Killing I

There is no one who has held a newborn that doesn’t know it is the darling pinnacle of all creation and of all creative acts, a human being, a new human being.  They are not a new car or a new star but a new human capable of building a new car and finding a new star.  How many new things has the world been shorted by our appetite for rights by killing?  Oh, my heart is so often torn asunder and simultaneously soften by the truth, “There but by the grace of God go i.”    

We’re Not High But We Are Getting Stoned

Media and technology have allowed us to know everything about everyone.  Remember the days when you didn’t know much about anyone.  Now because we can know about everyone we feel like we have to know, including what kind of underwear the president wears. It’s called being nosy and the problem with nosy people is they will always listen to everyone telling them everything about everyone and pass it on to everyone who will listen.  Stop listening.  You can see how if we become a nation of nosy people where that will lead!  I once read if we start throwing stones because of the sins of others we’re all going to be stoned to death.  

clinging to the Shirttails

The dark terrors of life are never more than a moment away, driving through the sunny frigidness of the mountains and you get the call, your daughter’s health is in jeopardy again—and you stare down into the abyss, the dark terror of the unknown abyss.  You hold hands and pray and cry and ask each other for reassuring words of peace working desperately to take your eyes off the depths below the razor-thin line life is walked upon.  You plow hot tears into icy ground, you quote Holy Scripture to the heavens and you reach out to touch the warm, life skin wrapped lover.  You make the urgent calls for prayers, you start the ancient process of awakening faith, you call on old friends, family, saints and sinners—come along will you now, and carry her again.  And slowly, very slowly your eyes are drawn away from the shadow of the terror of the dark abyss and moving upward begin to see the sunshine of sincerity that underscores the Great Silent Savior, Son of God, Almighty does exist because Holy light exists.  You can look at the darkness and you will see darkness or you can look at the light and you will be drawn into The Light, The Loving Six Armed Trinity that before time said, “let there be light” and there was light and now says, “fear not for We Will Never Leave her Nor Forsake her!”  And you ride on clinging to the Shirttails of Those Whose Arms Cling your daughter. 

   

Everyone Has One But Whose Can We Trust?

Who tells us our opinion?  We hear it all the time, “Public opinion is…” One thing about public opinion, you would have to ask a majority of the public before you would actually know.  Another thing, you would have to ask without seeking to interpret the response based on your own opinion.  Another, you would have to decide who is the public, is it the two people occupying this cabin in the mountains, the people inside the state of Tennessee, the south, the western hemisphere or the earth?  One thing I have learned, it is impossible to know what the majority of people in any public group believe and if someone is reporting they know they aren’t telling me the truth but only what they want to be believed is true.  Just a cursory look at those who are supposed to act on or report public opinion would make me not trust anything they would do or say.  The last thing, public opinion isn’t that important to me.  I need to know a lot about life, how to live, how to love and behave and be kind and be a good citizen, basically The Truth, but public opinion can not and should not be the way in which I discover it nor which side of any issue I should stand with.  What am I to do?  That is a good question and one every human should seriously consider, whose opinion matters and whose is True? 

Marriage Mellow

We have huddled away in the Smokey Mountains in a one-room cabin, the forest strewn about with boulders blanketed in cold emerald moss, my wife’s surprise for my early birthday.  Solitude is the gift of lovers, losing our selves in the hills and hollows of quiet and overgrown ancient lands piled with fog and winter cold while binding our love with thick blankets and warming fires.  Just as God demands solitude with Him, just you and He so does love if it is to age, I am soon to be 61, my marriage 35 and this cabin is the metaphorical oaken barrel for mellowing.  I would say that is an apt word for our marriage, mellow.  We seek the quiet stream, the unused trail, the lone altar, and the mountainous range to regularly renew the vow to God to love each other for earthly ever and He to bless with mellow marriage.  

Path to our back door.  

     

The Goal or Somewhere Short of It

“Most failures in relation to the road of the ideal are not because of complete unfaithfulness but because faithfulness is not complete.  Men who have put their hand to the plow look back, get tired, sit down and go to sleep.”  The Interpreter’s Bible, pf. 576

I spend every January preparing for one group of people, freshman, in one class, an introductory class in 3-D.  I actually ready dozens of books all year in prep for this one class.  Why, because the start is so critical.  All people start, start school, jobs, marriage, cleaning, organizing, we are all starting.  The problem is, many of us don’t finish.  Somewhere along the way we just quit.  In every start there has to be an understanding of the task and the finish, a knowing that starting is the easiest part, so brief, we say, “I do!” we make the first mark, we begin.  But then there is the inevitable task of what we started, the long road, the failures, and setbacks, but all along the way the life is being lived, the completing is being worked out, the piece is being realized.  And then we finish and can lay down our life or our chisel and say we have run the race, we have done it.  So often the end comes and either, we are a long way from the finish line or we or we just don’t show up (called dropping the course in college).  This is why I prep so much for this one class, it is the start, the shortest and easiest part, the beginning, but my job is to allow them to gain the knowledge that will carry them through the task to the finish and to instill in them the determination to carry them through to the completion.  I will be ever-present for their start but if they are to be an artist it will be necessary for them to find another Helper, one who promises that ‘He began the good work of them and that He will go with them to completion’ because every start has an ultimate finish, the goal or somewhere short of it.  

   

The Little Engine That Didn't Even Try

One great issue I observe today is our willingness to live lives that require the least amount of our life to living.  We establish minimal expectations for our life and then often even fail to live up to that.  It is epidemic in our relationship with God, with others, with the world and worst of all with our self, we expect so little of our self and live accordingly.  Life holds almost unlimited opportunities to live, to learn, to explore, to see, to be, and to blaze trails for others to come along but it is always accomplished in an ongoing combative struggle to enslave self.