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!!!