An After Christmas Walk With The Gardner

I am reminded this morning of God’s requirement that land must rest.  The care for the earth is a paramount concern for God.  I meditate on this only as a way of reinforcing God’s same concern for us. His desire that we rest, that we regularly abide in His ownership of all, then allows us to rest from our overconcern for those people, places, and things He places in our care.  In all roles in life, we are His ambassadors, which basically means we must spend quiet and focused time with The King in order to know what our ambassadorial role is for any given day.  This time should be seen as more a walk in the cool garden with the Gardner rather than a meeting with a General in His Situation Room.  My prayer this morning for me, mine, and our world is an after-Christmas rest walk, on the Eden trail with The King.          

December 25 S.C. Some Glad Day

December 25, 2021 A.D.

I read a devotional this morning which told of a Christmas Card written long ago that told the story of life on earth if Christ had not come.  The gist of it was that the Bible would end at Malachi, all death would truly be “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, no blessed reunion with loved ones and this day would just be December 25, 2021.  But praise God.  He did come and is coming again and then, if time were kept, this day would eternally be Christmas Day S.C. (second coming).  Merry Christmas. “Go and enjoy choice food and sweet drinks, and send some to those who have nothing prepared.  This day is sacred to our Lord.”  Nehemiah 8:10

The Shrouded Star from the Hubble Telescope
Advent, day December 23. 

Good Christmas Eve Said The Sunrise

Merry Christmas Eve morning.  It is so quiet here.  I stood outside in the cold pre-dawn to listen to the earth and hear what I could hear.  Quiet.  A few geese way across the river.  A rooster on some farm.  Still.  A warm Christmas they say but winter rules the morning.  Quiet and still.  I wondered if in some Godly decree the earth and animals know the day?  I hope.  Life in stillness often lives in fairy tales of ancient lands, mighty kingdoms, good common folk, warm fires, mountains, rolling hills, talking trees, and conscious animals.  In the end, faith reigns, and reality is the truth of ancient lore found by the few who seek The Quiet and walk the trails of old listening for singing geese and talking oaks. 

Our daughter sent us this image this morning as she and her 
husband sat listening to God's good earth.

How to get the Great back in front of Grandparent

Let me see if I can write this next sentence understandable.  What the world needs are great Grandparents, Great Grandparents, and Great, Great Grandparents.  If there were ever a need for wise, discerning, and committed leadership in the American family it is now.  It is not easy to be a solid senior citizen, life grows increasingly hard with every passing year.  Physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual trials are not only magnified and intensified but are borne by us in our years of seeping away, our stamina in all areas decreasing.  There is an old custom in the country church, now forgotten in these more enlightened times, one which can serve us seniors as we undertake our roles of Patriarch and Matriarch of our families; Rededication.  This custom was applied when an examination of one’s spiritual life revealed a need for a new start, a strengthening of one resolve to live out God’s call, and an acknowledgment that only Christ can so abide in us giving us His stamina.  This Christmas, this Christmas morning, December the 23, 2021 I have Rededicated.  God’s first job for Christ in me?  Call my children to their on Rededication to call their children to their on Rededication—Betty’s and my, 10 grandchildren.  The point, only God can add the great in front of Grandparent!

 

Taking our grandchildren to see the graves 
of their Grandsaints that have gone before.

Sticking To The Storyline

Great writing is as much about what you don’t say as to what you do.  Stick to the storyline.  Merry Christmas.    

The Christmas Holiday cannot sustain us.  It now begins at the first of October and often culminates with a day that has been thoroughly wrung out of its meaning by commercial and emotional interests—and consequently, we feel let down.  It is worth repeating; the Christmas Holiday cannot sustain us.  There is a solution!—but it takes your greatest effort as a human being, your most sincere self, your truest you.  But isn’t that what life is all about, living the absolutely authentic you?  That sounds meaningful.  ABSOLUTELY!!! There is no downside to being authentically you.  “What’s the solution?”  It’s in believing in the title, not in the holiday but you must know how we came to get the title—Christ Mass Holy Day.  That’s worth repeating also; Christ Mass Holy Day.  

Great writing is as much about what you don’t say as to what you do.  Stick to the storyline.  Merry Christmas.  

