Starbean

I have been thinking of how the coffee bean produced Starbucks.  I cannot think of another seed that is responsible for the growth of a corporate empire.  Beans are magic.  Jack and the Bean Stalk come to mind.  But to grow one of the greatest global empires is some track record.  Beans and seeds, underrated miracles of Divine proportion, and the coffee bean seem to be king of the bean hill.  If you know of a seed of a similar pedigree, please comment below.  I’ve already thought of cocoa and Hershey's.

A Morning Psalm of Thanksgiving

Morning's first light awakens the soul as surely as the infant's first breath swells the body to his first awakening on earth.  Oh, to capture the first exhaled breath would be to own a treasure paling even the sun.  For life is the entry to life eternal which the sun only lights the first step.  God who lit the first, alone lights the rest.   

I have seen thousands and thousands of first lights.  
A gift I was given by genetics of an early riser.  God, however, 
made me look for it as I look for Him.

  

The Party Is Never Over

The party’s over.  our family stayed up late amid all that glittered and was golden, tightening the ties that bind.  The party’s over.  We will use all points of the compass to go our own way today.  The miles ever trod will be trodden again.  I have never been a part of any other family, the one dealt was the hand to work with.  But we are good, harnessed well, yoked easy.  We are a party, know how to party, throw the party, and are each the life of the party.  We learn early on what it means to be the center of attention.  For good or bad we love being on stage, encourage it, expect it, demand it.  We dance, sing, write, create, teach, and heal, all to our family’s audience.  We are raucous at the dancing two-year-old, the solving of Goldman Sachs issues, and the newest salvation.  We love a good fall and summit.  We are dog people, horse people, and wild animal lovers, we have love to spare.  But the party’s over.  In the quite early morning, I can already see eyes glistening, ready for coming years, the laughs, the tears, the hero’s past, present, and being made, the walkers with God.  We have the gift of tarrying because with every moment squeezed empty confirms what we all know.  Our party is never over, the Tie that Binds is responsible for our here and our forevermore.  The Party’s On!!!  

Christmas 2022, 19 loved ones, 5 dogs, and 1 cat.

 

Away Over Jordan's Stormy Banks

I was sitting quietly in my son’s guest room on Christmas morning.  I had read the Ancient Text beginning poignantly on the 23 Psalm.  I had read Lewis and Keller.  Prayed.  Written and still, our home was quiet.  I opened the blinds to see dawn come and begin to just be with Him.  I am tired of faith.  Really growing weary of the ongoing imagination of Jesus.  The Spirit’s stirring in me a mix of hope, longing, and doubtful wandering.  Faith is all we have.  There is nothing but a memory now.  I am growing ever more dependent upon The Spirit to keep up my lagging faith.  I imagine this is The Way.  The Way of our daily borne cross which in the end leads to a dying of seeming forsakenness while all the while our faith’s Object is carrying us away over Jordan’s stormy banks.    

A Longing Always Filling

I am very glad the day is here.  I tend to make it about too many other things trying to capture the one thing, you.  Trying to have the feeling.  To capture something dear, innocent and worth longing for.  But Father your son came, 2000 years ago he came, and now we are left with the hope, the memory, the record.  But the real thing is the hope of it happening again, you coming again.  You coming in glory.  Then it will change to us going, us being made complete, us being transformed into glorious personhood.  Perfection.  All longing filling.  Not to a longing fulfilled but a longing always filling.  The joy of always being with you, seeing you, working in your kingdom.  The forever ecstasy of fulfilling.  The working out successfully of whatever our hearts, minds, and hands put themselves to.  Always leaning in well.  To be a part of your work, eternal, time no more, no hurry, no pushing forward, no growing old, no limits of imagination.  

God when one begins to write about the expectancy of you coming again and what that means it leads to an opening view that slowly ceases to materialize.  We run out of descriptions.  We are left with inadequate imaginations.  And then our writing turns to one letter at a time as we try to think the unthinkable.  Glory Halleluiah.  Us with You in paradise.  What?  Unimaginable Filling! 

Merry Christmas Father.

Communion and Candle Light Service last night with
all 19 of us.  A hint of the longing always filling.

  

 

Finding Your Socks in Your Underwear Drawer

My Christmas spirit is beginning to wane.  I don’t know why.  I am faithfully doing Advent, buying gifts for family, giving generously to the needy, and watching all the Christmas movies.  I continue to read the Bible, go to church, and remind myself repeatedly to remember who Christmas is about.  But it's fading.  I have begun to see its end and the day after and know it will swiftly pass away, followed quickly by New Year’s Eve, and 2022 will close with its Christmas past and 2023 will begin with its hustle and bustle.  My days seem to pass with a vague sense of searching for something, but I don’t know what.  Like I am missing something but not something particular that I sweep the house clean looking.  More like a feeling of, a sense of, something I own but can’t possess.  I am once again at this story, got to the last sentence yesterday and laid it down without a settled end.  After re-reading I now realize it is not that I have lost something but that I myself am lost, always feeling a bit misplaced, as if I have been put here but not where I belong.  I am not losing the Christmas spirit but am not wholly with the Christmas Child.  Until I am fully, physically as well as spiritually, with Him, I am miss-placed.  Not lost only mislaid, like finding your socks in your underwear drawer.  

