And That is Dying in the Lord

I am in a dark hotel room.  It is cold outside, windy, and grey.  I am a long way from home, here to do a funeral of one of my dearest friends.  It is a great burden, an honor you are given regretfully, for it means the passing on of someone you loved.  I looked out the window and saw the wind was up.  It will be bitter at the graveside.  But bitter to us alone.  He is remade into a wonderful being, whole and forever, perfectly alive.   My dad often used this in funerals.  I will too.  

I am standing on the seashore.  A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength and I stand and watch her until at length she is only a ribbon of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.  Then someone at my side says:

“There!  She’s gone!”

Gone – where?  Gone from my sight – that is all.  She is just as large in mast and hull as she was when she left my side and just as able to bear her load of living freight – to the place of destination.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her, and just at the moment when someone at my side says:  “There!  She’s gone!”  Other voices are ready to take up the glad shout “Here, she comes!”

And that is dying in the Lord.  Author unknown

I am following the casket and my son Aaron
is back right.

Merry Christmas

Two days before Christmas I found myself walking around a packed superstore.  Last-minute shopping.  I was grumbling, muttering, and fussing over being in this mass of people, in Walmart of all places, a day before Christmas Eve.  It suddenly dawned on me, how Christ often uses dawns, that 60% of the earth’s population, if finding themselves in a Walmart, would walk around in an ecstasy of unbelief, a dream of unfathomable abundance of wealth.  I apologized to Him who always welcomes that with a kind, “you’re forgiven!” and began to quietly pray for all those who would never have a Walmart in their lives.  Our wealth is beyond belief.  Merry Cristes Maesse.         

Breathe

I wake.  It is cold.  I turn the coffee on.  There are but two tiny embers in the fireplace, the warming fire from yesterday almost gone.  I stack three little slivers of poplar on the two still hopefuls and sit down with my coffee and The Ancient Text, Isaiah 59-63.  My lover awakes and lays still under the covers. A small light brightens our home, the slivers have become fire.  We talk of the miracle.  We can now be safe, warm, see, and cook for the day.  How can in a void, such miraculous Brilliance bring forth the idea of trees, wood, fire and then be so Kind as to cover the earth with them.  A fire is as hope-filled as Christmas can bring, our Holy Light has come into our world.  I think this old hymn, “Breathe on me, breathe on me.  Holy Spirit breathe on me.”  I feed the fire and we lay in silence, enjoying our Christmas fire Lord.  

The tiny light that came into our world.

       

A Shutters Glimpse Into the Betty of My Everyday

Have you ever known someone who had something good about them you couldn’t quite know, like a stranger’s child who smiles at you, like a twinkling feeling you can’t think of, so swift you beam, and then it’s gone?  Something you knew but couldn’t quite grasp, like a hint of serenity, then gone.  This is the Betty I know, it is herself as her truest self, a shutters glimpse into who she is.  She is a child.  She is not childlike or childish.  She is an innocence, a naivety, a simpleness of goodness. She doesn’t think to worry, to draw a conclusion, to dwell on, she just lives a simple kindness, like a child who shares or wants to hold your hand when she’s scared, or joys in the kindness of the sun’s warmth on her face.  She is unexplainable.  The moment I saw this picture I knew, for the first time, a picture had chanced on the soul of my lover, the clarinet sound of Auld Lang Syne, times long past of my every day.  

This use to be my favorite picture of her.
It sat on my desk for 27 years.

        

 

Infinity Ineffable Love

Forty-one years ago, I gave my heart away, I gave it to her the first time I saw her, it was giveaway at first sight.  We didn’t even know each other except she was my boss’s boss.  One of the greatest miracles of my life is I have never wanted any of my heart back.  We eventually met, married, and began the sacred adventure, the Wonder Mountain.    It is hard to explain one’s heart feelings.  There is a word for it, ineffable, but even that is like attaching infinity to infinity.  It has been 41 years since I first saw her and fell instantly in love, and I’ve never gotten over it…infinity ineffable love.  

We are on Ocracoke Island where we honeymooned 40 years ago.

