Meeting Again A Mighty Man

I am going to the great parting today, one of my mighty men has passed on to his Father.  There are very few great men in one’s life, those men who you meet and who change the direction of your life.  In fact, he changed the direction of all of my family's lives.  He is the artist who modeled what it meant to be an artist.  42 years ago, he was my art professor, but over my nine years in Art School, he became a man I wanted to be just like.  It wasn’t that I wanted to model my life after him.  I wanted to be just like him.  He was the type of man, artist, Christian, man of God, I wanted to be just like.  I have seven mighty men in my life of 68 years.  He is number three.  A mighty man has parted from earth, and all of earth is poorer, but I am richer.  We were to meet a few months ago, and he had to cancel the day we were to meet.  He texted me and closed with this, “I love you too, Aaron and Betty, and all the kids.  Have a wonderful life. We will meet again.”  Yes, Dr. Darrow.  We will meet again. A mighty man has parted this earth. 

The last time I saw him.

   

These are how I came to know him.

Bearing Your Name and Your Blood

5-18-2025

Number 13 has arrived, making us the luckiest family on earth.  Elijah John Benson is ours, our 13th grandchild.  He is tiny, beautiful, and laid back, squawks only when hungry.  He is a peace-filled balm to this aging old soul.  He is so new, so fresh, a life just begun.  Only the aged can see the depth of joy and satisfaction in the exquisite presence of a newborn human being bearing your name and your blood.  

Pushing Our Limits

It is a rainy Sunday morning coming down.  We are in a distant state, caring for a family in need.  We are pushing our limits, using up physical resources, bending our backs to the plow, setting our feet to the needs, hands to the task.  We have become old, not in essence but in the present.  Our hearts and souls don’t feel we are, but our bodies do.  We are young and filled with great hopes and desires, encased in bodies worn and weathered.  Our hearts are so free, so silly in our joinings to each other, memories of adventures, all day and nighters, on the edge, racing for the brass ring.  We have beheld Him, lived in His presence, seen His glories, and now, aged and bent, our meaning is a great aching in our hearts of knowing who we were is still who we are.  My lover and I.  We are again...pushing our limits.    

 

The Wonders of Your Love

What are the wonders of your love?  If you asked your spouse, children, or friends, what would they say?  This morning I read in the Psalms, David asking God to show him, “the wonders of your (God) great love.  We are all recipients of God’s great love wonders.  Love, light, warmth, beauty, and hopefully, salvation.  After I read this, I spent some time thanking God, and now, as I meditate on it, I wonder how I am doing sharing the wonders of His great love?  I am a great recipient.  I hope I am a great giver.     

Stiff-Necked and Hard-Hearted

*Two nights ago, a terrible storm swept through our area. As usual, I found myself worrying and praying, specifically for the trees in our front yard at Fair Haven. I asked God to protect them. While the storm raged, I watched the news, and the newscasters were dramatic in their descriptions of its intensity. It sounded like devastation was inevitable.

The next morning, as we left downtown Knoxville and drove toward Fair Haven, I braced myself. I fully expected to see trees down all along the way. But as I drove down the interstate—lined with trees as far as the eye could see—I noticed something strange. Not one was down. I thought to myself, “That’s odd. I was sure I’d see storm damage by now.”

And in that quiet moment, God spoke to my heart:

 "Lee, your glass isn’t just half full—it’s running over and spilling into your lap. Look at all the trees I protected. But you’re focused on the one you expected to fall."

I couldn’t help but laugh out loud and share it with Betty.

By the end of the day, I realized—I hadn’t seen a single tree down. Not one.

This morning, while reading the Bible, I was reminded how often God called His people “stiff-necked” and “hard-hearted.” And I had to admit… I can often be a stiff-necked, hard-hearted Christian.

I’m sorry, Lord.

*Checked with Grammarly and ChatGPT 

Mother's Day Code: Faulty Sensor

I have a camshaft sensor fault in my truck.  It makes all the other things run in order.  Now it runs really rough when it idles.  My mom is in a state of idle.  She can sit in a wheelchair.  But her life sensor has become faulty.  She doesn’t run right. There is very little of my mom left, nothing really that I knew all my life as her.  I think she knows me, sometimes, and sometimes knows my name.  I can see it in her eyes when all things are clicking correctly, twinkling clarity I call it, a momentary glimpse that all is there.  But it's gone as quick as it comes.  She is 100% my mom, but only a little percentage of herself.  How do I have her in my life?  The way she is!!!  I don’t know if she experiences happiness.  She had very little of it growing up, and so she struggled to be able to experience it when she was my mom.  It wasn’t that she wasn’t content or fulfilled in her day-to-day, but her years to 16 were surely scarred by unhappiness and regret.  Her greatest trait was that she worked all the time, kept us spotless, her home the same, and her life as well.  She was a good Baptist but a greater Christian.  I like to think I was her favorite; she would tell me, “You were the one I prayed for, and God gave me you.”  Years later, telling me her memory of my teenage years, she would say, “Lee, often was the nights I would walk the back yard praying for the Lord to take you home or me one.”  Eventually, He will take us both home to be with him.   My mom has a life sensor fault.  She is my mom.      

 

Last Thoughts on Spain

At the airport in Madrid, the day we were leaving, I noticed a young man lying on the floor squeezed in behind a pillar facing the wall. He was dirty, disheveled, and asleep, with a small, tattered bag for a pillow.  It dawned on me I had seen the same boy in the same state but in a different part of the airport when we had arrived two weeks earlier.  He must live at the airport.  At that moment, it struck me that in all my reality of validation of my worth in Christ’s love, it was no more or less than the validation of worth this young man had in Christ’s love for him.  We were equal in the sight of our Lord.  I had an overwhelming sense of knowing, of wonder, of the reality of life as I quickly passed him in my other reality of trying to navigate all the systems of a foreign airport to allow me to go from there to my plane and ultimately to America.  It was the moment of juxtaposing my two realities, one harried and rushed, one stark, clear, and the truer of the two.  I write this because our trip, my lover and I, was a grand reality of our relationship with God, with beauty, in an overwhelming variety of experiences.  But at that moment in the airport, I realized the reality of this young man and me over the preceding two weeks was the same, two children being kept by God who would someday stand before Him to give an account.   It was a spark of meaning like the flash of lightning.  I said a brief prayer for him and rushed on in my other reality. 

Landed in Knoxville, hard rode, and put up wet but
good to be home.