Tennessee Waltz

I will drive across my beloved Tennessee today, every mile a devotion.  I will cling to the byways, the ridges and the many boarded up towns and hulking factories long since emptied.  It will continually remind me of my youth, my elders and the many days filed to my years and how many times I was washed up on her shores and welcomed home.  Tennessee is in me, sown ancestrally, like some ancient relic, sacred and deep down.  Most all my family was born on her and are buried in her as are and will me and mine.  I don’t know of any land that is so beloved cept maybe Texas which actually nicknamed us.  Even her name is like your lovers, when you say it out loud in the most intimate or desperate times, or like Jesus when all is lost but Him and saying his name is completely enough—Jesus—Betty—Tennessee.  I will traverse her again today and like a beloved we will court, quietly but surely, as we once again spend a day together. 

An artifact on a byway in East Tennessee built
by a master artisan bricklayer.

The Warmth of a Cold Mother's Day

Fog is sweeping up the Tennessee scattering cold everywhere.  34° out this morning and you can subtract 2 more beside the river but patches of gold fillings promise a beautiful Mother’s Day.  My mom is still healthy and well even though she has been quarantined for several weeks, she has taken it quite well.  Mom has lived a deeply scared but all together meaningful life.  She served the Lord most of it, the wife of a pastor, an often-sorrowful job but always with purpose which she sowed mostly to the poor and needy. She raised four fine humans all of which, through their younger years sowed a wide row of rebellion in her heart, have lived years of obedient balm to heal her wounds of their youthful indiscretions.  My mom's greatest testimony is that though she was raised in the most pitiful of alcoholic dysfunction she lived a life of functional obedience, never once have I seen her waver even though God only knows how often she had cause too.  To witness someone live a life of prolonged and consistent faith and to be fortunate enough to have that person as your mom makes one fortunate indeed.  The four siblings with their spouses will socially distance gather around her today and each will gratefully rise up and call her blessed, because of all people, we are the most blessed because of her.    

Visiting with mom two weeks ago.

   

Bluebirds and Quasars

A stony grey has been pulled over the land shoving spring back with cold clarity.  It lies softly over the Tennessee offering its quiet to the harried soul.  Days made for books, for writing, for laying with one’s lover sharing our warmth.  A breeze from the north promises cold rain and one’s thoughts turn to our new bluebirds bundled in our box.  It is barely a day, dawn just on, the sun also buried in the grey but its light brightens the cosmos of which rain clouds play no part.  Nature has its ways, from new birds and buds to quasars and galaxies and stony grey days for humans to be beings.   

We think there are 4 or 5 new bluebirds bundled
up there in our box.

Take The Roundabout To The Art of Praise

I have a trade secret that I often use in teaching art; “If all else fails make a circle.”  It sounds simple and often naive minds are unable to accept it but think of it this way.  Look at all the great things that have been accomplished by a circle, the wheel for example.  What about the progress made my cogs and gears all circles.  Longitude and latitude—all circles, and imagine all the math, science, and technological advances made because we learned to put a circle before 1 and after 1.  And one of my favorites, the halo.  One of the greatest concepts ever conceived in the heart of God, the circle, and then He was kind enough to share.  When all else fails you can always find a roundabout way to stop stopping and start praising.       

Another circle that has given me so much.

One Cries When One Has Been Saved

Yesterday afternoon Betty, Sarah, and I were returning from hiking the Bluffs of the Tennessee River.  We were driving west just the other side of Lexington when the sky in front of us and across the horizon to the north began rapidly to turn a deep black blue.  Almost at the same time the radio and all our cellphones erupted in the screeching alarm that proceeds a weather alert and the announcement that we were driving into a tornado warning.  I commented on it being dead calm, Sarah chimed in, “That’s the way it is before a tornado”, and Betty, who was driving, began to say we needed to turn around.  We topped a small rise and Sarah exclaimed “its windy ahead of us!” as we could see debris becoming airborne way ahead.  Simultaneously electric wires maybe a quarter a mile ahead exploded showering the four-lane with sparks.  We were now in a debris field and Betty was beginning to pray out loud.  I saw a crossover in the four-lane and said to turn around there.  As soon as Betty turned around Sarah said, “Mom if I were you I would floor it.”  We took off flying now fully engulfed in flying debris.  Our van was being shaken violently and often rose as if it was going to be separated from the pavement.  Betty was praying out loud and desperately asking me to find a turn off toward the south that looked clearer.  If we turned the van perpendicular to the wind it would put us broad face to the storm.  By now I was holding the wheel to help Betty keep us straight and both of us were praying out loud.  I told Betty to slow down to not assist the wind in getting us airborne.  We topped a small rise and there to the right was a school.  I told Betty to pull in there but we couldn’t find a cross over.  We passed the school and about 100 yards further on there was a cross over in the four-lane and we turned around briefly broadside to the wind and now driving right into the brunt of it.  Debris was flying everywhere as Betty drove into the parking lot.  There was a perfect little space in the corner of the school that was just big enough for the van and would put us into the lee of the storm.  I guided betty into it and we could immediately feel some relief from the driving wind.  I told Betty to quickly change seats with me as we crawled over each other and I told everyone to put on their shoes.  The wind continued to howl around us and we were engulfed in horizontal white rain but our tiny corner was shielding us from much of it.  We continued to pray our arms upheld now as we pleaded with God the Blood of Jesus and rebuked the storm.  It began to hail and the rain was being blown off the roof of the school and flooding our car with water as just inches to our left debris and continued to fly by.  I told Sarah to text our family and ask them to pray for us.  She said, “I already have!”  Our phones began to ping and she continually relayed messages to us from Sissy who had the storm on radar.  She was telling us to stay put that we were right in the teeth of it.  I had prayed myself out and as I stopped Betty began to pray.  Seconds passed and the storm continued to strengthen and then suddenly the hail stopped and a few seconds later the trees in front of the school stood upright again.  It was still raining but the wind was now gone.  Sissy called.  Her and Bo relaying us news from their radar.  The tornado warning was in effect for 10 more minutes but it had passed us.  We waited a few more minutes and then all held hands and thanked God for His protection.  As we pulled out giddy with our salvation Sarah said, “I think there was a time there when we all thought we were going to die!”  I said, “I believe someday God is gonna show us how many times our prayers to Him saved us.”  Betty, who had driven us through it, her voice trembling, began to cry; no words came.  One cries when one has been saved!

Our Holy Sanctuary in the storm.

The Kaleidoscope of the Quarantine

One fine result of the quarantine has been a renewed awareness of the day to day, the noticing of much of what we use to rush past.  And it also seems that God is in on it, providing us with one of the better springs in memory, more color, more songbirds, more caring.  If I have learned one thing in life it is the speed by which it passes, yesterday I was a carefree 16-year-old and the next day I am 62.  Life has a way of passing away and most of it is done passing.  Every life is a great epic, most of it written with fading ink but for some reason, it seems that this spring our ink well is filled with new and vibrantly meaningful colors.    

Yesterday at the Mississippi

Am I Living Worthy of the Ring?

I found three words today that are heart treasures—Mercy, felicity, epitome.  All were in different mines but belong in the same setting, the ring of the believer.  My mom has a birthstone ring, a desire of many women in the “old timey” days.  It’s a ring that has the birthstones of all her family.  The above three jewels are the birthstones of all followers, who, of no achievement of their own, are now heirs to the treasure chest of heaven.