 

The Sacred Do'er

I was born the third child of a pastor, a preacher’s son.  I grew up, married my lover, and had four children.  Twenty-seven years ago, we had just moved to Jackson to take a new professorship as head of Union’s new 3-D program when we got a knock on our front door.  I answered the door and two men stood on our front porch.  I knew they were “visiting” as I had done so many times growing up with my dad.  One, a tall, big man, with salt and pepper hair, quick to smile and speak, asked if they could come in.  I really didn’t have the time, and we were a big family, but I knew the sacred ritual and pushed open the door and let them in.  They sat on our couch, questioned us to know us, found common ground in our Savior, he a pastor, me a pastor’s son, and he invited us to church.  The sacred was done, the King served, and they rose and left.  We eventually joined his church, an average size that grew before we left to be big, me often referring to it as “Fort God.”  I served as a deacon, received my preaching ordination, and he signed my license.  We often saw each other, and he always stopped and spoke, many times putting his arm around my shoulder.  He was a big man.  He died yesterday.  His body is brand new and glorified…he is a bit bigger man now.  I never forgot him coming to our door.   

Dr. Jett.  The other man who came 
was Noble Grace, aptly named.

Nineteen and ONE

As I have tramped around this earth, I have gathered to myself a lover, love greater than my life.  And she and me have made four more, gathered four souls to us, greater than our life.  And those have gathered many a stray.  Until this day we have gathered to us thirteen more and now they are greater than our very lives.  So, our number is nineteen and our hands cling but our arms are opened wide for more.  We are a family who desires to spread out our tent, extend our pegs, put another stone in the soup, and another log on the hearth. Chill winds are blowing, our seas can be rough, but stronger still are our arms which man the sails.  Let no hand be laid against our helm or heart against our course for our number is nineteen and One and He the One is Him Who sets and assures our course.   

  

On The Love of How Often Beauty Surprises

Thoughts on this Bible verse I noticed for the first time this morning; “Like clear heat in sunshine.”

One of the greatest and ongoing surprises of Christianity, of faith in God, is how full of marvelous and beautiful surprises it is.  Help me to marvel always.  To see many of the wonderful spectacles of all sorts and to recognize Your overwhelming kindness in sharing them with us.  A heartfelt applause.  Thank you, Father. 

  

 

Thanksgiving Feast

Had 18 wild turkeys in our front yard this morning.  I had put out rye seed yesterday in front of the rain and they showed up for the feast.  You never know when you’re going to have Thanksgiving.

        

Can You Describe Love

This morning I read a love poem written by someone from the Middle East, Song of Solomon.  What I enjoy is the wonderful images of so many words. Wine, flowers, animals, fruit, fragrances, trees, and plants all being used to describe love.  This always seems right to me because love, real love, is very difficult to describe, to find words that give a sense of it.  It also gives me insights into the daily life of the people of the Middle East, their understanding is so linked to the earth and what it supplies, its gifts, and how much it gives meaning to their lives.  So much of my life is defined by technology, media, television, man-made things.  This is one of the great gifts of Fair Haven, its presence gives so much meaning to my life, the river, the mountains, the trees, the birds, animals, the wind, waves, colors, the grasses, and bushes of every unknown variety, all these create and mold my every day.  And all of this is Him at work.  This is the meaning of the Song of Solomon for me.  Love, the greatest gift of all, is described by using growing, living, fragrant, things, all coming from or living on the earth.  Living one’s life in a garden, even a fallen garden, brings so much blooming life to these years most think of as the ending years. It is a great reminder of His loving power to resurrect my daily life.

  

For All The Messy People Out There

So it’s that time of year again, traditionally the second happiest time of year.  However, many people struggle during this season, finding it more struggle than joyous.  I too sometimes am overwhelmed by the money changing and profiteering.  Our world is messy, humans are messy, I am messy.  I constantly need a soft moment and natural beauty has always served me well.  If you are messy like me, I want to give you an early gift.  Someone at NASA does a daily post of a spectacular image from the Hubble Space Telescope which coincides with Advent.  My lover and I have made it a part of our staying merry traditions since it began.  Here is the site and the first image to get you started.  I do wish my lover, myself, and all you other messy people, a messy Merry Christmas.  

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2023/12/2023-space-telescope-advent-calendar/676192/

 

 

Old Thoughts From And Old Soul

One of the greatest surprises of getting old is it’s not just me getting old but every part of me.  My toes, my hearing, my nails, my memory, my skin, and thousands of other parts of me.  Most of these I never considered until age made them painfully or weirdly noticeable.  However, the greatest surprise of my parts aging is my spirit or heart or the part of me that connects what I have learned to how I understand and thereby think and act.  Another reward of retirement is having ample time to meditatively think these new old thoughts.  

Old thoughts;

1. It’s not that big of a deal.  Most of life is not to be worried over but accepted and enjoyed.

2. Life is amazingly brief.  Never forget this.  Live!!!

3. There are a limited number of forgiveness kisses and smiles.  Be generous.

4. Children’s actions are to be smiled at, teenagers ignored, young adults accepted, and middle-aged tolerated; you’ve lived it all more or less in the same way.