  

 

True Sustenance

I love reading The Most Ancient Text.  Hearing again and again of the mighty deeds of both God and humans as they interact chiefly in a wrestling match for true realization. Alongside this ongoing tug of war, are earnest human acts of sincerity where humans will do something purely for the adoration of God.  (Reading Solomon’s Temple building this a.m.)  I also have a deep longing to build something for God, to match my abilities to the task of true adoration of The Only True God.  Making Truth Art is one of the most profound acts of humanity and is always linked to God/gods.  Even though this desire may never be realized the longing is deeply sustaining. 

Nature always seems to trump our Artistic endeavors.

 

Man/Women Up

One of the great responsibilities of life is maintaining our patriarchal and matriarchal roles in our families.  Betty and I take this very seriously.  It takes some talent otherwise you’re just sticking your nose into your children’s business but with a lot of thought, and desire, and a little effort you can do it.  Our main emphasis is on Spiritual matters but we also are committed to recreation, hobbies, fun, safety, and much more.  It is not only one of our greatest responsibilities but it is also one of our greatest joys.  Below are two actions photos that demonstrate.   One is teaching my grandchildren (Zachariah in the photo) how to praise God and the second is teaching my grandchildren (Bray and Aaron in the photo) how to safely fire a gun and the joy of shooting competitions.  You are so much wiser now than you were at their age and another gift of that wisdom is sharing it without being intrusive.      

Zachariah and I listening to Lauren Daigle's Rescue and Holly
Williams' (Hank's granddaughter) Waiting on June teaching him
to raise his hands in praise.  We do it at the Eagles concerts we 
shouldn't be timid about doing it in front of God. 

Aaron teaching Bray how to fire a gun.  
Nothing makes a young boy understand  the
responsibilities of manhood
like learning gun ownership. 

Bass Tournament Devotional

Yesterday as I was with God in the early morning hours when 12 bass boats came screaming by in the pre-dawn cold and pouring rain.  A tournament had begun upstream somewhere and they were heaven bent on being first to the best spots.  The event added great meaning to my morning.  These men and women were up against it, pouring rain, cold, dark, a river lined with forest and mountains and them, not creeping along, but racing into the teeth of it all.  It was humans and earth at each others most raw, most primitive, most natural; neither backing down but neither contentious.  They were what they were, great humans in the midst of the great earth and both being their most sincere.  An hour or so later Betty woke up and I was relaying the story to her.  I said, “You know we don’t raise men and women like that anymore.  But we are!”  

I think Jesus still thinks, “that was a great decision to pick those fishermen!”  

Teaching the younger Benson/Carbonells to shoot.

  

 

Your Ears Need Adjusting

There is a heavy rain on this morning and the quiet is so meaningful that I feel as if I can hear every drop.  Listening to rain is a great gift you can give yourself, much like listening to leaves hit the ground, night sounds, birds wings pushing air aside, your lover breathing, and breezes in the deep woods.  Ears are to hear sounds that are becoming harder to hear and the second hardest is quiet.  The world has grown increasingly noisy and the ability to hear quiet leads to the ability to hear the hardest sound to hear, the Still, Small Voice of God.  The world is in a frightful free fall in large part because of noise, the constant screeching of current culture has prompted us to adjust our hearing so that we are now unable to hear what our ears were made to hear.  Placing your body with its senses in places/positions where their ability to help you to be a fully realized human being is one of the greatest gifts they and you will ever give yourself.  

And a great P.S. joy—you have four more!!!  

Last night at Fair Haven.  We were outside
listening to Doris Day's Christmas Album.

    

 

My Ground Hog Day Life

This morning, 38 years ago, I was sick to the point my brother took me to the emergency room in Knoxville.  The doctor examined me, gave me a vitamin B12 shot, and said there was nothing wrong except I was getting married at 2:00 that afternoon.  I have to admit I was very nervous.  My biggest fear was not making the right choice.  I had witnessed first-hand two divorces in my family and they had a severe impact on me.  But there was a significant, other side of the story; who I was marrying.  I knew I already loved her with all the love I had at age 24.  She was drop-dead gorgeous.  She was kind, brave, adventurous, and had a way of making me feel that I never wanted to let her down.  But more important than everything else I had never met a human like her who seemed so positively happy and naive because she actually was.  It was the direct opposite of me and I wanted that/her to be a part of my life forever.  For 38 years that has never changed.  She is still drop-dead gorgeous.  She is still the kindest, bravest, and the most adventurous woman I know, and I still never want to let her down.  And above all else, she is still the most intriguing human I know, positively happy and sincerely naively un-self-aware.  My marriage testimony remains the same today as always; I would give everything I own (which is a lot) to go back and live it all over again, only because…I would get to live it with her.   

