Final Sunday of October

Jinx, once the solitary rambler who ranged over the acres surrounding our little farm, now rarely goes outside by himself. When Bluebelle wants out, he’s always up to accompany her, or when Mrs. Orr and/or I open the back door, Jinx is quick to push past us and run out, tail slashing and head on a swivel, looking to challenge all comers. But open the door and beckon him to come out while Bluebelle is sleeping or otherwise occupied, and he will offer a quizzical glance and walk away. Perhaps he finds meaning in his life to be attached to companionship.

And so this morning I was puzzled but pleased to see him go to the back door alone and stand, tail a-wagging, looking at me with an open expression of cheerful anticipation. I opened the door, and out he went.

I stood in the kitchen window, watching him. The spotted menace, former foe of cattle throughout the county, stood staring out at the woods for a moment on high alert, then sat down on his haunches and sighed. He sighed. He scanned the yard and the woods and the sky, fretful and unsettled. And then Jinx looked back over his shoulder at me, stood up, and came to the door. I let him in and he came back inside to join his sister on the couch.

We have a pink dogwood tree in a large pot just off the back porch, a tree I’ve been intending to plant for two years now.  I am still trying to decide the best place to tuck it into the earth. Its leaves are blood-scarlet now, at the apex of their beauty; they will gone and mostly dissolved by then, but the branches, with buds hidden in their vest pockets, will stand silent watch during the silent frigid months, awaiting the magical springtime on the other side of the galaxy.

***

Today is one of those personal anniversaries for me. Forty-four years ago, with hair past my shoulders and not much common sense in my head, I boarded a silver jet for the first airplane ride of my life and streaked west, where I would land at the airport in San Diego, California and be shuttled on a bus from there to the Marine Corps Recruit Depot nearby. I, lost in a crowd of nervous, faceless recruits, would be greeted by a cadre of screaming, threatening maniacs wearing immaculate uniforms and the legendary campaign covers and swept into my own personal inferno for three months. I was not alone, but I was most certainly solitary. Each of us on that bus was a lone figure in the coming crucible.

***

I wrote of my dislike for God-talk the other day. This morning, I found a line from Emily Dickinson which she wrote in response to a visiting preacher: “What confusion would cover the innocent Jesus, to meet so enabled a man?” Isn’t that the truth? The slickest, most clever, and often most affluent men I’ve ever met have often been members of the clergy. And they seem to use their learnedness to construct complex justifications for explaining away the words of Jesus of Nazareth, condescending to explain “Go, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me“* doesn’t really mean what it seems to clearly mean.

(*The Gospel according to St.Mark, Chapter 10, verse 21)

But enough of grating God-talk and those who wear out their jaws and their souls engaging in it. This is a holy day because it is today; it never existed before, and never will again. And go now and look outside. Wherever you are, there is beauty to be found, even in a prison cell or a hospital courtyard. I pray none of you are staring out at either, but if you are, you may still find and cherish a small spot of beauty if you wish to. The leaves are returning to the earth from which they arose, and the birds are moving to their wintertime places, and the ribbon of time stretches from your own eyes to the end of your vision, where you just may find the answers at last.

~ S.K. Orr