5. Enjoy the secret wonderful thoughts, meditations, and actions of an old soul.  It was your hardest job in life, living so you got here.

6. The hereafter is after here.  Settle out of court. 

             

It Has Something To Do With Traveling

As my lover and I have grown to the beginning of ancient we are learning truths that we have no vocabulary to express.  It is as if we are just beginning to see ahead an enormity which clarifies the brevity of our past.  It summarizes the past by opening glimpses of the future, underscoring the prologue in the first pages of the eternal epic.  We only have brief memories, just twinkling’s over 65 and 70 years.  It condenses these experiences into how well we lived lovingly, caringly and arranges our memories into the moments when we learned to be and teach kindness, patience, adventuring, and above all, to hear God, to clearly hear Him to know Him not to respond to Him. And it has something to do with traveling.  It is difficult to express advancements of the heart and soul; it is much like seeing an unknown event in the night sky, you think you know you saw it, but you can’t exactly believe or explain what you experienced.

Our month-long trip camping above the Arctic Circle in Alaska.
A picture of a memory.  

            

Puppies In Dark Matter

Evolution, time plus chance, is such a dull theory devoid of the creative exuberance we see all around us.  Bluebirds and snow, lover’s warmth, and chocolate, shooting stars and goldfish all underscore a great vitality of kindness, cheerful energy.  Dark matter is aptly named, void of creativity.  But amid all that dark are stars, quasars, spiral galaxies, and nebula, and amid all that is our star shining on our blue earth and amid all that are puppies.  Only God can make puppies amid all this dark matter.  

 

Add You Here ( )

The coming of Christmas is a frenzy of activity, getting everyone to our home, corralling them from running and romping over Fair Haven.  Driving into the hills to the farm that has faithfully raised our tree throughout the years and unleashing our herd to select a dozen or two of “this is a good one”. Ours is finally found, harvested to cheering, triumphantly hauled by tiny hands to the truck, a hayride around the field before all are aboard the Christmas caroling caravan home.  Boxes and boxes of lights and ornaments are unpacked and tiny, young, and old gnarled hands, set upon our tree with abandoned, robing her in debutant fashion.  Cocoa’s hot chocolate is made, the sun sets, the star and angel finally crown the tree, the lights are off and another set of tiny hands plugs in the juice, and our tree is presented for her final destiny, she is the luckiest evergreen on earth, she is our Christmas Tree welcoming in Christ’s birth remembered once again, “Come let us adore (all) Him…”   

After the presentation of our tree, we all have dinner and watch a 
Christmas movie, Holiday Inn this year.

Will You Ever Be?

The sun momentarily goldened the far shore, grooming it as a starlet.  Those are ancient hills over there, seen the “Let there be…”. The same as the Mighty Tennessee, been here since the conception of earth, right there, nobly crowned, “Water”.  There are longings in one’s heart, primal, blood born, Spirit glimpses into the darkness of the eternal past.  These awakenings require greatness given, earned, awarded, sharp as lighting’s edge.  One need lie on the forest slope, smell the ancient scent of the beginning, buried in time to Eden.  One “must be born again!” or one will never be. 

A Thanks Giving Prayer

I give you a small thought of air which will quietly give you life all through this day.

Amen.

Our beloved Cades Cove filled with air.

It Is Raining

If I could make a tiny cloud and in that cloud a drop of rain.  And if I could stand under a bright blue sky and make the cloud drop the one drop on me, I would worship myself.  How clever I would be, how kind to let the drop, drop on me.  And in my worship, I might decide to be as kind as kind can be.  I might make bigger clouds to float around and circle the earth.  And each one filled with countless drops and each stamped with their number, 709,832,074,581,360,295…. and my name, AARON LEE BENSON, so everyone would know how really cleaver I was and how kind I was to share what I had made.  If I could make a tiny cloud and in that cloud a drop of rain…

 

I Experience Great Ecstasies

I experience great ecstasies.  My lover and I walked across Henley Street Bridge in Knoxville last night.  The Great Tennessee flowed below sparkling from the city lights.  We were arm and arm, old lovers helping each other.  Great desires are gathered to us in times like these.  All the world is right.  It is what clarifies tragedies, knowing often ecstasies.  She sleeps now, my lover.  Dawn has just outlined the mountains beyond separating the river and sky as sure as Genesis did.  Solitude is a gift we give ourself.  It is where we can hear His Still Small Voice, it aligns all things in us to Him.  Stillness is where our hearts know the great wonders, created solely for me, one human, to know, Him Who Knows No Bounds.  My lover sleeping encourages me.  She is never more mine than when she soundly sleeps near my wandering heart.  I experience great ecstasies. 

