26438400 Seconds and Counting

I have learned to number my days.  I’ve been on this earth longer than I will be.  But that is an abstract concept at best.  The great artist, Damien Hurst, once put a dead shark in a tank of formaldehyde and named it, “The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living”.  Although I consider the piece very strong, I believe the title to be one of the all-time great titles.  As a child of God I rale at the thought of death, so heinously evil to the idea of life.  But I have strayed down the rabbit hole.  This blog is about my retirement and how this year it is before me, a handful of months away.  Every day I think about it.  Every day I long for it and dread it.  Every day I am now conscious of every day. I shall soon walk away from what I have joyfully and with great passion pursued for 40 years, never, yes it is even hard to write, never to return again.  I will go on.  Have already made plans, travel, mowing, maybe preaching, and teaching. But these are abstractions at best.  I am now living out the counting of my days, 306 left and that is not an abstract number nor is 7344 hours or 440640 minutes, or 26438400 seconds…back down the rabbit hole.  

Prayers On Leviticus at Kiln Watching

Leviticus 19-25. God Father in Three, all of life is meant to live in communion with you and in a continual state of holiness.  You offer yourself wholly in both ways.  It is the greatest of gifts.  We are living, here, on your earth, and in relation to the earth as a means of being in a state of gratefulness and thanksgiving toward you.  It is ongoing and often in celebration.  There is no loss, all is yours that you are sharing with us.  All the growth of crops and “splendid trees” and water and all other blessings are blessings you give.  In all this, we are to praise and worship you, formally and informally as a way to express our gratefulness.  We are also to party and celebrate with and for you as another way of showing our gratefulness.  We are much like you since your statutes, rules, laws, and guidance are always in the form of what we can do.  You allow us to be in this relationship by acting and performing in ways that are sincere and honest; you give us dirt and rain and sunshine and we grow crops and feed ourselves but we do so understanding that it is you that is providing all of this, even the magic of soil growing plants.  It is all a play we are performing before you the audience, a play of love and complete devotion in thanksgiving.  

Father all Three of You, thank you so much for this relationship.  For offering in abundance all the ways we can clearly see you working and being on behalf of us.  For giving us such splendid meaning, your children, by giving us liturgical acts of living, tilling the earth, toiling with a glad heart, firing kilns with the understanding that these elements are yours, that even the wind, rain, and even light lay in subjection at your feet.  God what a wonderful God you are.  We are yours and as we act in sincere communion with all that you have made we are actually partaking in your Holiness.  God Almighty was a splendid way of life.  

My Righterness

I love being made right(er).  I get this all the time from all over.  Sunrise makes me righter.  My lover is always making me righter.  Some people, by bumping into them make me righter.  But there is one Righter who can really right me.  Jesus, Himself as my Savior, makes me ultimately and eternally right(eous) so that I am right to be with God forever.  But it is simply better than that.  Jesus, by His Word, and then meditations and even by writing this, is making me righter for this day that lies darkly ahead of me.  I pretty well know myself, and I am mostly unright as me, to do or be anything that will make others that bump into me today righter themselves.  In fact, the opposite is true.  Me as me is most likely to make people I bump into wronger more than righter.  Who will save me and them from me?  Jesus always gives me that; I bring nothing to the bargain except being open to it and He is always generous to share his righterness!    

Guest Blogger, Dr. Britt Benson

Mom fail today:

I went to Once Upon a Child to look for Halloween costumes for the kids. I found Zachariah a dino costume, which is what he’s been asking for. I couldn’t find a black cat costume for Rosemary, which is what she wanted, but they had the cutest little ladybug outfit! I got it home and tried it on her. She was fine until I put the wings and headband on her, and I said “Rosemary you are a beautiful ladybug!!!” Then she realized I had dressed her up as a “Bug” 😩 She hates bugs (screams whenever she sees one—abhors all of them.) She’s so upset I would dress her as a “Bug”. I have a month to convince her she’s not a “bug”….🤦🏼‍♀️

 

Living and Active Stones

Oh to have the stones that will rise up to praise Jesus.*  Those would be valuable stones.  About 100 of those arrived yesterday.  I am endeared to stone, grew up around them, worked with then, climbed on ‘em and now make sculpture with ‘em.  At some point, a fluid point, one that gradually moved from unawareness to the only point, sculpture for me is the way I declare God, only Him, that is the purpose.  I cannot say I had anything to do with it.  It is like a small boy growing up walking around the land with his father and slowly becoming aware that he was walking around His father’s land, his earth, his Kingdom.  After a long while the boy realized that the land, his Fathers kingdom, all of it was really praising the father for the father had made it.  Such are stones for me, the everlasting presence on this earth that God is good.  Yesterday a few His stones arrived here for me and mine to make sculpture with, and what they will ultimately declare is, “the earth is LORD’s and the fullness thereof.”  

*Luke 19:40

Those Were the Days My Friends

We all belong to a brother and sisterhood of our youth.  Those glory-filled days of intense love lived in bodies always fierce.  These intensities burned white hot but quickly cooled by the energy required in the demands of growing up.  The passions of the love of brotherhood replaced by obligations, deadlines, and inboxes.  However, in grace, God allows those memories to be gently held in those youthfully built strongholds of our hearts.  I had a great homecoming yesterday, those ancient days of youthful passions once again became the flesh and blood of those that lived them with me.  A reunion of sorts, small, with many not present and some passed on but where the young sweetness of hearts aflame with life could be rekindled in shared remembering.  It was a life event for me, strongly foundational, a returning to my roots of sorts, where a misspent youth is placed aside for the joy of love as only youths can have, in hearts that have grown kindly old,  sweet with wisdom, and understanding from experience.  To the brother and sisterhood, may we all be this to those—till we meet again—Those were the days my friends!  