      

That Tug in Your Heart is the Christmas Blood

A great gathering is coming.  I can already feel the rising swell of family blood being drawn together as we prepare for our journey over the hill and through the woods.  Christmas is about many things including one new baby child come to be a brother to many and Lord of all.  But mainly Christmas is about the blood drawn from Emmanuel’s veins which now rises in the just and the unjust drawing all together for a momentary global gathering.  There is a lot of noise leading up to the gathering much like long ago as people uprooted from their lives were forced to their ancestorial homes, where their blood came from, which now flowed through them.  The blood in this story flowed from a King, David, and before him from Adam, Eden, and then from the Great Beyond.  

I saw a tugboat early this dark morning.  It was heading east groaning under its great burden all decked out in its traveling colors, royal colors of Christmas, blue for the King, red for His blood.  Yes, the tide is gathering, and the world is slowly turning to one quiet dawn when we will all once again gather according to the blood that flows in us.  Some the blood of their ancestors and some the blood of their Savior but all because of the blood of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  And we will peer down into a manger and behold the baby filled with the blood in which we lose all our guilty stains.  

The tug.

39 Years Being The Blessedest Man

I am where I have oft been, aground in a small hotel room deep in the Appalachians, my lover sleeping, The Ancient of Days and Text duly renewed, and now sit quietly with His heart and mine thinking.  It is the morning of our anniversary day; 39 years ago today was not like this.  I woke in the Bachelor’s Annex at TSD, scared sick lying cold and lost on my waterbed.  It was my wedding day.  A shattered bottle of medicine lay on the floor dropped there sometime in the middle of the night as I staggered around trying to become brave enough to marry my lover.  I was marrying out of my league, a scrub beside a first-rounder, a sinner to a saint.  I shan’t dare tell the Old Old Story but blessed be it finds me here, these many years later, her safe enough to sleep soundly in our now Holy Matrimony.  Mine eye hath not seen that cold morning so long ago, nor my ears heard, nor had it entered my heart the wandering wonders He had prepared for us, but this morning I am reminded once again… I am the “blessedest” man on the face of the earth. 

Yesterday doing what we often do, altar repairing away 
hidden deep, Holy Ground known only to few.  

    

Old Lovers

We were sitting reading.  Night was just beginning, the tree lit and the fire inviting us to lean in like a whisper to a bad ear.  It was quiet.  I reached out and ran my gnarled hand over my lover’s body searching for a warm place to tuck in.  A healing place.  I thought how gifted it is to have a helping lover.  Her body was as much mine as hers and as welcoming to my soft wonderings as a familiar path.  We sat quietly and read but my heart was being serenaded.  I looked out across the river our Advent wreath and candles posing between.  I turned to read again, my old hand warming, and began to think poetry.  God is good.  God is great.  Let us thank Him.    

 

Not Being A Memory At All

I am having Christmas breakfast with my mom today.  I never know how I might find her.  She could be completely present, the mom I have known for 80 years, or she could be someone who struggles to know me or be in a peaceful state of awareness at 87.  I am in one of the greatest struggles of my life.  I am finding myself more and more thinking to God that it might be better if He brought her to Him.  I am not yet praying this.  To difficult.  Praying for me is absolute and I cannot be absolute.  I also struggle listening to mom tell me of her loneliness, unhappiness, and longing to be with me and my siblings.  It is painful and stems from irrational fears which leave me deeply hurt as to how best to help her.  It is the most catastrophic love affair I have ever had.  My mom, who used to tell me secretly in whispers she had prayed to have me, is no longer aware I am her dream.  She whispers strange sentences to me, and I respond with sweet talk; “what is your favorite ice cream mom?”.  Life can be so painfully forgotten.  I talk to God about it.  The hours I sit with mom are no longer sitting with mom but me trying to help her remember she is my mom.  All the memories we made to create the relationship we have are now only mine and more difficult, I am not sure if I am any longer a memory at all. 