  

Incalculable Words

There is so much to see.  To Whom do we owe the enormous debt of gratitude for eyes which see.  I am often overcome by my eyes' capacity to simultaneously bring beauty to bear upon my mind, heart, and soul.  To feel the deep and prolonged pain brought on by seeing exquisite beauty, color, form, economy, intricacy, and vastness all seized by my eyes, and given to me.  Another great gift of retirement is it has given me time to turn back and go see.  My eyes keep me in the rears to Someone.  A picture is worth a thousand words but vision's value is incalculable. 

Swan Pond Wilderness Area where we bike every morning.

    

Why Put Your Bed on Wheels?

We have been blessed.  Our blessing is a private audience to the Eternal Play.  At every moment of every day the earth is spread before us and of all things this means, the truest is: it awakens our soul to Him Almighty.  Our soul is more capable of life-giving than our body is.  This is what Fair Haven has given us, our own Great Awakening.  I put wheels on our bed and every night we roll it up to center stage.  We see night become day and day, night.  We see summer become fall and fall waning into winter.  We see the sun, moon, and stars.  We see colors that are living and have names, ivory, violet, indigo, alizarin, sienna, and ebony.  Wildness is ever-present.  We see as a witness.  We can confess glory; yesterday, we witnessed a deer swimming the half mile across the river to the island beyond, planets passing overhead, and packs of animals howling their jubilant kill.  We call them by name, “Our flock of American Pelicans has arrived for winter.”  We see unexplained things in the heavens, moving lights, colors without names, great flocks perfectly formed, breeding birds locked in intimate ecstasy falling to earth.  Our view hides us to see a coyote walk in front of our door, pause to look at himself, and then lope off into the night.  We see wildlife living, dying, dead, and being born, fierce fights for life, nurturing mothers, and fathers of all types, building homes.  This epic never ends, climaxes over and over, and mostly lies silently still before us letting us know, feel, and enjoy our soul.  

 

The Greatest Slowdown On Earth

One thing about retirement I hadn’t expected was how quickly I slowed down.  For years I never slept past 5:30 and even between 4-5:30 was a normal wake-up time.  I thought I was just like this.  When I retired, I immediately began to sleep until 6:30 or 7.  Secondly and by far the greatest slowdown was the disappearance of the stress of the emotional effort needed to maintain a professional relationship with so many people.  This was such a drain on my emotional energy which I had just grown accustomed to. There were literally hundreds of individuals I had to keep track of and form productive relationships with.  Students, deans, collogues, committee members, administrators, etc.  The last great slowdown was how many daily deadlines I abided by.  Class times, meeting times, eating times, leaving times, arriving times, all kinds of times I had to schedule to meet.  The first thing to go in retirement was times and days.  I rarely know either.  Every day is wide open for one thing, what would I enjoy doing today.  Retirement is rewarding in so many more ways I had never considered, the greatest slowdown on earth.

  

The Lane Less Traveled

I miss Scotland.  I sit in the early dawn drinking good coffee and reading The Greatest Adventure Ever Told and think back on it.  It was a great ordeal for us, alone, often completely, just the vastness of her, the long views of wilderness that stretched to the Arctic, known as the NC500.  Even though we were never in peril, we were often very much alone to our own wits, a little VW we had early on named Ark and sincere prayers for safety being oft said aloud—to Him but to bolster us as well.  The single lanes as much trail as road.  I can remember one morning we had taken one over the upper highlands, a single lane, rising higher and higher into the wilds.  It was cold and windy and at one point I said to my lover, “It would be hopeful to see at least one car to know the way ahead is passable.”  At that very moment, a small truck came around the bend way ahead.  Humans brighten any lonely path, knowing even in our day of ultimate ease, the road less traveled is still being taken.    

 

You Have Covid

"You have Covid!"  So said the doctor.  My lover and I had finally been caught by it.  We were only two days back from Scotland.  We are mending slowly, tough first few days, and now the lingering lethargy drags on.  Neither of us is ever ill, mostly suffering only from years on earth and the wear and wore of the same old body attached to an ever-young, adventuring spirit.  We ended our quarantine yesterday and ventured masked, back into the public, the library, and the grocery.  I must admit we were both self-conscious of our mask, a scarlet letter marking along with its accompanying suffocating restriction.  You have Covid.  We could have done without it.

