Last Sunday After Pentecost

A week from today marks the beginning of Advent. The church calendar once provided the cadence for the march of everyday life, granting to Christians the sense of timing of season, of the low ebb of the Lenten times to the high tide of Easter. Just as farmers and cattlemen feel in their very bones the motion of the earth around the sun, and of this solar system’s wide circle around the universe, watching the changing natures scenes and the predictable habits of animals, so too the average Western man once felt the revolving year in his bones as he observed the Church’s feasts and solemn days. But now nature herself seems snappish and out-of-kilter, observed and commented upon by maniacs and hucksters. The stars move in their courses, and blood courses in our veins, and our lives are in vain if they are not lived with a sense of purpose and the very DNA of the Ancient of Days within us.

The cold has settled in firmly here, and though we have not yet had our first snow, the sun feels as far away as old America and her old ways. The fire in the woodstove on the long evenings is a tactile joy, and the dogs enjoy it as much as we do. The venerable Dixee in particular seems to luxuriate in the radiant heat, stretching out in front of the hearth while the flame-light flickers across her frame.

The friendship between Jinx and his sister continues to deepen. Bluebelle is clearly quite fond of him, and they romp and play and cavort every day, sometimes to an alarming degree. This morning, our alarm clock was the sound of those two gamboling though the living room, which they left in a minor shambles. When we arose, Dixee was announcing from her kennel her need to go outside and relieve her bladder. The twin heelers attacked my wife as she appeared in the door and would not stop trying to pull her into the fray. We finally managed to get all three of them outside so that we could fix their breakfasts. And we were reminded again how apt is our name for the three of them together: the Bumpass hounds. Those familiar with the Christmas movie favorite “A Christmas Story” will recall the wonderful Darren McGavin, playing the father in the movie, raging at the pack of hillbilly hounds from next door who made his life miserable. The neighboring hillbilly family was the Bumpass clan, and Ralphie’s dad would bellow “Bumpasses!” when the the dogs invaded his home. I don’t think it’s a stretch to predict that Bluebelle will try to steal some of our Thanksgiving meal, since Mrs. Orr caught her the other evening poised to dive into her plate of spaghetti while we were in the other room getting silverware and drinks.

We’re very grateful that the three are so peacefully coexisting. Bluebelle’s presence seems to have calmed Dixee somewhat. Though she seems jealous and overly matriarchal when the heelers begin to cavort with too much enthusiasm, she hasn’t displayed any of the intrusive peevishness for which she was known whenever Jinx made overtures of friendship. She even crawled into bed with Jinx last night, a sight that made us gape and point. We were too slow on the taking of a photo, alas.

***

Only three days of work this week, and I will be grateful for the break. The tensions at my job are running quite high, the hostility of my office manager towards me becoming more overt and focused as the days pass. This has contributed to me being distracted enough to make some pretty serious errors the last week or so, and thus we enter the vicious cycle of me being stressed because of her harpy-ness, and making mistakes as a result, and my mistakes feeding her harpy-ness, and so it goes.

As a result, I feel guilty that I spend more time praying for my little old self than I do for other people, and this is not the way it should be. Yet I feel raw and vulnerable if I do not spend much time imploring Christ and His Mother and the saints to intercede for me, to grant me grace and wisdom and patience and virtue, and I cannot bear to swim in these waters if I am vulnerable, because there are many fins circling me, both within and without. Lord Jesus Christ, be merciful to me, a sinner…

***

Two people I did pray quite a bit for this past week were young Kyle Rittenhouse and the judge who presided over the trial. I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that both of their lives will be in danger for some time to come, the viciousness of those who are destroying what used to be America being in full cry these days.

The photos of the lad weeping in court and of the ambitious and incompetent prosecutors are now etched into the public consciousness. They are now — and I detest using this overused word — iconic. Turn on any newscast or read any magazine article, and you will see that the word iconic is pounded into the ground like a tent stake at every opportunity.

Which reminds me. I have long wondered how long it will take the Christ-hating majority of the Western world to realize that the word holiday is simply a version of “holy day,” and I have wondered how long it will take them to replace holiday with something like “notable day,” or something even more unwieldy like “day of significance.” The persyns of color would like that.

Which leads me back to the word iconic. Again, how long before our moral superiors realize that the word is heavily tied to and thus tainted by Christianity, even though other religions use icons? I’m willing to bet six dollars that iconic will soon be replaced with totemic. See how diverse and vibrant that word sounds? Remember you heard it here first.

***

Throughout all of human history, striving to live a life of virtue, a life that swims against the current, has never been easy, and the cost has almost always been high. I keep trying to remind myself of that during these days, days when all things are inverted, and memories have been erased, and reason has been lost, and God has become subverted into someone or something that He most certainly is not.

I suppose the feeling I have in the midst of these days is the pervasive sense of loneliness. Even surrounded by loving family, I can feel as if I am in a black dungeon, feeling my way along the damp walls and listening to the sounds of my own cries being swallowed up by the gloom.

And I suspect I am not the only one who feels this way. Christ, the living logos, bring comfort to Your people, who are trying to hang onto faith in an age when even the words we use are being perverted and destroyed.

~ S.K. Orr