Daily Life
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Gradual Chill
It was a bringdown to return to work after a four-day weekend, but there were a few pleasant moments, one of which was talking to a woman in her nineties who lives in Van Lear, KY. I mentioned the Van Lear coal mines that the late Loretta Lynn sang about, and the lady volunteered that at this time of year, when the trees and hillsides are bare, she can see Loretta’s old home place from her back porch. She mentioned that Loretta’s brother’s nearby store is still in operation. Mrs. Lynn came from a time that has completely vanished now, and we will never see a world like hers again.…
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First Sunday in Advent
How the winds howled today. We lost power briefly, and the little artificial Christmas tree on the front porch was knocked down, and the leaves hissed across the metal roof and over the beaten grass in their swirling and liquid patterns, but it seems to have calmed down now, after sunset. The weather was relatively warm, about 60F, for which we were grateful. Mrs. Orr finished decorating the interior of the house, so we’ll enjoy the coziness for a month, until Boxing Day, when the itch to pull it all down and store it all away will overtake us. I read some Catholic blogs and I know that traditional…
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On Thanksgiving Eve
During my work duties today, I spoke with a distraught man who is about to be evicted from his home this evening, along with his seven year old daughter and elderly dog. I put him in touch with a department that may be able to help him with his situation, and I prayed for him. I cannot imagine the burden on his heart on Thanksgiving eve. The trials of this life are common to all, but sometimes a particular instance one hears of can strike the heart with such bruising power. This is one of those times. If any of you are inclined to pray, please intercede for Mr. A.R…
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Mourning Becomes Advent
As the Christmas season approaches, I find that I am filled with a low-grade dread. While Christmastime was once a wonderous time for me, the degradation of the world in my lifetime has brought me to a place where I pretty much despise this time of year. I have no new observations to offer; many people already roundly denounce the commercialization of the season in which we celebrate the birth of Christ. It has become a filthy, tawdry, grasping, shoving time, a time in which people stand outside shopping centers and ring a bell for a now-flaccid organization whose focus is hateful and ridiculous to many of the bell-ringers themselves.…
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No Rest
The heartbreak of seeing your grandsons incarcerated God offers to every man the choice between truth and repose. Take which you will, you can never have both. — Ralph Waldo Emerson One of the quotidian pleasures Mrs. Orr and I enjoy is working crossword puzzles. We haven’t subscribed to a newspaper in many years, but a friend does, and Mrs. Orr will often bring home copies of the puzzle from the paper. It’s a pleasurable way to unwind in the evening or in the mornings while trying to clear the cobwebs from the head. Mrs. Orr enjoys working the crossword while she’s cooking. Lately, our pleasure in the puzzles has…
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To Roam Through The New Earth
Heeding the news or pundits or bloggers about what’s going on in the world is like listening to preachers expound on the book of Revelation. None of them really knows what he’s talking about. It’s naïve speculation at best, and cynical self-centered grandstanding at worst. I grew up listening to sermons and skimming booklets that “proved” that Richard Nixon was the Beast, or that Henry Kissinger was the antichrist. And where are those authors now? Look at the current crop of blathering boys & girls, ignorant of both history and human nature, standing atop their picnic tables and waving their arms about. They, too, will be completely forgotten someday. Any…
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Something That Will Not Rest
I have been a foolish, greedy, and ignorant man; Yet I have had my time beneath the sun and stars; I have known the returning strength and sweetness of the seasons, Blossom on the branch and the ripening of fruit, The deep rest of the grass, the salt of the sea, The frozen ecstasy of mountains. The earth is nobler than the world we have built upon it; The earth is long-suffering, solid, fruitful; The world is still shifting, dark, half-evil. But what have I done that I should have a better world, Even though there is in me something that will not rest Until it sees Paradise…? Johnson in…
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East Again
It’s a funny thing, how fast everything moves in this world, and how that existential speed can disorient us. A week and a half ago, we got into a box of metal and steel, and we sat in it all day and part of the night, and when we got out of the box, we were in another country. We were in Texas, and how did that happen? It’s also a funny thing how different people can be in different regions of the same country. When we go home to Texas to visit, we’re always struck with how different the people are from the people we live around now. We’re…
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All Hallow’s Eve Eve
During the whole of a dull, dark, and soundless day in the autumn of the year, when the clouds hung oppressively low in the heavens, I had been passing alone, on horseback, through a singularly dreary tract of country; and at length found myself, as the shades of the evening drew on, within view of the melancholy House of Usher. ~ Edgar Allen Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher Since childhood, I have enjoyed Mr. Poe’s stories and poems, and that opening line from Usher is so evocative of a certain type of day in the fall, and today, here in these mountains, we have just such a…
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Month Half Done
Yesterday was as fine as a day could be, and today was its equal. Saturday a shining, sunny snapshot of purest gold, with wind and leaves, the symbols of death and change in the living air. Sunday a cloudy, rainy room of adoration and reflection. We are aware of how rare such days are, and this awareness made them all the more precious to us as we passed through our weekend, holding hands, joking, laughing, choking up in emotional pauses, quiet conversations, silent hours of reading next to each other with snoring dogs all around us, barbecuing chicken, baking pecan pies, rehashing last night’s dreams, taking our naps, cleaning out…