This is a picture I took of us in customs upon arriving back in the USA.
Another reason we should restrict our government.  It was maddeningly
inefficient and I'm sure a Covid haven.  

             

 

A Prayer of Safe Return While sitting at Fair Haven

What would I pay to tramp around the world and be safe because of Your Godhead over me?  This is truly the question and foundationally the truth.  Betty and I operate on the premise that you are responsible for keeping us safe and bringing us home again, even in far-off places and long trails alone.  Now do we hold these truths so well as to eliminate all worry from our life?  I can only speak for myself, no!  Unequivocally NO!  But there is a caveat to this as well.  I know I don’t have to worry.  Yes, I worry but deeper still is my abiding faith that worry is my problem, a problem with me but certainly not with You.  You are 100% faithful.  Nothing can separate me from your protective love, and its partner, your sovereignty over my life.  Once I accept your command, Christ is my only way to this, then my fallenness does not in any way jeopardize Your faithfulness.  Is this completely understandable to me?  Another unequivocal NO.  But I don’t understand my lover's body heat, but I sure enjoy it!  And so, I am home again safe and sound sitting in my usual spot, drinking my usual coffee, reading the Ancient Text written for me, and talking to my God.  It is the way, the only way, I could ever pick up, take my lover with me, and be off to the wilds of the earth, this blessed, beloved, beautiful earth.  God is King.

Our welcome home party outside 
Knoxville's airport.

Our last picture as we landed in Knoxville after a
221/2 hour trip home.

Down The Rabbit Hole

10-16-2023 Glasgow Airport, 4:53 a.m.

We slipped out of the highlands yesterday, early, moseying along country roads through fields just gleaned, many a sheep spotted green field and saw one last castle.  Within an hour we were flying along at 70mph on a four-lane and the long ordeal to get home had begun.  We turned our car back to Robin, the 21-year-old college student who owns two cars he lets out on Turo.  Nice kid, smart, an aerospace engineering major, and a budding entrepreneur.  We boarded our airport express bus and fell into the Holiday Inn Glasgow Airport.  Flight at 6a.m. Said we must be there at 4 and at 4:22 a.m. we’re sitting at the gate.  We are down the rabbit hole.  

 

God Save the King

10-16-2023 Highlander ABnB, Cruden Bay, Scotland

Yesterday was Sunday and again, as is our habit, we were searching out a place to worship.  I had planned to worship near Balmoral Castle, at Crathie Kirk, which is known as the parish church of the royal family.  We were also planning on seeing Balmoral but when I looked it up it was closed this weekend.  I thought to myself it would be something for Betty if when we got there the royals were in residence and we were able to go to church with them.  This happened one time at Kennebunkport in Maine when we were camping there years ago.  We showed up for Sunday service and the first President Bush was in attendance.  We also once had Sunday School with President Carter in Plains Ga. and Pope Benedict was right beside us at St Peter’s.  So even though I didn’t think it possible the royal family would be there we went anyway.  It was another long and lonely trip on a one-lane road across snow-capped rolling highland hills.  It had turned cold the night before and had called for snow.  Although again we were somewhat hesitant the trip was uneventful, and the one-lane road eventually opened briefly at the small church Crathie Kirk.  We knew immediately something was up because a policeman stopped us and asked our business.  Betty said, “We are hoping to go to church.”  He asked if we had a pass and we assured him we did not to which he replied we would not be able to go but could park and watch the royals drive past.  There was also a company of heavily armed Scottish soldiers standing by to accompany them as they rode up the short hill to the church.  Within just a few minutes King Charles, driving himself and three others, slowly drove by, looked at us smiling, waved, and was gone.  The setting was perfect, in the middle of nowhere, quiet, and beautiful, the king passed.  God, please save the king.

  

 

Even Blew The Grass Down

10-14-2023, Scarfskerry/John O’Groats on the northern coast of Scotland.  In what we would call a tiny home, a Quonset hut made of wood, 15’/10’.  Gale force winds all night, 41mph, rain, and some sleet.

We were shaken and rattled all night as the wind swept the heat out of our tiny fair haven twice driving me out of bed to turn up the heat, a meager little electric floor model barely able to keep down a chill.  Another time when you realize the miracle of your lover being 98.6° is worshipful. Her and a thick comforter allowed us to sleep soundly.  It blew all day yesterday making walking difficult and being outside for any length of time unwise.  These are times when God’s presence is not only welcome but advisable.  The North Sea is a stirring boil, ice-cold blue throwing herself against Great Britain.    The elements are on and are putting on a grand show. I told Betty yesterday “I’m surprised this place hasn’t been washed away eons ago.”  Morning has broken, grey, and cold but our gold star brightens the horizon.  We turn south today after 8 days north, two days to Glasgow, and then a United Magic Carpet ride home to our beloved Fair Haven, a true anchor in the storm.         

