Honoring Old Ben: A Man of Integrity

L.D. Turner

Early in life God granted me the great fortune of having several positive role models that taught me to honor, revere, and respect the natural world. My grandfather, a life-long game warden, felt most at home in the mountains and woods of North Alabama. My father was also a game warden and an outdoorsman. Although originally from Alabama, my family moved to Florida when I was ten-years-old and my strongest memories of those years was of my Dad, skippering a small boat through the endless mangrove mazes on the southwest coast of the Sunshine State.

Yet another influential nature mystic in my early life was an old man known to me only as “Old Ben.” Although my father and grandfather impacted me in many positive ways, it was Old Ben who took my spiritual life and planted it in fertile ground. Living alone on remote, undeveloped acreage that he owned, Ben was a storehouse of valuable knowledge of the workings of nature. He often spoke of things like “energy” and “light” and how these two mysterious forces danced together to keep the world in balance and sustain life in it myriad forms. Although I was only a kid when a pair of neighborhood buddies and I “discovered” Old Ben during one of our typical bicycle journey to parts unknown. Later in life I would realize that meeting up with Old Ben, sitting on cable spools in front of his run down trailer, and watching him weave all sorts of things from Palmetto fronds, were among the most significant events in my life.

Old Ben in particular taught me lessons that have had lasting value. I have often thought I should write a book describing some of my experiences with Old Ben and some of the wisdom that he imparted to a young, not-so-attentive boy in the languid, sweltering climate of southwest Florida. Maybe some day I will.

When I was in my mid-teens, I learned a bit about Old Ben’s racial heritage. He was a full-blood Chinook, born in Washington State near the Canadian border in 1890. I met him when I was 11, in 1960. Old Ben was 70 although in my eyes he looked 100. That he was a Native American never entered my young mind. The only Indians I had seen were usually engaging in a wide range of nefarious deeds on the big screen at the Gulf Theater in Venice, Florida. Old Ben was the first real Native American I had ever encountered.

I also learned, not from Old Ben, but from his sister who usually came for a month-long visit every January, that the family migrated from the great Northwest in 1946, due to the failing respiratory health of Ben’s father. The family bought and rehabilitated a dying orange grove and made their living growing and selling fruit. Old Ben, the oldest child, took over the business and the land after the father died in 1952. The sister moved back to Seattle and Old Ben continued to run the business until he sold a half-interest and retired to the most remote section of the family land, which I learned totaled more than 400 acres.

Old Ben knew the intricate workings of the natural world in a way that a quantum physicist knows quarks and a great poet knows words. Even more, the old Indian took great pains to live his life in accordance with the subtle principles and laws that he so deeply understood. There must have been something of value in all of Old Ben’s arcane knowledge because he lived to be 105.

I kept in touch with Old Ben right up to the end. In the late 80’s, no longer able to care for himself physically, he sold his land and moved into a retirement community. With a clear mind right up to the end, he still amazed me with his wit, humor, and natural wisdom. I last saw him about a year before he died and it was a memorable visit. After a hearty dinner, we sat at a picnic table near Casperson’s Beach and watched the sun disappear into the waves of the Gulf of Mexico.

Fishing a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket, Old Ben said he wanted to share something with me. Further, he said that if I molded my life to the wisdom hidden in the words of the prayer, I would always find strength, power, and resiliency, no matter what slings and arrows life might send my way. It was a famous Chinook prayer that clearly illustrates the power, the glory, and the assistance available if we know how to avail ourselves of what creation has to offer. Unfolding the paper, Old Ben glanced at the last sliver of sun sinking into the sea and, with the light that remained, read:

We call upon the earth, our planet home, with its beautiful depths and soaring heights, its vitality and abundance of life and together we ask that it:

Teach us, and show us the way.

We call upon the mountains, the Cascades and the Olympics, the high green valleys and meadows filled with wild flowers, the snows that never melt, the summits of intense silence and we ask that they:

Teach us, and show us the way.

We call upon the waters that rim the earth, horizon to horizon, that flow in our rivers and streams, that fall upon our gardens and fields, and ask that they:

Teach us, and show us the way.

We call upon the land which grows our food, the nurturing soil, the fertile fields, the abundant gardens and orchards, and we ask that they:

Teach us and show us the way.

We call upon the forests, the great trees reaching strongly to the sky with earth in their roots and heaven in their branches, the fir and the pine and the cedar, and we ask them to:

Teach us and show us the way.

We call upon the creatures of the fields and forests and the seas, our brothers and sisters the wolves and deer, the eagle and the dove, the great whales and the dolphin, the beautiful Orca and salmon who share our Northwest home, and we ask them to:

Teach us and show us the way.

We call upon the moon and the stars and the sun, who govern the rhythms and seasons of our lives and remind us that we are part of a great and wondrous universe, and we ask them to:

Teach us and show us the way.

We call upon all those who have lived on this earth, our ancestors and our friends, who dreamed the best for future generations, and upon whose lives our lives are built, and with thanksgiving, we call upon them to:

Teach us and show us the way.

And lastly, we call upon all that we hold most sacred, the presence and the power of the Great Spirit of love and truth which flows through all the universe…to be with us to:

Teach us and show us the way.

That was the last time I saw Old Ben this side of the grave. In the grand scheme of things, few people outside his family and circle of friends are even aware that he ever lived. Old Ben was not a man of fame nor was he a man of monetary fortune. He was without a doubt, however, a man of great honor and nobility.

Let those who have ears, hear.

Jesus and the "I am" Statements

L.Dwight Turner

I have always benefited from taking time to meditate in a reflective way on the great "I am" declarations made by Jesus and recorded in the Gospel of John. As we approach the beginning of Advent, I thought it might be useful to present these statements as themes for readers to reflect on in preparation for the season of Advent. Jesus tells us:

• I am the Bread of Life. (6:35)

• I am the Living Water. (4:14; 7:37-39)

• I am the Light of the World. (8:12)

• I am the Door of the Sheepfold. (10:7)

• I am the Good Shepherd. (10:11, 14)

• I am the Resurrection and the Life. (11:25)

• I am the True Vine. (15:1)

• I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. (14:6)