Elegy For A Dying Butterfly

My experience of life is lived in constant awareness of my body aging and dying in pain.  It is deeply troubling, like a dying butterfly or shooting star.  I had never marveled at the intricate beauty of a fully realized, living body until mine began its current decline.  Its dying is painfully rejected by all its dying parts, and its mind and spirit rage at the injustice.  I remember it so well, showroom condition. There is no smell like the smell of a new body.  My new memories are often of the many times I recklessly abused this beautiful thing, using it carelessly, flinging it at life as if it would last forever.  Living now is an exquisite dance of compromise, an adjusted newness of being, and rejoicing as it overcomes.  Nothing is so satisfying as creating new uses for an old antique; new ways of being, who I used to be.

 

Getting Prepared by Thanking

In a foreign city far from home, sitting in a hotel lobby with The Ancient of Days, preparing myself, my body, and soul for building a sculpture.  This has been my life.  On the road all over the world, building sculpture and being with Him.  My lover, my two sons, and one of my grandsons lie sleeping four floors up.  It is going to be hot, 96°.  We are building “Come Let Us Reason Together,” the third piece in The Trail of Truth, a sculpture park we are building to tell the story of the African Americans’ contribution to the success of West Tennessee.  It is good work we can do with our hands.  It is a simple life, hard work, quiet, peaceful, beautiful, in and on the earth.  God is good.  God is great.  I am thanking Him.

The central first work, Seven Pillars.

Building the third of 5 smaller works surrounding
the central piece.

  

 

Biking In Glories

There is nothing that lifts and confronts the heart of man as standing before the ancient earth.  Mountains, rivers, trees, skies, all sing glory.  I biked by a shallow inlet of the Emory River yesterday and was offended by the smell of rot and decay baking in the hot morning sun of mid-July.  Immediately, I was also confronted with the presence of God, reminding me of His ongoing providence to “make all things new.”  Nothing to something, formless to form, void to creation, no life to life, stench to the perfume of the glorious refrains of “Let there be!”  I biked on loving that my God Reigns!... and began to smile. 

 

It Came Upon a Dawnday Clear

“The world in solemn stillness lay.”*  This is such a profound line of beauty and adequately describes the mornings here at Fair Haven and across the mighty Tennessee and to the Appalachians beyond.  Oh, to think one day I might write a sentence that's beauty equals the beauty of what my eyes are gifted to behold.    

*Edmund Sears, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear

Will I See The Day?

I almost always see night become day, dawn.  In this, I am gifted a new day with all its possibilities.  What can one man accomplish in one day?  The possibilities are limitless, although the man is limited.  But the gift is this: who might I love?  Who might I help?  Who might I forgive?  Who might I think about, pray for, and hope for?  Who can I reach out to?  What can I see?  How much can I praise? and worship? and learn about and walk with?  How much of today will I be conscious of?  Will I hear the birds and love songs?  Will I smell the river rich with life?  Will I feel the warmth of my lover?  Will I taste the fruit of the earth? Will I see the day I have seen become? 

Last night I saw a hole in heaven.

An Always-Filled Glass

I am transitioning from being old to being aged.  Aged to me is the end times when I must accept that my body and mind are becoming unable to support my desires and dreams.  I have always been a dreamer, with dreams that are greater than I could ever accomplish or live up to in order to achieve.  I see myself aging like this, and I have dreams for my life that my body and mind could never accomplish.  This may seem despairing, but it is anything but.  It is only acknowledging that my intentions are always best imagined as “my cup runneth over.”  I dream of the abundance pouring over the lip, but drink from an always-filled glass. 

My cup overflowing.  Saw this group of big bucks 
while biking with my lover.  There were actually four more,
but I couldn't get them all in my shot.

How To Know The Highest Mountain Top

It is amazing how states of being and states of mind dictate my ability to think good or bad, even to be in a state of good or bad.  These are simple words to explain an infinitesimally greater meaning.  Add to this the amount of me that is given over to grieving over the plight of those I love, and I can live in valleys so deep. The dearness of this is that only in the deep valleys can I fully understand the ecstasy of the mountain top.  And I have been to the mountain top.   

Left my shovel out in the rain and this is what
gifted me when I found it.