Encouraging Winter Seeks Warm Lover

The cold barrenness of winter always encourages me.  The trees shed their leaves and open the earth up for closer examination.  Beauty hidden in the abundant greenery of summer is exposed, the silver sliver of mountain streamlets, small waterfalls, boulders, and trails are winters feast.  Winter also bears up against me forcing me to seek warmth and shelter and find renewed interest in my lover's warm body.  Winter quietens the earth and me and allows the natural sounds of life to filter in, the crows, the wind, and the sincere sound of quiet itself.  Winter is self-reflective, giving me time to think about sleeping lovers, to stare as a child at our Christmas tree, and to write with the ease of those silver slivers, bouncing too and fro on every rock of my unhurried mind. 

My lover sleeps in the early morning dawn.  I put our bed on rollers
so we can roll it up to the windows every night and go to sleep 
looking out at the stars above our Great Tennessee River.

Peace oh, Peace on Earth, God please!

12-11-21

Storms coming.  Whistling winds awoke me at 5 and have the river swirling as the prelude to the event.  The power of natural forces enhances my relationship with God, the awe of His power and need of His protection over all those I love, are juxtaposed against those times I have experienced His silence, seemingly being part of the audience of my life rather than the Conductor.  Faith by its name and nature is Faith.  However, beauty in its natural exuberance and most, almost entirely hidden from us, always bolsters a faith that storms might seek to blow away.  I am privy to an infinitesimal fraction of all the beauty of our earth and cosmos but when by the grace of scientific advancement I am given a view of works of sculpture staggering in their scale, color and power my faith becomes a rampart in the storm.  Such is the new image of The Pillars of Creation, done in new infrared light by the Hubble telescope and part of NASA’s Hubble Advent last night.  “Creation” being the faith part.    

(Next day) God, I plead for Your comfort over all those who now face a dying and damaged Christmas life.  Oh God, the tragedy of life on earth—as you so well know!  

The Great Awareness

The act of art-making as liturgical seems to hinge on humbleness;  personal humility, humble materials, the humble loss of your self-image as an artist, humbly forgetting you are making art, humble mark-making as intuitive instead of deliberate. Deliberate precision is harmful but hovering just above unconscious movement of hand on materials, there is a sincere humble precision, your mind, heart, and soul are deeply somewhere else, lead there by the act of precise mark-making—this is genuine studio practice.  In that state of unconscious making, you are the most aware of the Devine gift of Image-making.  It is that carried away state that each artist longs to create in, the unconscious awareness of The Great Awareness.  

 

Window Worship

I often raise my eyes to view the natural world that lies outside my window.  I am a great fan of windows and find their history a telling understanding of my own Christian worldview.  No group worked harder at bringing the outside inside than the church.  And once they achieved that ability they immediately filled it with color by staining the widows.  Their ability to bring the outside inside was one of the greatest achievements of humans.  Not only do windows give us a tremendous number of visual cues that help us successfully navigate life, give us light by which we can enhance our productivity and personal meaning they also provide us with a greater world of positive creative energy.  Seeing the natural world without always having to experience its physical reality is a gift of kindness almost never considered when thinking of your local church.

P.S.  The long and difficult struggle by the church to bring light inside is often overlooked by that very group, the Church.  It saddens me that in so many modern sanctuaries the first thing to be abandoned is widows followed close behind by light.  My own churches’ first act of Sunday morning worship is to turn off the lights; in our sanctuary without a single window.    

  

A Platform of Peace Gift to Give You and Your Loved Ones

It can be difficult to begin the Christmas season in a world that is continually screeching at us through our infinite device sources  with pain, violence, and hopelessness.  I am old enough to remember life without media, the quietness of a world that consisted of our home, our church and our small town.  With these realities in mind my lover and I began a habit several years ago to observe Advent as not only a preparation for Christmas but also as a rampart against the overwhelming tide of culture.  It has worked.  I want to share three sources of Advent that we practice in hopes that those of you who have a Christmas Faith and those who have a Christmas Holiday can both disembark this maddening coaster for a platform of peace.  

We close every day sitting together with our dog Hounder, soaking up each other’s body warmth and listen to John Piper, look at NASA’s Hubble images of majestic beauty and then my lover and I, in our old broken voices that are out of tune, sing a Christmas song.

The sites are posted below.  Happy Advent and a Merry beginning to Christmas.   

https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/prepare-the-way

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2021/12/2021-hubble-space-telescope-advent-calendar/620865/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iO7ySn-Swwc