Routines, Rituals, Liturgies

Routines are comforts for soul and body.  I like routines, often thinking of their return as encouragement for the present.  The best routines are rituals, those acts of daily liturgy we create to bring joy and meaning to living.  The choicest of these is those we share with a loved one.  My lover and I have several and most of those are done holding hands.  I once read a book, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” by Robert Fulghum.  One of the things he listed was to hold hands.  I took that to heart.  We love to fling ourselves to prolonged abandonment and often do but we always abide by our daily rituals and those I look forward to the most involve me and her holding hands. 

PS:  Good marriage advice.  The last thing to do before going to sleep is hold hands and pray out loud.  We have done this since the day we married.  It resolves a lot of things. 

One of our favorite daily rituals is our bike ride.

  

       

 

River Dreams Begin Sabbath

My lover awakes, sits up in bed, and begins to stare downriver.  I ask her what she sees?  “A barge, I think.  I see a red, green, and bright light.”  She continues to stare.  It finally comes into view.  We turn off our reading lights.  It is a large one, a petroleum barge, and a big tug.  We begin to invent stories about her and what her crew is doing.  Then we sit silently as she rolls on by.  I turn my light back on.  She leaves hers off lost in the dreams a great river gives you.  I write this.  Fair Haven drifts back into peaceful solitude.  I check on her.  My lover is sound asleep.  Our Sabbath has begun.   

   

A Working Out of My Salvation

There are great days in life.  Days you know God as He will someday be known by you.  Days when His creativity is suddenly revealed in a place you discovered, a place you had been near your whole life and never knew was there.  My lover and I found one yesterday.  A falls which flows out of five caves, drops, and flows immediately into another.  The falls lie in front of another massive cave, a great hole in the earth at the base of a tall cliff.  We hiked to the bottom and the top.  We had the place all to ourselves.  It was a beautiful day, a lost trail, a 24 caret find and another working out of my salvation.  God be praised.   

Oh, There's So Much Undiscovered!

There are revivals in life, single to married, graduation to dream job, and births of all kinds.  One of the most meaningful for me has been retirement.  Retirement has given me lots of unconscious time, time not given over to schedule, time I have at my disposal.  I read, write, and meditate for hours in the morning, alone, quiet, and always aware of light coming to my dark morning.   I have continual R&R time with my lover.  I have time for seeking, meaningful looking for beauty, liturgy, and small art practice.  But there is also an overwhelming sense of knowing.  Time to know.  Time to think a thing out.  Time to wander quietly.  It is a great revival of meaningful understanding that comes from having the time to understand.  Working is a time of mastering the skills of vocation.  Retirement is time for mastering the skills of understanding, discovering the truer meanings of being, of developing gratefulness, thankfulness, and wonder, time for becoming kinder, holding a little longer, lingering.  Retirement is having the time for great discovery and so much still lies undiscovered.               

We Got Out

1-23-2024

We got out.  For eight days our driveway, road to the main road, and the main road have been paved with 7” of packed snow topped with 1” of ice.  Our drive and first road are uphill all the way and when you top the hill to the main road it immediately turns down on both sides for a long downhill.  Those hills have held 4 vehicles piled up on one another waiting for the thaw.  At one point the rescue squad car had to call in the rescue squad.  The government's response to our situation was to put up a road closed sign.  Yesterday we got out.  The sign's still there.    

The rescue squad waiting to be rescued.  If you zoom 
in you will see the three-car pile-up.  To the left of this 
picture is another truck wrecked.

 

The Clue? It's Cold.

My MacBook Air is cold, literally.  It’s a clue I discovered years ago.  It is not my friend.  It is my slave.  It is designed to enslave me but because of my upbringing in the outdoors, it never achieved its potential.  This is a good thing.  I have no need to spend my time getting to know it intimately.  My intimacy time is reserved for but a few; God, Christ, my lover, children, family, people, and a few dogs.  The clue?  None of these are cold.   

Warm things.   Singing Christmas carols while
collecting for Salvation Army.

Today I Got Exactly What I Wanted

My wife reminded me again this morning that I am a morning person.  I am.  I revel in first light.  One of my greatest joys is the night wonderings of what tomorrow’s light will bring.  I am imagining what great adventure can we become a part of; what new beauty might we see, what can we do together awakening to the day’s gift of sublime potential.  Day gives our eyes things to see, and vision opens our hearts to wild trails across the earth.  A new day is one of the most wonderful gifts we ever receive; even now my heart longs to be a part of it, profit my soul, and open the gift—because it is exactly what I wanted. 

