accomplished something of note so that she would know her investment in me was not in vain.  Two years ago she responded to me and asked for my prayers.  Last year she wrote to me again asking for prayers.  That letter was laying on my desk needing to be answered when I got word that she had passed away.  I was swept away.    

Mrs. Milam I so loved you.  You had been so kind to me in school and had treated me with genuine care.  You made me believe you believed in me.  I miss you.  I will see you again.  God is so kind.  Love, your devoted friend.  Lee Benson

 

Because I Was Lonely

It is dark.  Very early in the morning, a mild, cold, damp pre-dawn.  I am sitting with God, yes by faith, I confess.  Why?  Because I have zealously, with all my passion and energy pursued life as I viewed it, me at the center, everything else there to entertain me.  In all those years I had one overwhelming, persistent, consistent feeling—I was lonely.  That is why I sit here in the dark this early Wednesday morning, I want to be with Him because He first wanted to be with me.   

God Love Lake

It is one of my favorite times, working quietly in my studio listening to the leaves hit the ground.  I have to be very tuned in order to realize it is a good day for this and then willingly place myself in a mood and position so that I can participate.  I knew the moment I walked onto our back porch this was such a day.  This may sound a foolish waste of time and even more wasteful to write about but it is a profoundly meaningful gift I have been given.  Life is meant to be lived with meaning, purposeful meaning.  There are only two main rules, love God with all passion and love others as I passionately love myself.  The second often requires most of my emotional and physical energy.  Investing emotionally in others and then physically being with them along their way requires a great deal of my life’s energy.  This makes the first so critical because loving God passionately basically means being completely present with Him, fully attentive, faithfully aware that and who you are present with—consciously, physically, emotionally present.  He is like a great mountain placed before you, a small valley, and the waters of his presence fill the crystal sapphire lake of your valley so that the small stream of your love flows through Mount God to water and nourish the world beyond.  There is no Valley Lee or God Love Lake without Mount God. And that is what listening to the leaves hit the ground is—being present with Mount God, allowing His Spirit of Love to fill my small mountain valley God Love Lake.  John 7:38  

The Gift

Quiet and still this morning.  There is no greater gift that I have given myself over the last 34 years than to sit in the early dawn of every day knowing God.  Do not get me wrong, I bring nothing to the table except my presence, but I am overwhelmingly fortunate because I receive all the benefit.  If I were to list the benefits the first one would be knowing that God is.  Nothing has so radically altered me than knowing that He is, then giving myself over to that faith.  In that one act, one that requires recommitment every morning, I have been profoundly changed.  Second, I don’t have anything to do with this change in me.    

  

                                                                Our driveway at Fair Haven.

Fall

Fall is upon us with its cool days, with the dying away of vegetation, the harvests, the quiet grey days offering respite from the long daylight hours of summer labors.  It is the time of flannel, gloves, moving firewood close to the hearth and putting back, putting up, and putting down.  It is fall, my yard is textured with the leaves as the trees have begun laying down the sheet of their winter rest, laid bare to all that comes, silent dark sentinels that guard the earth.  Fall has come and with it a long-needed rest.  Thanksgiving is visible, Christmas in sight, the Heavenly Host, the manger, the Savior in swaddling clothes, all are beginning to abide with us.  

     

This Darnable Race...Is Being Watched

It is hard not to focus on this darnable race.  Nothing deserves this much attention and certainly not a political match.  I can remember the day when all politicians were to be suspect, “the man” we use to call them.  But today we seem to hang our hopes on them.  Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand what’s at stake in these races, the life and death issues, the morality that will or will not be upheld, the idea of America.   I talked with my daughter again early this morning.  She is reading Kings now and said it was “you know dad, kinda dry” and so she is supplementing with a Psalm.  She then quoted from the one she read today, “the Lord is still in his holy temple; he still rules from heaven.”  I thought how good it was that even this young she was still learning to think and see clearly.  I thanked her and she said, “Thank David.” We went on talking, she got to school, I prayed for her and both of us signed off with love yous.  I refilled my coffee cup and turned to the Psalm she had read.  That verse ended with this, “He closely watches everything that happens here on earth.  He puts the righteous and the wicked to the test…for God is good, and he loves goodness.” 