The video we sent our family.  Excuse the sentiments shared.  

If you look close you can see the grass blown flat.

 

Earth In Nowhere

10-13-2023, Tongue, Scotland

Rain and wind are howling outside this dark morning, but it is the appropriate score to what lies ahead, adventure.  It should blow itself out by the time my lover awakes, and predictions are for fairing skies.  North of me is the Arctic Ocean and the Pole.  Yesterday we found an abandoned home, the marker said it was built in 1823.  It was and remains in nowhere.  It is in the middle of a great bog set atop a high mountain.  I imagine rain and wind howled outside its walls many a dark morning.  It would have been a hard-won lot.  Someone at some time was moved by its resolve to mark its builders and briefly tell their tale on a small plaque atop a pile of stones.  If I measured myself to the heavens this morning the distance would be unknown and the destination the same, the Earth, our beautiful and safe blue home, would be in nowhere.  

The wind continues to howl outside.  I have laid aside my Most Ancient Book.  I will wake my lover and we will continue on in nowhere, on our planet, our good planet Earth.  And God is.  Amen

 

VW Tour Bus

10-12-2023, Ullapool, Scotland

If it could get any more wild, vast, and isolated we would be in Eden.  Five hours on one lane gripping the edge of the earth.  Into wild forests now teeming with great redwoods and back out again for 30 miles of wilderness held by the North Sea.  Our star was out yesterday, and it was like the kiss of God. Overflowing colors abound across infinite spaces.  There is nothing here but immeasurable views of beauty.  And in this titanic my lover and I sit in our voyager, a small Volkswagen, a haven of warmth and protection puttering our way along the ancient routes of ancient peoples.  It is a joy of soft solitude, a cleft in the rock for us to be with God as He tours us through his earliest works.  

Looking back on the road we were on.

   

 

The Thin Veil to Primal

10-11-23  Dornie, Scotland

It is raining.  It's dark morning but I can hear it pounding the roof and the deep soft rumbling of thunder in the hills around.  It rained hard on us yesterday, but we stayed the course and were rewarded with stunning beauty.  We rode the coastline of the Isle of Skye, along a thin line of road skirting the edge, pulling up long draws and ever where the vast of bare land rose and fell away.  It is intimidating in a way, such vastness of wilds, few signs of mankind, and the rain and fog can seem foreboding because the elements are really up against you personally, no one to go your bail here.  But it also brings out the primal knowledge of you, you as a human being, a member of God’s great race, humans, who have done it. Have come up against it and moved on, passed through, made a way.  Your people didn’t stay put.  My family, 10 generations ago, moved from here to America.  They had to take a sailing ship and they found another wilderness greater than they left, greater than any known before.  And here I am listening to the rain in the same country that bore them—bore me and mine.  I often feel we are just one generation removed, one thin thread, one bare veil away from primal.  If called for, I think we would do it, just go forth. 

    

How we looked after the hike above.

A Garden of Earthly Delights

A day in sunny Scotland is to be celebrated as this morning we awoke to pouring rain and biting wind.  However, yesterday was glorious, sunny, warm, wild, and opening vast open spaces of beauty.  We finally made it to the NC500, a five-hundred-mile loop around the Northern Highlands laid out in the most remote and beautiful areas of the country.  As we rode through, I thought about how I was to convey this in words a feat beauty often denies and again this morning I find myself struggling to express what we saw yesterday.  Mostly it was barren beauty, nothing obstructing our view for thousands of acres of rolling wilderness, over more than a hundred miles.  The road is often single-lane with pull-offs, seldom used because of the lack of traffic.  Quite, solitude, just God, my lover, and me and a garden of earthly delights. 

  

A Tennessean's Primeval Homeland

Monday, October ninth. Morning, dark thirty, on the coast of the North Sea in Connel/Oban Scotland.  This land is a loneliness, a faraway, a quiet, cold wind pushing glowing fog up and down her banks.  It is cold, moss-deep covered, ancient groves of trees each one a clarion.  It is a setting for great tales, fairy, and warrior, tribal and seagoing, which grips the land and your imagination as you wind through deep forests and high bare hills along more trail than road.  It keeps you, it has you.  And as if to declare its welcome, white rams and sheep lay strewn about, one here, another away off there, each hailing whitely.  It is a sacred land, where great peoples, great kings, and great warriors used to roam.  And roam you would have to.  There are no easy ways here, just narrow paths through an ancient land, each furlong pushing against you all the while, opening before you great beauty, drawing you along.  It is an explorer’s Eden, an adventure’s bar…a Tennessean’s primeval, homeland. 