 

The Burning Kiln

There are sacred spaces in the world—truly.  Spaces where God is so comfortable that he regularly visits them.  In the Bible, these spaces are regularly filled with fire and water, darkness and winds, and the very elements being rearranged in glorious fashion.  It is hard to understand but no less true that sitting in front of a kiln is just such a spot.  I have been doing this for years, sitting with The Great Ancient Text, a great cup filled with good coffee in front of a roaring warm kiln.  It is as common as dawn but as holy as a burning bush.  I know this seems overly dramatic or even fantasying of the faithfully dim but one can only speak of that which he experiences and of where it regularly happens and of Whom is always there.    

 

Turning A Half-Wit Into a Whole

If there is anything that I have done to improve my lot in life it would be reading and writing.  My mom birthed in me a love for reading.  She often read to us as children and those are very powerful and vivid memories.  I love to read and read constantly.  I will read between 20-50 books a year including the Bible clear through.  I read 4 or 5 books at a time all contributing to different parts of my life, spiritual, educational, and recreational.  I begin and end every day reading.  I did nothing to be this way.  My mom did it.  The writing part I can take some credit for.  When I was 14 a new show came on TV, The Waltons, about a family during the depression.  The oldest son, John Boy, loved to write, sitting at his upstairs window at night and writing about his family.  I felt a kinship with this family thinking it reminded me much of my own family.  It was also meaningful to me that John Boy was always recording his thoughts which I decided to do myself.  At 14 I began to journal and I have written almost every day since.  These two things have elevated my life experiences in so many ways.  Given me a great amount of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding.  Encouraged me to go see many of the places I have read about.  Placed my foot upon many a trail of beauty, art making, meaningful experiences, and mountain ranges, meadows, streams, and byways.  In the process, it has also left a trail of my life behind me.  Many of my journals are filled with the sinful walk of a wayward son but most are the story of a half-wit becoming a whole with his God.   

Scanning for Beauty

Life, my life, is often the visual scanning across studios seeking that one most sincerely beautiful object.  Most all my days for the last 40 years have been spent in studios filled with objects vying for my attention.  It is a grand and meaningful way to live, hide and seek of beauty.  Every year my skills are truthfully honed by God himself.  As I am with Him he creates in me and ongoing sensitivity to beauty.  It is part of His generosity, like oxygen and light, giving us wisdom to be who He made us to be.  

 

The World Light

We have all at one time or another prayed for the light of day to come an spread balm upon our wearied souls.  Such again was my plight this morning as I sat and read the Ancient Text.  As the light finally began to outline natures shapes outside my window I saw that it was raining as well.  There are great and mighty kindnesses in this world, those like love and warmth, that continually hums of God Almighty and rain is another but light, “light of the world” is a kindness only of Divine Holiness.   

  

The Pearl Behind My Eyes

Because the eyes of my heart have been opened and I can see the sorrow that lies behind all the laughter and amusement, a sorrow of lost souls undone, finding nothing to do that is sincere, their life a deep sorrow of want for meaning.  For there went I so many years ago.  I was racing down the highway to hell, in pursuit of mirth, but determined to live meaninglessly.  I lived with that, me so vital and living, so young and filled with vigor but with no reason for any of it but the ongoing stupor of self-medicated and indulgent meaningless.  And then, despite myself, I was found.  When one finds meaning one finds life and in that is the great pearl, the great treasure who, me a man, sells all I have to obtain.

      

Searing But He Does Know!

I sat with my mom yesterday, we found her weeping in the hall outside her door scared.  Her dementia often makes her frightened.  I have seen my mom cry many times, tears of real hurt, pain, sorrow, loss, and disappointment.  It is much more difficult to see her crying over an imagined fear.  She is a tiny woman, not hardly big enough to hold much grief and in her ancient days she is often unhappy and lonely.  When I am with her she is singularly focused on wanting me to be with her, move here, spend the night, don’t leave.  It is searing.  She was such an independent person, always strongly present with my dad.  However, now the two have become literally one and the one is shaky.  Yesterday she said she was worried about being left alone and I asked, “Mom what does God say about worrying?” and she replied rather curtly, “Oh, He doesn’t say nothing!”  I can so understand, often our faith is so very lonely.  I pray continually for Him to be her peace, her courage, her warming, and comforting friend.  He is but her trembling mind may not be able to know—it makes “why have you forsaken me?” an ongoing truth.  

  

What Might Be

One of the greatest pleasures for me is envisioning what might be and then working to see if I can do it.  The thought of making something better is a meaningful and powerful motivator for art-making and life-living.  Sometimes it is as easy as making a chair slide easier across the porch and other times as challenging as considering how one's department and life can be reimagined.  I am currently doing all three.  I solved the chair problem but the latter two are much more challenging but enormously more rewarding.  What has become the most integral part of all this is God’s ever-growing collaboration with me in these endeavors; an enormous kindness on His part to take me on.  

Choosing 48,000 pounds of stone for my next sculpture.