Daily Life
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Happy Thanksgiving
From the Orrs….Happy Thanksgiving to you all. Consider your blessings, and gird yourselves for the days ahead. ~ S.K. Orr
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Gratitude
I want to express my thanks to all of you who have reached out to me after my request. Though no clear path has yet been revealed to me, I am strengthened by the show of friendship and concern. Most of all, I am grateful for the prayers. This is no trite statement; my belief in the power and efficacy of prayer is central to all that I am and all that I do, even when I am unfaithful and inconstant. *** Last Sunday was the last Sunday of the Church year, and this coming Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent, marks the beginning of the Church year for Anno…
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Request For Assistance
I hope it’s not presumptuous of me to use this blog to ask for personal assistance, but I will risk the accusation anyway. The situation at my job is growing more untenable by the day, and my wife and I spent a lot of time this weekend talking about it. A mandate to submit to the experimental drug they’re calling a “vaccine” is certainly coming…I’ve heard the owners talking to the office manager, so it’s a done deal. It’s just a matter of when. That’s not the pressing matter. As far as the deathjab requirement, my response will, if given an ultimatum tomorrow, be a simple, “I’m not taking the…
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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…
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Sorrows Of The Day
“Each present joy or sorrow seems the chief.” William Shakespeare I hadn’t seen them in months, and today when we met, I was so unsettled at their appearance, I had to force myself to maintain a benign smile. He is about my age, and his wife just a few years younger. They were once an outgoing and pleasant couple, ready with smiles and laughter and jests. But first he, then she, fell into the maw of modern medicine, and now farther down that road, they have both endured debilitating strokes and other ravages that have left them quiet and staring. They both stared into my face today, watching me with…
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Down to the Page, Up to the Heavens
I spent much of this past weekend thinking over the state of my soul. Friday night, we watched a DVD, featuring the talented LeeLee Sobieski in her role as Saint Joan of Arc. And my wife presented me with a gift of books, one of which had been a wish-list item for some time now: The Little Office of Baltimore. I set about praying the offices in the book and am profiting from this spiritual exercise very much. I only wish TLOoB had the office in Latin on facing pages, like the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary does. I am comforted by my stumbling, halting tongue as I…
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What Matters As Advent Approaches
It felt so cold this morning that I could feel it working in my bones, as if little ice crystals were forming in the synovial fluid of my knuckles and knees and ankles. The world outside was a frosted sheet of patched russet, an expanse of the leaves weighed down by the same sort of tiny ice crystals. While Jinx and I were walking (Bluebelle sticking close to my wife in the warm house), I saw a large red oak leaf detach from the tree over near the cemetery and glide like a paper airplane down, then over, then back this way, then down a little more, then that way,…
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A Week In
Today the world is a leaf-world. The wind has had its way with things, and the trees are being stripped by the hour, and the shower of color would be, even if unaccompanied by its whispery chorus, an oratorio of the glory of Him Who spoke it all into existence. The little tree under which I park at work is almost completely bare. There is one branch that hangs over the driver’s side door, and the most prominent leaf is the one I touch each morning and each evening when exiting and entering my vehicle. Yesterday I stood in the blue light and contemplated the leaf, and I decided that…
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Layers of Sadness
I just walked past the calendar and realized that a very important milestone came and went today, unnoticed by me, who was thinking of the wretched Marine Corps and of our new dog and of some issues that have arisen lately. Two years ago this morning, our beloved Bonnie died. We always said she was the best dog in the world, and we still believe this. Her passing hit us hard; that day was one of the saddest and most difficult in our married life together. I visit her grave in the woods behind the house regularly, and I still talk to her, and I still believe I will see…
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Rotten To The Corps
Regarding my post this morning about the Marine Corps Birthday…well, I just read this article from Fox News. Seems the Corps is offering $144,000 (hmm…something eerie about that number) for a “diversity, equity, and inclusion adviser.” Because, you know, Let’s Go, Brandon! Ouch. That stabbing pain I felt in my back is what it feels like when the USMC cultural paradigm shifts. Mamas, don’t let your babies grow up to be jarheads. ~ S.K. Orr