Years ago we camped for a month above the Arctic Circle. 
This is the Dalton Hwy. a 500-mile gravel road to the
Arctic ocean.

    

Some Tears May Be Holy Water

There is one great blessing all humans should know; tears that feel warm on your cheek.  Most tears are 98.6° flowing upon you who are also 98.6°.  But on occasion, your tears will be hotter than you, you will feel their warmth on your skin as they flow down your face.  These I think are tears from your soul.  These tears are our soul physically surging out of us. They are those God says He is collecting in Psalms 56.  They are Holy Water pouring forth proclaiming I AM with you, hear you, will never leave or forsake you, to the uttermost, forever, and ever. I AM.  Amen.  

   

We Live in an Imax Theater

The gifts of Fair Haven are many, warm, dry, and intimate; but perhaps the best is the sprawling view capturing all manner of beauty.  Even now as I glance up small concentrations of vapor slide up the river like racing clouds before the wind.  Cold, snow, and ice have brought their own beauty and again our warm haven gives us expansive views.  We live in an Imax Theater.       

The snow in our yard last night was like water reflecting the trees.

Snow melting through the back of our lawn chairs.

Good Times Still Roll

The cold has retreated a bit but it’s added a gusting wind so we wouldn’t much notice.  We’ve been snowed in all week, the hill out a solid sheet of packed snow and ice.  We go out daily on our ATV and as of yesterday the road to Kingston was still completely snowed and iced over.  We enjoy the daily outings, breaks up the cabin fever.  I draw, read, fill the wood box, keep a fire going, and chase Betty around the house.  Small fire going now, lots of good coffee, God’s meeting and my lover and dog sleep soundly.  Good times still roll.    

Out on ole red.

     

America Has a Manhood Crisis

All the land across the river in front of us is a federally protected archeological preserve. We like this because no one can build in front of us.  It is also a favorite hunting spot during duck season.  I regularly see hunters in the pitch dark of early winter mornings, their headlamps marking them as they set up.  That speck you see to the right of the island is a man wading out to retrieve the duck he just shot.  My wife and I enjoy watching the duck hunters.  They give us great hope.  America has a manhood crisis, but I told Betty as I looked at him wading out in 9° weather, “As long as we have men like him, America will be okay!”   

The Joy? The red-headed child not the prose.

A turned-down corner of a good book touched me yesterday.  I was given a book of prose as a gift from a former student, a special child with a special eye, the ability to compose beauty to appear natural and then instantly record it.  As an old artist, I know this to be a gift given not a skill learned.  As is my habit I was sitting by a new warm fire, early in the dawn, bitter cold and deep snow on reading the Ancient Text and then had picked up the gift to read the two pages from it as a stimulate to my own habit of daily writing.  As I turned the page to the new poem the corner was turned down, marked for me to find, to say long after the receiving, “This is the reminder of you I am giving you.”  I am just now feeling the warmth of the fire covering me over from the cold of night and thus was that turned-down corner, a warming reminder of this small, gift-giving, red-headed child.  The poem was titled;

 

For Retirement

This is where your life has arrived,

After all the years of effort and toil;

Look back with graciousness and thanks

On all your great and quiet achievements.

You stand on the shore of new invitation

To open your life to what is left undone;

Let your heart enjoy a different rhythm

When drawn to the wonderer of other horizons.

Have the courage for a new approach to time;

Allow it to slow until you find freedom

To draw alongside the mystery you hold

And befriend your own beauty of soul.

Now is the time to enjoy your heart’s desire,

To live the dreams you’ve waited for,

To awaken the depths beyond your work

And enter into your infinite source.  

To Bless the Space Between Us, A book of blessings

By John O’Donohue

 

A Slow Snow Waltz for Three

Our first snow at Fair Haven.  Snow is the essence of exquisite creation.  What human could ever have the thought?  And if snow wasn’t enough the Author made each flake an intricate sculpture of beauty, multiple delicacies for our appetite of wonder.  I imagine Adam and Eve, standing warmly bare in the first falling snow and so moved they began to dance a slow intimacy under the falling miracles melting into rivulets of joy down the only perfect bodies.  “Have you visited the storehouse of the snow…?”  No.  But will someday.  But today I am content with what He is sharing with me and my lover as we intimately dance the dance of the joy of being together in the snow, a dance made for three.    

