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.