An American Family Gets a Christmas Tree

November 26, 2021

Yesterday we cleared the land of dead trees, deadfall, vines, and scrub.  We are making a small park on the side of our mountain intersecting the sculpture trail we are making through our forest.  We contested our shooting skills on smaller and smaller targets and all qualified—even the 3-year-old.  We nursed babies, bandaged wounds, and walked the shoreline throwing rocks at floating targets.  We drank good coffee, cool water, and cold milk, ate fresh bread, warmed turkey, and all manner of sweets.  We clustered together, all 19 of us, in our small place by the river and literally allowed our warm bodies to warm our home and each other along with the wrestling, laughing, and good talks.  There was warm sunshine, warmer hearts, and warmer yet the single Blood that flowed through us all.  And then the reason for the whole event, we drove way out into the hollers of East Tennessee, dead-ending down a long one-lane path at a 200-year-old farm next to the Clinch River to get our first East Tennessee Christmas tree.  All 19 laughed and searched for the perfect one, the one that would usher in our First Noel.  It was such a joy, all of us knowing exactly what we were doing, from the three-year-old to my 69-year-old lover.  We found it.  All agreed.  Littles Bray cut it down and the celebration began.  We are a cheering family.  Any reason for an ovation and we whoop and holler.  Returning home we set upon the decorating, 3 dogs, 36 elbows, 36 knees, and 18 bodies all in the happy dance chaos to Bing Crosby, ornaments flying, sun setting, colored lights swirling, sunsetting oohs and ahhs, food making, drinks refilling and then the final SHHHHSSSHHHHING!!! LIGHTS OUT—And Littles Oliver with the help of Cocoa (Lover’s name for grandmother) lit the tree.  Another celebration, this time a standing O, and then the nestling down for the traditional Christmas movie.  All the children and all the parents of this American Family, and all is well with The Spirit garland all through us.  And the end of the beginning came. Littles Zachariah held by Good Zac placed the star atop our tree.  We held hands in the UN-Broken circle, sang the Doxology, Sarah prayed, and thanked Him for His ongoing sewing of our circle, and Christmas 2021 has come and Advent soon to begin.  In Jesus’ Name.  Amen.    

 

 

A Givingthanks

There is a moment every morning that I often see.  It is the moment I can see the first shadows of reality outside my window.  I have two windows, one in a college dorm and one very large one at Fair Haven that I sit in front of now.  Here it is the trees that I first see.  What makes this meaningful is that it is the first earthly proclamation that I AM is so kind.  The earth is rapidly but in humans eyes, slowly turning toward our star.  The star is as joyously and creatively kind as any object in all the known and unknown cosmos.  Our light.  Our warmth.  Our life-giver—and as sincere a testimonial witness of Christ, in God, indwelling in us by The Holy Spirit.  Rapture is experienced.  It is like kissing or a waterfall or fall colors or a newborn baby or sweet taste.  I am an ancient scoundrel but I know kind when I experience it—He does that for me, eternally on November 10, 1986, and daily on this Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 2012 AD.  

 

25°

25°.  A thin mist blows up river encasing the morning sun giving hope of God’s serene kindness, our own private star heater.  The seagulls are back, a small floating island of white in the morning will swoop and swirl all day in their joy of being here.  Soon, I hope, they will be joined by the flock of Great American White Pelicans and the goofy troop of little Coots that always seem to winter next to Fair Haven.  East Tennessee attracts all kinds of snowbirds.  God is good.  All the time.  God is good.      

The American Coot

Re-knowing

We have prepped the land for winter, put the yard to rest, the beds to fallow, the wood box full.  The lake is being drawn down to winter pool, bucks rut in our front yard, the geese are forming up and moving out, and fire is kindled in our iron stove.  Wool, fleece, and flannel are brought out, heavy blankets, and heavier fogs and our star is now setting west by southwest at half-past five.  Winter is seeping in, its frigid soft fingers stretching out from the north to hold us quietly for its season.  She wraps my lover around me, a holding time where in the middle of the night one can smile at how kind God is for making her 98.6°.  Winter is the season of miracles like that.  Fire, warmth, softness are all gifts of winter, a season perfect for Thanksgiving and for re-knowing; “For unto us a child is born, unto us, a son is given…”  

God Being known

There is not a large leap from the Tabernacle of the Old Testament and the art museum of today nor even from there to my large windowed view of the natural earth from my chair this early morning at Fair Haven.  A space filled with beautiful art-ifacts which for those with eyes to see and ears to hear point to the Actively Engaging Personal God Alone using beautiful objects.  If one’s greatest desire is to know God, then in all ways, especially in objects of beauty, the sublime and the creative, God will graciously offer Himself to be known.     