 

Choose Joy

Sunday, 7:36 a.m. Glasgow, Scotland

It begins today, in a couple hours we will head NE into the Scottish Highlands.  It is the Sabbath and as is our joy we hope to worship in God’s house today.  Worship is a sacred right, a choice, a command.  We have a right to worship and a Person to worship.  It is one of the greatest gifts and privileges we have, worship.  If one chooses not to participate one is much less than they can be.  Worship is fundamental to being human.  No one can love, see a baby, feel warmth, gaze at the blue sky; truly know themselves, and not feel the desire even the longing to worship.  To deny the desire is false; to deny the act is impoverishing.  It is like denying yourself a great kindness, choosing instead, barrenness.  “Choose joy!” is a command from Whom we worship.  Choose joy.      

 

On The Road Again

Saturday, Oct 7, Glasgow, Scotland

I have woken in a far-off land, Scotland, to a rainy Saturday, as my lover sleeps soundly away the weariness of yesterday’s long journey.  We are back on the road after a long hiatus; back where we both long and belong.  It was a 22-hour trip, Knoxville, DC, Frankfurt, Glasgow, and air travel has become a maddening undressing, stuffing into tubes, feed, water, feed, water, and spit you out the other end, mauled, weary, and wrinkled.  We hole up for two days to recover, eat well, rest, and reset our bearings, and then tomorrow we will begin to adventure deep into my ancestry motherland.  So here I sit, back in our routine, on the road, The Ancient Text, a good cup of coffee in a beautiful cup, I always bring one with me, listening to my lover sleepily recovering in slumber.  We will bum around today, do nothing but mildly search out beauty to see, relax in, and rest at and then tomorrow we’re off…for Happy trails.     

 

A Cornucopia of Believing

 I love the coming of fall, the slow putting back of the earth, the colors of the dying away are so sincere and giving of their final beauty.  The coming rest of winter, the bounty of earth given and gathered, so kind, sharing such wealth of food, flora, and green.  It reminds you of the bright green of spring and its sense of the coming bounty now laid by and put up.  It is quiet in fall, the hushed of the spent, of a job well done, of the earth being exquisitely productive for another year, sharing…always sharing.  And God is easily known, His divine provision is never more blessed than when our barns, bins, and cupboards are brimming.  A cornucopia of evidence of God, Christ Jesus, and the blessed Holy Spirit—oh, children of men, how glory spreads out before us at the coming of fall.  

We cut a trail to the top of Mount Brown where we will 
have our family cemetery.  

1952 Perfect Warmer Model

Reading 1 Kings account of David and his virgin warmer on his “bosom”.  Old is a powerful period.  It is not you who are old it is all your parts, eyes, nose, toes, muscles, joints, all of you.  And each part has its own issues which you must attend to.  You know your body is wearing out, it doesn’t work as good or perform as well as it used to.  But this also requires a certain level of creativity to do things in ways that compensate.  God, I am glad you make us creative and wise to know how we can get things done.  One way is to break tasks down into time frames which allows for accomplishment as well as recovery.  We become sensitive to our bodies as never before.  We also pay attention to things that matter and not to those that don’t.  Full moons and baby raccoons come to mind.  We become better lovers, land users, prayers, ecologists, and parents.  We linger, piddle, put off, dawdle, hang back, and stick around.  We tend to wounds, listen to long songs, cup our ear, and make better art.  Warm water is a great miracle, and a warm lover is better.  No young virgin here, something better, a 40-year-old model who works, fits and warms perfectly. 

         

Exuberance

Being an artist is much about exuberance.  This word and its experience have become rare in today’s culture.  But artists are soft-wired to its possibility in every aspect of life.  From eating and drinking on beautiful handmade ware to lounging on handmade furniture, and sleeping under a handmade quilt.  We notice the caterpillar, the red bird, and the full moon.  We try and hear the fall leaves hit the ground and every singing bird gets our attention.   We have lovers instead of spouses, we adopt dogs as family members, and we revere the time to see day becoming night and night becoming day.  We are regularly found looking for falling stars and satellites and we have holding our breath contests.  We praise the last flower of summer and talk out loud to animals.  Our family is royalty and at the same time stooges, we laugh at each other and bleed over every tear.  And above all else, we are always humbled by God.  He is all we have, and He is enough.  This is what it means to be an artist, we are exuberant about living.  

