I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation
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The Fleeting Light
Where are the voices crying out, not for agreement with a doctrine or assent to a particular teaching, but for taking virile and perhaps physically fatal responsibility for one’s own reaction to the evil we see around us? The voices that do cry out do so in an attempt to persuade people to agree with them, or to at least debate with them about their position. Who speaks words of comfort for those who cannot and will not trust any of those clamoring for followers? What are the once-faithful and now-bereft to think, to do, to believe? The road to self-knowledge does not pass through faith. But only through the…
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Chill
I utterly despise the media, whether the news, popular culture, or what passes for “art” these days. A question came to me this evening and I turned to express it to my wife. “When’s the last time you heard anyone mention monkey pox?” She laughed, because she knew what I was getting at. Before that stumpy, swarthy little illegitimate comedian’s appearance before Congress today in his grimy gym suit, how many of you had heard anything about Ukraine (formerly known as the Ukraine) in the news in recent days? Do chefs still prepare chicken Kiev, or is it now chicken KEEEEEEEV? Covid is apparently cured completely, with flu and RSV…
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Roots Above The Stones
Every year at this season we watch the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and their Christmas concert. Last night we watched it; we had recorded it the night before, and I was grateful because I was able to fast forward through much of it. The vibe of the show was very different from what we usually experience. First of all, we noticed that the word “Mormon” has been expunged from the group’s title. They’re now The Tabernacle Choir. This seems logical, given what I have read in recent months about the LDS church bending over backwards to fit in with the rainbow regiment people. Also, the tone of the programs was…off. The…
- Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Photographs, Prayers, Quotations, Reflections
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.…
- Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Quotations, Reflections
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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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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Paw
He was not my kin, but perhaps someday I will find that he was, after all, one of my people. My only connection to him is long gone from my life, an ill-fated romance birthed in high school. But she introduced me to Paw, and so I am somewhat indebted to her for bringing me into his eccentric and loveable orbit. Paw was what we used to call a coon-ass, born and bred down in Louisiana’s swamp country, that murky and mystical patch of America with its legends and lore, its distinctive patois and food all a part of the myths of the Cajun people. He and his wife, Granny,…
- Bluebelle, Daily Life, Dixee, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Little Things
I sat up late Friday night watching Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet. Fatigue forced me to watch the conclusion the next day; I awoke at 200 am with my head on Bluebelle’s hip. I believe we were both snoring. My heart is sad this morning, but it has nothing to do with the brooding Danish prince. Yesterday morning, while the sun was slanting down through the trees, I went to walk in the woods. The beams of light from our life-giving star were as solid as blonde pine joists, as substantial as anything into which I might drive a nail, as anything onto which I might hang an old family photograph. I…
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Summer’s End
For the first time in my entire life, the end of summer has sparked within me a feeling of melancholy. Time was, I would rejoice at the end of hot weather and welcome the cooler temperatures. But this year, the approaching winter is heralded by the awareness of many things new to me, things of which I have become aware, things that leave me sitting for long stretches with head down and eyes unseeing. This is the world, and I must, as Dylan Thomas admonished, have faith. Goodbye, summertime of this year. You will have passed forever in just a few more thumps of the heart. And Happy Birthday, Weia…
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Synchronicity and Sadness
My friend William James Tychonievich writes frequently, eloquently, and in a lively manner about the synchronicity he observes in his daily life. Today I thought of WJT when I learned that a talented but erratic country singer named Luke Bell apparently killed himself yesterday, the same day I learned of the suicide of my childhood friend Len. Mr. Bell seems to have lived a life that could be accurately described as tortured, and the life-taking whispers that chased him for much of his life finally overtook him. You don’t have to listen to many of his songs to recognize his talent and his emotional depth. I thought I would post…