Come and See

Come and see.  The greatest invitation of all time.  No fear here, the evidence is clear, so He invites us, Come and See.  That is the truth of it.  The evidence is so overwhelming.  It is all around us that you are you, you are kind, you are brilliant, you are calling us, hounding us as in the Hound of Heaven.  It isn’t like you are mildly interested or on a fancy reach out to us, but are fantastical in your call, a circus of unimaginable acts, you name the stars, you thought up rain, puppies, kissing, and warm lovers.  It is like me as my best trying to win my lover with all my feats on display but you, you are omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent.  You know every trick, can command atoms as well as galaxies, you can, by your own power, will all to stand still or dance.  Oh, you lover of us, your whimsies are trees, love, and light and your earnests are sacrificing your beloved son!  Who can withhold his heart when confronted with such glory, manifested, wooing glory?  Come and see!  But the show is eternal?  But you keep saying, come and see…and the seeing overwhelms.  Why?  Because—you give us eyes to see.  That is the arch that supports our souls, you give us eyes to see…because the show is better than the eyes we have.  They are not capable of seeing until our very eyes are…………………

Redeemed.  Blessed Redeemer Precious Redeemer… 

 

 

Come and See

I am studying a lesson titled “Come and See” about people bringing others to see Jesus.  I love this idea because its focus is on our eyes and then our ears.  They come and see Jesus and then they hear him.  A few years ago, while searching for an Advent devotional for our Advent season I discovered Hubble Advent.  It is a series of images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, one a night, that gives such beauty to our understanding of Christ coming in power.  It has been a part of our Advent ever since.  This year it wasn’t posted, and I longed for Christ to come to my eyes through the beautiful images of his creative whimsy.  Last night at the end of our Advent I decided to check again and lo and behold there it was—Christ had come to see us once again.  As I understand it God is creating the whole cosmos for one reason, to tell everyone He loves them, has a plan for each of our lives, and wants desperately for us to spend eternity with Him.  

“You will see heaven open up and angles descending…”.   This year again, Hubble opened the heavens so that we can see Christ.  

“God’s splendor is a tale that is told, written in the stars.  Space itself speaks his story through the marvels of the heavens.  His truth is on tour in the starry vault of the sky, showing his skill in creation’s craftsmanship.”  Psalms 19:1…    

Pillars of Creation, Hubble's first Advent image.  
"Come and see."
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2022/12/2022-space-telescope-advent-calendar/672317/

 

Morning Advent of Praise for Rain

It is raining.  I am in my studio, half a table, looking out this dark morning of rain.  A good rain is a great cleansing.  A sky full of greys, cold, pushing me back into my cotton robe and refilling my coffee cup giving me time to be.  I like cold raining mornings.  They free me from the hurry of the possibilities blue skies demand me to get things done.  Raining mornings allow dawn to go on for hours, allow a third cup of coffee, a chance to listen to that song again, to think of what to write.  Instead of writing, I think I will listen to the song again.  It was an unexpected visitation from God last night while my lover and I quietly settled into Advent as our evening came to a close.  Here is His visitation to you.  Good rainy Advent morning to one and all. 

Lo, how a Rose e’er blooming

From tender stem hath sprung!

Of Jesse’s lineage coming,

As men of old have sung.

It came, a flow’ret bright,

Amid the cold of winter,

When half spent was the night.

Isaiah ’twas foretold it,

The Rose I have in mind;

With Mary we behold it,

The virgin mother kind.

To show God’s love aright,

She bore to men a Savior,

When half spent was the night.

This Flow’r, whose fragrance tender

With sweetness fills the air,

Dispels with glorious splendor

The darkness everywhere.

True man, yet very God,

From sin and death He saves us,

And lightens every load.

A Good Fish (Art) Story

Everyone likes a good fish story, the big one caught or got away.  This morning I was reading about the disciples in John and realized Jesus was always living a good fish story.  He always seemed to show up when the big one got away and then filled the nets to overflowing.  He also had post-fishing stories where he made lots of ready-to-eat fish, more than thousands could eat.  I imagine those were the best fish fries ever.  He cooked fish, ate fish, and put money in the mouths of fish all to come to the disciples in ways they could appreciate him.  Who doesn’t like a good fish story of the ones that didn’t get away?  I fish sometimes, mostly not catching but always hope-filled.  I like Jesus’ fish stories.  It underscores my own story, art.  He always has a good art story for me and always astonishes me with his art knowledge and kindness.  I’m not exactly sure what all this means other than it seems to be kind and important.  Good fishing and good art-making are profound ways to be found by Jesus, and who, when lost, doesn’t like to be found.  

Another fish story, is a man being caught by fish; Jonah.

    

Misfit

Misfits.  Those who don’t fit the mold perfectly.  I have been a misfit all my life.  Lots of molds, few I fit perfectly.  There was a season I threw myself away from any mold, just trying to do what was pleasurable, like eating the whole pack of Oreos.  But I have also learned, matured, been coached, or become moldable enough to fit perfectly in lots of molds.  Sports, friend, layman.  Many I have worked desperately hard at, Christian (what I’m currently doing) husband, father, grandfather, artist, teacher.  I could have been tossed out of many molds, misfitting enough to be exchanged for someone better qualified, smarter, stronger, more sincere.  But I have been helped much along the way, people seeing a misfit and reaching out to help.  I could go to sermonizing but the prodigal son is mostly known by all.  The point of these thoughts? I will have many misfits come my way, underqualified, not the favorite, second string…just like me.  Do unto others.  Better sermon anyway.   Should read more of His blog and write less of mine.   

Biking Chicago