I drove along the field last night and saw the sun saying good night. I love her light, and I appreciate her warmth, even on the days she makes me sweat. I pull up to our one room cabin that has become a sanctuary for me, and I’m sure to the rest of our family. I picked up limbs that were blown down from a storm a few days ago to help me build a fire. I pile the sticks and firewood into an old tractor rim and light the wood. I recall the day we went to the scrap metal yard and loaded the damaged rim on our trailer. I wish I knew the farmer who owned that rim, so I could thank him for the circle that keeps our family joined together.

Before long, the youngest and oldest drive up in separate trucks. The days of car seats and sippy cups are gone. We gather around the campfire and talk. It’s a Saturday night and two young men would rather sit around an old tractor rim with their dad than gaze into the bright lights of mankind. We are blessed. My bride is home looking after the not-so-puppy. A few weeks ago, in the early morning hours the not so puppy ran in front of me as I was driving on our property. She required surgery on her hip and is recovering. I told our boys that I was glad it was me and not them driving. I told them, “In your lifetime you will carry many burdens. As long as I am around, I will carry what I can. But one day it will be your responsibility to carry your own burdens and the burdens of others.”

The youngest blows the candle out on the cabin table and the one room cabin with no electricity or water goes dark. Before I can think about the next day, I’m asleep.

At 4 am I walked out onto the front porch, and I do not hear the water running out the spillway pipe from the pond. While we slept a beaver plugged the pipe. The beaver fears the water will go away, so his whole life is about controlling the water. The frogs are quiet this morning because it’s too cold today for them to rejoice in the life they live.

As I do my morning stretching on the cold cabin floor, it’s the candle flickering on the ceiling that speaks to me. I had no intention of writing today. The flickering candle ignites circles inside my soul; gathering my thoughts, my emotions, and the leaves that have fallen now that colder weather is upon us. It’s the worn pages of life that inspire me to transcribe this life of solitude.

Since I retired, my days, for the most part, are filled with solitude. I now serve a select group of people who are mostly farmers. Men who have spent their lives growing food for others. Men who embrace the water and sun of life, even when there is too much or not enough. Men who own two trucks. One truck for work and one which is much cleaner for church. The one thing most of them transfer from one truck to the other is a weathered book. It’s not the Farmer’s Almanac, but the Bible.

I write often of a dark force that seems to linger like a heavy fog. So heavy, it causes the trees to weep onto the ground. A dark force that somehow cuts the light and water from our souls, so we starve for hope. We search in the wrong places because we are confused by the darkness. Our roots are shallow, and the slightest wind will unearth us. Our moral compass is not centered. We end up dazed, confused, and have a lack of humanity for each other. The world out there saddens me.

The youngest and I are hunting today, but the oldest decided to sleep in. I climbed this tree with no intention of pulling back my bow string. My intention is to write to you. A few minutes after I got on my perch a young buck decided to feed under me. His pages are not worn, his life has just begun. I look across the woods and I see trees that have died, or some which storms have unearthed. As the trees decay into the soil, the earth digests them, which feeds other trees. There will be more sunlight for the trees, and more water. There will be growth.

As the dark force intertwines into our society, we tend to focus on the negative. We focus on the heat not the warmth. We focus on the lack of something, and not the growth into something stronger. We use fancy words like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) to describe the unpredictable nature of life. But words with less venom like post-traumatic growth seldom seem to come from the depths of our lungs. We grow from the trauma or we just grow from life.

I sit here on this perch living a life of solitude. It’s here I realize I’m in God’s backseat. It’s a Sunday morning and I’m nowhere near a church. I do not have a weathered book in my truck, but I have a compass in my soul.

To me, a simple man sitting on a perch in God’s backseat I am nothing more than a tree. From this back seat I embrace and grow from the sun and the water that feeds me. I realize, for there to be growth, things must change. Just as the beaver spends his life trying to control the water, it’s tempting for us to try and control the change. It’s tempting to think we can predict the heat of the sun and the water from the dark clouds.

The young buck has filled his belly on the few acorns that were left on the ground now that the cold weather is upon us. The oldest boy must be awake because I just smelled wood smoke from the tractor tire rim. The sun was delayed this morning. She was covered up by some clouds, but now she is warming my face and God knows that feels good.

I sit here on this perch year after year and reflect on my roots. My dad and others are gone now. Their weathered pages digested back into the earth. They shaded me from those dark forces, so I could grow into a man of passion and purpose. As we navigate through this maze of trees we must realize that the trees that surround us influence our growth. Some trees protect us from the strong winds of life but other trees devour our sunlight and water that we need to grow.

It’s never too hard out here in God’s backseat; to feel the sun, taste the water, see the fallen trees, and to grow from within. It’s never too hard out here to feel the strength, the wisdom, and the growth of those trees that lived a life. As the leaves fall into the earth the cycle of growth continues with a ray of hope and a drop of love.

You can see more and learn more about Josey’s writings at