Election Day, A Local Perspective

Election day.  Our long national drama is never-ending.  I have often pondered the current state of our Union and how I might help.  One thing that always dampens my resolve to move forward is information.  Most of my information comes from a national perspective while my personal perspective comes from where I live, work, and have my being—locally.  Neither of these places has anything in common.  There is also the basic truth that if my local perspective were applied nationally things would immediately become much better but the reverse would have the opposite effect.  A case in point is how those that regularly give us our national perspective talk about one another or interact with one another.  They are very rude, say the vilest things about one another, and often are downright uncivilized toward anyone they disagree with.   Now there is not a single neighbor that I have that I don’t disagree with on many issues, how they keep their yard, their dogs, their house, what kind of car they drive, and if, when, or where they worship.  If I acted nationally I would march, protest, say unkind things about them and their choices, maybe riot, maybe damage their property, their reputation and, God forbid, maybe even their physical self.  But there is one local difference, I live in a neighbor(hood).  Hood being the focus of what makes our local perspective work, we are like a band of citizens, grouped together not by our beliefs or politics but by our proximity to one another.  As they often live as I would not I acknowledge that I am the same to them—we are all humans, flawed, but still in the hood.  We are black, white, immigrant, war veterans, religious, old, young, gay, hippies, straights, and good scoundrels everyone.  It is our hood.  The election will have no effect upon our hood but I have the opportunity to dramatically affect the hood.  How?  It is the second greatest commandment (Google it) and one that if applied nationally to our nationhood would solve every problem that plaques our United States.               

Being Held By A Four Stranded Rope While Facing The Election

My youngest daughter is a first-year teacher, virtual, on a computer teaching every day, with 16 second graders.  Unbelievable difficult.  So, she has gotten in the habit of calling me every morning at 6a.m. ((during my quiet time)((7a.m. her time)) on her way to work for me to encourage her and pray for her.  I am reading Bonhoeffer’s, Life Together.  Two points he makes; The Christ in a brother’s (daughter) heart is often better than the Christ in yours because they can minister Him to you when you need it and secondly; Christian Community is the gift from God, not your vision of Christian Community that your community must live up to.  The moment you impart your standard on the community you fail to understand all members are broken scoundrels like you and all our hope is in Christ, not ourselves.  As my daughter and I talked we briefly touched on the upcoming election and she said, “yes, no matter what, we have to live in hope, we have to demonstrate to the world that our hope is in Christ not in the President of the United States.”

Good morning Father,  I am so grateful that You have sewn Your Word and will into other’s hearts because they so often minister You to me.  Thank you, Father.  You are always on your throne and you are always King and you are always watching over, caring for, and ensuring your sovereignty not only over me but over all that is.  I am grateful because the election is coming up and there is going to be great anxiety no matter what happens.  The world we live in will greatly change but Your world, the totality of all, will not change.  It will go on as you so direct—with or without President Trump or President-Elect Biden.  My role is to live in that hope regardless of who is the current president of the united states.  Thank you Father.    

 

Assured, Recurring, Kindnesses

It is raining out there, too early to see it but I can hear it.  Never have tired of the marvel of rain although I have, on occasion, tired of it occurring.  It is a fall rain this morning that will usher in our first hard frost of the season.  That’ll get the leaves to falling.  This is one of my favorite times of the year, so much dramatic change, color, temperature, abundance, and all on cue without any human effort.  The massive kindnesses of the earth are a joy to the long-lived mind; familiar miracles renew the heart, their regular recurrence being a greater miracle than their occurring. That is one reason I remain faithful, the assured, recurring kindnesses are something I want to thank someone for and Someone Is—to be thanked.  

Just heard a hoot-owl off in the darkness, “Thank You!”  Now that wasn’t hard, was it? 