Where God Is

Being in the presence of The Ancient of Days is not a normal experience.  Most of life is spent in the grind of living, the great sweating struggle with “thorns and thistles”.  But every now and then God or The Angel of The Lord (it is a great mystery) moves across your path and invites you to experience a glimpse into the Other Realm.  Such was my last four days as we fired the wood kiln.  It is always difficult to explain but here goes.  Our wood kiln is 7’ tall and 22’ long and as it is named, it is fired using about 10 cords of hardwood.  At its peak, the kiln is around 2400°.  That is hotter than any normal human will experience in their lifetime.  And experience is what you have because every few minutes you open a large door, stare into the heart of this scaredness and throw in more wood.  It is blinding, knocks you back 10 to 15 feet, and demands a reverential fear that is Truly Holy…if you are seeking God with all your heart.  Who thinks such thoughts, “Yes I AM going to put fire inside trees and it will be miraculously kind and a window to ME”  I am always surprised that more people don’t seek God just for the meaning of perhaps meeting Him.  Here is a clue I have found in the Bible; He likes fire, mountaintops, water, quiet, blue, purple, and scarlet, gardens, forests, hiking, dirt/clay, and mostly--your heart.    

the open door

         

A Window into The Other World

As I prayed with my daughter this morning I was looking out this window at His world and was suddenly struck with how great a testimony the world is to the love, goodness, kindness, and faithfulness of God.  How well it praise’s Him, how well it glorifies Him.  “Oh God,” I prayed, “help us to live lives that are as good at praising You as the trees and sky are.”  What a glorious understanding of Friday morning, a praise service without rival, inviting me to join in, OH OH OH, “Oh Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder…”

Singing in Rhythm With Leaves

Absolute beauty is so interwoven into creation that only a Divine Being of Omnipotent genuineness can satisfy its reality.  Fall is one of that truth's greatest declarations.  The singular color of each leaf is like a poem in the greatest collection of poetry, a rhythm of hymns that all known collections couldn’t attend to the work of even one tree.  There is no comprehending that kind of overwhelming exuberant Divinity.  Faith, my God, it is all that can hold us to YOU in the reality of standing beneath just such a tree.  “How great Thou art…”  

 

  

  

Growing Old, How To End?

I am growing old.  I have never experienced anything like it.  As a youngster getting older is just getting better at everything you are.  You run faster, you are more agile, and able to navigate the physical obstacles of life as well as the social, emotional, and spiritual.  You are just getting better.  But growing old is monumentally different.  You are not getting better but worse.  You hurt in places you never knew you had and in all the places you did know.  You are slower, deafer, blinder, stiffer, broken and battered, and worst of all, absolutely aware.  I imagine the curse of the Garden will mean that eventually, I will lose my awareness as well; something my mom is living through now.  Is there a silver lining?  OH VERY MUCH SO.  You have lived and you, at least currently, can recall it.  I have visited and hiked all 50 states.  I have hiked the Alps and driven the Dalton Hwy.  I have found the lover of my eternity and love her regularly.  My family is safe, healthy, and present.  I have stood on top of the world, swam in all five Great Lakes, known my body ripped and burned asunder, Died—……….and lived to know it.  I have been a star and a bum; have had friends who would die for me and family I would die a thousand times over for.  My childhood was marvelous, my youth ill-spent, all together ice cold but memorable, and in the end, God in Christ found me and forgave me and spared me from myself.  I have memories that would awe any man and make most believe untrue because of their spectacularness.  I can above all things say…GOD is good.  And if time and eternity persist for me, my retirement is three semesters away and one of the grandest adventures awaits.  How will I move to the end?  The end is in view at least dimly and ending well is a great accomplishment—and as such should take years.  Here is to a lengthy, measured in decades, ending.  GOD, I love you but am so much more grateful You love me!