Fire Gathering

The cold arrives on ghosts of fog drifting across our yard, riding on the back of the river.  It's calling for a fire, but our winter wood still lies stacked on the side of Mount Brown.  It will take an effort to bring it all down.  Bringing fire into our home is inviting an angelic visitation, a sacred time, a miracle.  Its warmth, light, and presence turn our home into a holy space, a gift of God’s great goodness and creative sharing.  Life, in its simplest is often its most sincere.  I must move the wood down. 

Aaron, Scout, Pri Pri, Bray, and Knox helping to split 
fire for our Holy Places.

Homeness

There are two places on earth where I feel a sense of “homeness”.  One is Glacier National Park, and the other is the Crab Orchard Mountains, the last westward strands of the Appalachians before the long plains to the Rockies.  Yesterday, my lover was driving us through the old familiar trails of the Crab Orchard range.  They are just transforming into their fall colors, and green still held sway.  It was such overwhelming beauty, a serenity of soft color, heart-warming visuals, like old photos of my youngest years.  Eternity must be something like this: time is lived in totality, all memories become present at all time, a never-ending reel of joy, peace, and gladness in a body fully realized.  I sensed I was nearly home. 

Yesterday, my lover found this picture of me and my siblings in an old box of mine.
I am the third from the left, age 6, standing in 
front of Big Rock Mountain, ready for church.  That mountain, and 
church, have been two of the biggest influences of my life.

   

 

The Best We Can Imagine

Where did the idea of God come from?  Even in our digital/metamodernism age, our imaginations can only conjure up Superman or Captain America.  So, where did the idea of God come from?  

 

On A Cold Tennessee Night

A hoot owl woke me up in the dark this morning.  It made me think of this song.  Later, in the same dark, I listened to another song, I wept, raised my tired arms just awake, and praised my Father.  Just now, I wandered back to a pool in the mountains of Appalachia, where I guarded lives in the warm summer of a Glade during thoughts of a cold Tennessee night.    

 

Who's the Red Neck Here?

We live in the wilderness.  We chose to move in.  We found 12 acres of native forest beside the river.  We cut a road in, cleared an acre off the riverfront, put in water and electricity, tilled a yard, built a studio, and moved in.  What surprised us is all the wild things that are our neighbors.  It’s like moving in next to a bunch of red neck drunks, who raise fighting roosters in blue barrels, and keep their worn-out washers and dryers as yard decoration.  EXCEPT, these wild things eat the trees we plant and gnaw down the shade trees we keep.  They eat all our flowers and bulbs, and dig up our yard.  They look at us at night like “WHO ARE YOU???!!!” and run away and disappear into the woods where they live.  It’s then that it always dawns on me: “They live in the woods.”  Literally, they live in the wild, and we have dumped our big drywall, asphalt-shingled, glass-painted, plastic-floor, and concrete home right in the middle of their pristine home.  I have to ask myself, “Who’s the redneck here?”

 

Long Live the Queen

On January 14, 2024, the 52nd anniversary of her accession, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark abdicated her throne, and for the first time in over 200 years, the world was left with no Queen serving as Monarch.  However, in just over one year that ended, on September 19th, 2025, Reese Jane Benson was crowned Queen of her Monarchy (high school), when she was crowned Homecoming Queen.  Now, once again, the world has a Queen on her throne.  Long live Queen Reese and God bless her reign.  

Reporting from Kingston, TN. This is Aaron Lee Benson, her proud granddaddy.