 

Stop Talking To Your Self and Start Talking To God

Do you ever tire of always being conscious of yourself in your mind?  Of the constant awareness of all your issues, of the ongoing monologue you have with yourself.   I do.  I have found only one way to effectively deal with it, avail yourself of God and look for his graces which result in thoughts of praise and gratitude for Him and a shutting my mouth to myself about myself.  

One way to avail yourself of God is to notice how many beautiful things he leaves lying around your yard.
    

Her Name? Fair Haven!

I live in two homes both of which are home.  One is the home of my life, the home we have lived in for years, the home our children grew up in.  It is the place I have lived longer than any other place.  It is settled, put in order, made comfortable, it is a homestead.  It’s walls, outbuildings, studio and land have all been worn to comfortably fit and serve us.  The other is our future home, it is just being laid out, its lands and edges still wild with growth and mystery.  It is untamed, mostly unknown, its ridges and knolls are untended and its river border will never be, spilling its banks, often white-capped, and always having its way.  Our home is mostly a fortress, solid concrete dug into the earth, a solid glass front facing the river but also opening to all that the southwest can bear upon us.  The old trees we cleared around still can’t seem to open fully to their new found freedom and the grasses can’t yet outgrow the weeds.  But we are making progress, planting new trees that will always know vastness, sowing grasses that are strong enough to grab and hold on.  An orchard produced its first fruit this past summer but enough to give hope for future abundance.  We are forcefully pushing back on the wilderness so we can live together, each serving the other, a peace always made with hard work.  And our homestead is being planned, a wider footprint, more windows, more framed view, lots of hot water to soak weary old bodies in after a day of hard taming.  A new home, a homestead, a work of sculpture we are in the process of making.  Our only home, our final living place, our final resting place.  We have named her, Fair Haven.  Of all things—she is that!     

The Wound of Growing Old

I am becoming an old man with an old soul which brings with it the sweetest memories of my own ancient times.  Those days when days were long, mountains and meadows filled with adventures, first loves, first challenges, first achievements, all of life was made up of firsts.  And now it is the same, my first attempt at the greying years, when days are shorter but mornings longer, and adventures are more apt to be trials for the body than journeys for the soul.  I have this great longing that comes in the quiet of morning, rain falling prompting me to days of old, friends first made, caves, and mountains and bands of brothers like gangs I ran with.  It is sweet the memory, aiding me to live more fully in the lingering hours of the morning, those days gone by when I was as young as this morning's rain.  The aging years as filled with aches of the heart as with the body but the remembering is like salve to the wound of growing old.     

A Thousand Yellow Love Notes Played by God

Our minds so aid our hearts to the joy of being alive.  And the opposite is true.  God is so alive and yet we spend our days tuned to the winching sounds of desperation, technology clamoring to be our god.  A stiff breeze just passed and left in its wake the sound of hundreds of yellow leaves falling to the earth like a rustling of angel wings on a crowded cloud.  Early this morning a fox trotted 15 feet from me completely unaware that I sat here with the Ancient Text, both of us at peace with one another.  The mind is such a minster to our hearts to keep it in constant tune.  Popular culture, media, and technology are often the sour notes, the bitter dirge, played to our minds and quickly passed to our hearts, hardening agents to fossilize our souls.  But oh, how God floods our world with psalms of balm, a bluebird here, a breeze there, a fox and river and forest sounds of creatures of wonder that we never see.  And a highlight, watching our lover sleep and knowing the good of it for her.  Quiet invites us to its symphony, God’s great 10,000 times 10,000 instruments singing “Oh how I love you” for those with eyes to see, ears to hear, and minds able to renew our hearts with the sound of a thousand yellow love notes from God.  

    

You Can Because You Can

I was reminiscing about my parents this morning as I study and read the Bible in Leviticus and God is handing out all the rules.  One idea seemed to permeate the list of rules and one that was paramount in our family growing up.  “You can” was modeled so much more than “You can’t”.  It is also modeled in the New Testament when Paul said we “can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth us.”  That is what my parents modeled to me.  It takes strength to be a human being, and the very hardest strength is to enslave your body to your mind and then hopefully to your heart filled with God’s love.  It didn’t matter if it was jumping in a pond, riding a pony, owning a gun at 10, picking up a snake, or caring for the town drunk my parents always lived a life of parenting that made me always think “I could”.  There is a risk there but it is one that God is taking with each of us and one worth taking as a parent.  One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me, believing that I can!!!    

