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.