Aspire to Live...

I awake and go to sleep looking at the earth.  Our bed is on wheels and every night we roll it to our windows so we can go to sleep and wake to the beauty of God’s earth.  He’s loaned us the woods to the right and left of us, the mountain behind us, and the hard-won acre we cleared to live on.  It is a great encouragement to wake up here, the beauty of the earth laid out before you slowly becoming visible as the earth turns itself to our star.  It awakens a great feeling of potential for good in me.  Its beauty spurs me to contemplate what beauty can I accomplish today, what good can I do, it incites in me a desire for kind adventure, “to aspire to live quietly…and work with my hands.”  

Being Given a Life Loving Heart

I was at one time a very valiant young man.  I thought myself capable of lethality.  Over my 65 years, I have been violent toward the living and have experienced shocking and bloody violence against my body.  I have grown deeply troubled by the death of any living thing.  My lover and I daily bike in a wilderness preserve in the foothills of the Crab Orchard mountains, Swan Pond it’s named.  It is bordered by one country road.  The other day we witnessed the violent, breaking asunder death of a small fawn stuck by a car.  I am always armed.  I could not kill it.  I cried.  I cried mostly for God, “How can you stand it, all this death?”  A few days later, once again driving to our secluded bike path we came upon another fawn, in the same but more peaceful condition.  I took a picture.  I felt it should be recorded.  A life is a life and should be acknowledged when it is no longer a life.  God felt this way, recording the passing of every sparrow and allowing us to be born again.  Death can only sting our human heart but cannot render us dead any longer.  I am not as valiant as I used to think I was. 

       

Aptly Named Fair Haven

Retirement is a working life at Fair Haven.  Our little patch of earth was 10 years ago as wild as Borneo, hanging unkept over the peaceful Tennessee.  We have pushed back an acre and nature pushes back twice as hard.  You cannot defeat nature, it has been thriving since “Let There Be Light and Land” and now thrives against me since, “Here take a bite.”  I have found it to be a jaw-setting endeavor.  We will have a lawn, a few flowers, and some new trees if I set my jaw on it.    My orchard has died off but remains a dream yet set to my jaw.  Grass and weeds thrive on our driveway and our lawn has many a bare spot.  But this is the joy of it all, nature will abide and often welcome a quiet interlude with itself as itself.  Nature is basically peaceful, it lies around looking beautifully natural and if I will, I can sit with it.  Nature never looks at me admiring my beauty, it is above all things, nature for God’s sake.  The trees, river, and sun cannot talk back to God, they keep at his command to be until he altars that command with a few words like, “Peace!  Be still!!”  One day He will push back on nature and say, “Be made new” and it will then have peace with me and stop pushing back…and Fair Haven will finally be aptly named.    

Writer, Producer, Director of the Greatest Show in the Milky Way?

When I came out this morning there was one bright star alone in the sky.  It was still fairly dark and it shone so bright.  I got out my phone and planet app and it told me it was Jupiter.  I was overwhelmed with praise for You.  Even our phones give us ample opportunity to praise and if we need anything these days it is to praise more.  Praise is happy work, good work, it is life being lived well.  Retirement has given me so much more time outdoors.  I get out before daybreak and all the woods are filled with unknown lyrical voices from living things causing me all kinds of wandering thoughts.  Light comes on, the river is smooth, the water birds begin to stir, and slowly our star gives my eyes things to see.  I read The Only Ancient Text, silently sip good coffee, and watch the Best Picture; Academy Lifetime Achievement award, Our Earth, replay again for the umpteenth time, The greatest show in the Milky Way.  Writer, Producer, Director: GOD 

She Didn't Know I Have Always Been Looking

I looked at my lover the other day.  She didn’t know I was looking.  She has become timeworn; wrinkles and age are clear now.  I was overwhelmed with loving devotion to and for her.  There are times when life comes to me so deeply filled with meaning that my heart aches within me, a deep seeded treasure of Eden.  I have lived all that age she’s now adorned with.  Oh, we have lived a charmed life, she charming me.  Her age has made her more beautiful than ever before, an ancient knowing of life unimaginable when you frolic in the daisies of youth.  She leads me by the still waters of our greying roses, our later years.  She didn’t know I've always been looking, and seeing the most alluring creature.