The Great Debate

I was reminded of something missing this morning, I hadn’t heard the birds.  I was actually walking back into the house from our porch and after that sudden realization came a saddening one, I hadn’t heard them in a while.  Last night was the big debate, I didn’t watch because I don’t need that kind of event in my mind which so quickly passes it to my heart.  It’s not because it wasn’t loud enough; culture, technology, and media were in a rage over it.  We mostly choose who and what we listen to.  Popular culture isn’t hard to hear because the volume is always set on scream.  But there is Another Voice, stiller and smaller, which often comes from the mouths of birds, but one has to be quiet enough to hear and needful enough to listen.  Birds are singing and culture is screaming, the great debate? I have to decide who is worth listening to.  

   

The Looniness Response Of The Aged To Warmth

Oh, the joy of glancing up and seeing the first rays of the sun turning the leaves that glorious golden green.  It is a reminder that God is so faithful.  It is cold this morning and the sun, as only it can, is able to provide warmth.  Warmth to an old body is the balm of untold value which is often made available for free.  Walking your old body in the sun is an amusement ride of unparalleled excitement muted only by your body’s ecstasy of the experience.  Hands raised and screaming in glee is appropriate but at my age a thoughtful act more than physical.  Joyful praise, at my age, is most often a heart event, a stirring of the soul with no physical evidence other than maybe a slight smile and a certain twinkle of the eye.  So often the explosive rapture of ecstasy is contained inside ourself for to physically express it might land us in the loony bin and most assuredly in the eccentric group for our neighbors.  Oh, the wonders of life as age clarifies the magic of being alive.   

  

The Cathedral Row Crops

One of the great acts of worship for my lover and me is riding in the country during harvest season.  Yesterday we did it again and the fields are bursting with the His holiness, wave upon wave, mile after mile, as far as we could see His earth is providing a bountiful hymn of life, the verses in unison singing of His kindness.  And our machines, great mechanical marvels, the space shuttles of earth, harvesting great swaths, as they grind away engulfed in the cloud of chaff like smoke from the incense altar.  Corn and soybeans taken now and cotton coming in.  No cathedral built by man can wall in His glory like the great plains of the Mississippi Delta with its towering horizontal steeples of grain, its rolling isles of abundance, row upon row of seated crop, altars of round silver bins storing food for the world and the green stained glass tracery of tree lines dividing one cathedral from another.  Heaven as its ceiling, earth as its foundation, the Great Cathedral of Row Crops is now open daily for all the pilgrims with eyes to see and hearts yearning to worship Him.  

A Smile Warming, Cold Colding

Two parables.  

1. I often tell my students that your greatest evangelical tool is your smile.  It works! I then go around the room and smile at each student until their natural inclination occurs and they smile back at me.  I then ask them to imagine how many people will go to bed tonight without having one person look at them and smile.  You know the feeling, someone sees you and their face just lights up in a smile, how wonderful that makes you feel.  Well go out and do that.  This parable was reinforced in me this morning as I turned the corner and saw the smiley sponge and caught myself smiling back at it.  

2. I had read my Bible, The Puritan Prayer Book, New Morning Mercies, and A Long Obedience in the Same Direction.  I had prayed, meditated, celebrated, and worshiped.  It is my morning routine.  I then threw a blanket over my legs to protect me from the coldness of my MacBook Pro as I placed it on my lap to write.  At that moment I wondered if there was something in my Eden-primordial spirit that knew this thing was evil and I didn’t need to let it touch me.