      

Woman's Best Friend

A faithful dog is one of life’s great pleasures and true loves.  When I was nine, I had a great uncle who raised Boston Terriers.  I fell in love.  He gave me a pup from her next litter on the promise I would give him the pick of my first litter.  Our current Boston, Hounder, is my ninth.  A dog will only have one master and for the first time, Hounder has chosen Betty.  I am ok with this.  Until you have the total loyalty of a dog you can’t know the pleasure of it.  Boston’s are boundlessly friendly, everyone is their friend, always loyal, and fiercely protective, fighting to the death if their family is threatened.  Hounder will always walk beside Betty.  She sits with, lays with, and sleeps (albeit on the opposite side of me) with Betty.  Hounder always runs to me when she’s frightened but her day-to-day partner is Betty.  A great joy for all of us.     

         

Born To Be Wild

We are all born to be wild, to live in exuberant, grateful exploring.  We are meant to feel eternal, to know the ecstasy of immortality.  Because we are.  Our whole life is to be lived in pursuit of and in relation with God Almighty, Maker of all there is.  Love, water, fire, lightyears, touch, kissing, baby elephants, full moons, shorelines, mountains, warmth, and the list goes on and on but ends with you.  He made you, a living, breathing, conscious wild person.  You can climb mountains, sail around the world, hike the AT, make other humans, and worship.  Living should be your primary way to be in relationship with The Great IAM.  You must find a way to live in which your every day is an animation of your love for Him.  In reality, you must sell all you have and come follow Him, wildly, no holds barred, gratefully, follow Him. 

     

The DNA of Joy is Thankfulness*

So much water under our bridge.  Beauty, children, helpmates, grandbabies, hikes, mountains, Lord’s Suppers, altars, births and deaths, endings, and beginnings, making, building, and resting.  Adoration = A deep love, respect, worship, veneration.  There is nothing of me accounting for this.  I lived with me through my prideful attempt at being me.  It was a disaster.  The greatest trail of loneliness.  But always surrounding me was “a great light” placed there by my parents.  I was always aware of my rebellion and of life everlasting as an alternative, always there, a beacon lighting the other “way less traveled”.  My lover and I stumbled faltering on it at first.  But The Tender One, (Ez. 17:22) kept urging us on.  Births, sunsets, waterfalls, worship services, great tempests, and grand cathedrals all lighting our trail, “a lamp to our feet.”  My earliest memories to my meditations now have all been a “still, small voice” calling me to adventures unimaginable.  The joy of the waters under the bridge is hearing them while looking upstream in hopeful Adoration. 

*David Tripp, New Morning Mercies, my lover is reading it for the 3rd time.  

Our daily bike ride.

 

Life Giving Living Well

Health, altar building, and beauty are joys well paired.  To know secret spots, you have long ago made sacred, to know the path there, and over the years long past to come again and walk upon the place from memory.  To know your ancient body can still carry you there.  To stand with your lover under a sapphire blue sky, high atop a mountain, eyes wide open, hands raised to the heavens, praising The Everlasting God is life giving living well.  

Sunday Morning First Light

Dawn is always good for my soul.  First light, the very first outlining of objects out there leaps at me like a kind thought, “Is that her?” My senses latch to reality, lights coming give my eyes sight.  Light, like salvation, saves us from blindness.   

 

Rain Prayers

It is raining.  I have a small fire going.  These are magicking I know, miracles of deep abiding peacefulness.  I was nothing, just a dream in Your heart.  I was two cells, a new human, a man, now ancient. My lover sleeps beside me.  She too Your dream; then given to me and You made love.  There was no us until we met and then you have made us one.  You make us love.  You make others through us and in her.  New humans You make and then give them to us and our love, the love You gave us, encompasses them.  It goes on and on.  There is none of this without Jesus.  His sacrifice opens You to me.  He opened the veil and gave me salvations access to You.  I hear the rain and it is Your whisper.  In all the Lamentations of the world, there is one clarion call always, “Come to me, all ye!!!”