 

Your Senses Make Sense Of Your Senses

One of my favorite passages of reading is the story of the prodigal son, it is my story.  In the story, the wayward son finally comes to the end of himself while he sits in a pig pen and the passages reads, “When he finally, came to his senses…”. This is such a powerful affirmation of how we are made.  What does coming to his senses mean?  It means that he suddenly became aware of the truth his senses had proven to him over and over again.  He was reminded of the touch of his father’s hand as he as patted him on the head over a job well done, as he cleaned his skinned knees and carried him often to bed.  He was reminded of all the wonderful smells of his father’s home, rich with the aroma of wonderful meals the father had provided, the smell of the father’s fields abundant with crop as the summer rains nourished them.  He could hear the father's voice encouraging him after a setback, praying over him as he was put to bed, telling him a joke, imparting wisdom as they worked together in the fields.  He could remember seeing his father’s kindness to his employees, the many times he had helped the poor, forgiving those that had wronged him, seen him weary at night from a day of laboring for his family.  This prodigal in the pen remembered the taste of the cool water from the well his father had dug, the savory steaks from the cattle his father had raised, the sweet pies from the orchard his father had lovingly labored over.  But his senses also gave him evidence of the results of his own rebellion.  He could feel the slime of mud and slop as he stood barefooted in the pen.  He could smell the stench of pig dung and the filth of his new home.  The lingering taste of rotted corn, fit only for pigs, still clung to his teeth and the roof of his mouth.  He heard the rutting pigs as the pushed at him and savagely threatened him for their food he was now eating.  And he could see where all his rebellion had finally landed him.  It was him in the pen and it was him that had walked every step of his journey there.  But his senses also brought to him hope.  Beyond the pen he could feel the breeze of summer, the wind filled with sweeter pastures, cut grass, and wildflowers momentarily filled his nostrils, used to being filled with stench, with the sweet fragrance of the open glades that reminded him of his home far away.  He could hear the singing birds, the buzzing bees that even now filled his father’s hives with sweet honey, he could hear the rustled trees which reminded him of those that surrounded his father’s house providing shade in the heat of summer and shelter from the high winds of winter.  The very air tasted like fall as the tiny particle of a harvest feast being prepared at his employer’s house had, as it had many times before, filled his mouth with imagination.  And then it happened, he looked down at his feet, once fitted with the finest sandals made from the soft leather from his father’s herd, now covered in filth and he came to his final sense.  These same feet that had walked him to this sty could also walk him back home.  He saw the potential of the feet that had once tottered him to his father's outstretched arms as he learned to walk could also hobble him humbly back to his father.  He had come to his sense, after the long stupor of ignorant rebellion, his senses, a gift of unparalleled kindness, had awakened his heart to Truth—and he headed home. 

P.S. “And while he was yet a long way off his father saw him, was filled with compassion for him, ran to him, wrapped his arms around him, and kissed him.” 

 

A Fox Helps Us Acknowledge Who Is Tilting The Earth

God, you are so kind, the seasons are changing, the old summer being laid by for the mild chill of fall.  What a wonder, the earth tilting.  No one has enough wonder in their life or a sure source, but you are.  At every moment, (a small fox just lopped by unaware of me), which is a better end to this sentence than I can write.  But God you are only there for those with eyes atop a heart that wants to see.  Wonder has been replaced by entertainment, such a cheap trade.  Wonder is that which keeps us childlike and we have traded it in for a handful of Hollywood baubles and technological gadgets which dull our eyes and ears and hardens our heart.  A soft heart is a gift we have to help God give us, by acknowledging him, in all our ways, acknowledging Him.  

                                I saw him coming in time to get my phone out and ready.

It Is Still Morning

It is still this morning, the leaves, the trees, the grass all silent.  Sculptures stand quietly in my yard, each a part of the stillness.  Fall is slowly nibbling away at summer, a degree here, a colored leaf there, a silent resting morning signaling the long value colored days ahead.  It is still this morning and stillness is when God is so easily heard, for those who have ears to hear, for those that are listening with those ears, for those who know the voice of God—He sounds something like a cool wind, a small stream, a lover’s whispered love—or maybe just the warmth of their breath upon your ear.  The knowing that life is in the breath, and you are aware you are alive because you are loved.  It is still this morning.