Quotations
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Winter Completed
You think winter will never end, and then, when you don’t expect it, when you have almost forgotten it, warmth comes, and a different light. — Wendell Berry Last night before bed, I let the dogs out into the back yard. I tracked them with the flashlight, wary of what might scamper away from them in the dark, setting up a chase and an opportunity for noise. In the beam of the flashlight, I saw what looked like little snowflakes. I stuck out my arm and tiny white crystalline dots clung to the fabric of my sleeve. Huh, I thought. Two days ago, it was almost seventy degrees. That can’t…
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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…
- Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Quotations, Reflections
Lanes And Patterns And Oh, Forward…
Most of us experience brief flashes in our lives during which we are aware of the singularity of a particular moment. This is special. This will never come again. I have never experienced this before. These flitting glitters of awareness have usually vanished before we can fully form a thought about them. The weather this week has been so astonishingly gorgeous….I have exhausted all the daylight hours staring like a lovestruck schoolboy out through the pollen-painted panes of the windows and doors. It has been special. And this particular weather pattern will never come again. I have never before experienced this exact pattern of light and leaf and life. For…
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Mow No Mo
Late yesterday afternoon, I decided to do my final full mowing of the year, since the temperatures are slated to drop steadily throughout this week. This is typically the timeframe in which I drive the little yellow tractor out of the barn for the last time of the season. It was a most glorious day to ride the machine and cut the grass down. I did the front and back yards, along with the front meadow. My neighbor’s son always mows the south pasture because he rakes and bales the grass for hay. I chewed up the leaves with the blades and they will make good compost material; I’m determined…
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October, Enter Stage Right
The hummingbirds are gone for the year, I think. We saw a couple yesterday, and heard them as they were droning around in the trees, but that was earlier in the day. By early evening, they were not to be seen. This morning, no hum nor squeak greeted me when I opened the back door. We watched all morning for them but no hummingbirds. I took down all the feeders and replaced the nectar except in one, which was mostly being used by wasps, anyway. All the day long while we were outside, we strained our ears and eyes, but never heard nor saw any of the beautiful little paint…
- Bluebelle, Books, Church Life, Daily Life, Dixee, Dreams, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Quotations, Reflections
Royal Pains
It’s raining softly here today, and the valley is quiet except for the protestations of cows who are methodically being separated from their calves. We love the rain and the clouds, but there is an uncharacteristic sad feeling in the very air. And time is passing much too quickly. There is some Alanis-level irony in the fact that the squash we so carefully planted in the garden has done poorly, but one lone “volunteer” plant that sprang up, probably because of a bird depositing a seed, in a bed of shrubs bordering the back porch. This one unintentional plant has provided enough good squash for several meals so far, and…
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Caught, Released
I’m finishing up a book, a profile of a very interesting man. The book is The Final Frontiersman: Heimo Korth and His Family, Alone in Alaska’s Arctic Wilderness by James Campbell (2004, Atria Books, New York NY). Mrs. Orr and I first learned of Mr. Korth and his family a few years ago when we watched a Discovery Channel series about him and the few remaining homesteading families in the Arctic Wildlife National Refuge in Alaska. We were quite taken with Heimo and his winsome family, and have followed them via interviews and profiles over the years. The series we watched was called The Last Alaskans, and if you can…
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A Short Testament
Often, prayer is beyond me, and this is due to many things. Poetry can so often herald the inner storm that might burst into prayer, but sometimes does not. This poem by Anne Porter is one of those lightning-rod works. I hope you feel its power and its pathos. ~ S.K. Orr A Short Testament by Anne Porter Whatever harm I may have done In all my life in all your wide creation creation If I cannot repair it I beg you to repair it, And then there are all the wounded The poor the deaf the lonely and the old Whom I have roughly dismissed As if I…
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The Thoughts, They Are Provoked
While reading Thomas Merton this morning, a passage took hold of me: Every one of us is shadowed by an illusory person: a false self. This is the man that I want myself to be but who cannot exist, because God does not know anything about him. … My false and private self is the one who wants to exist outside the reach of God’s will and God’s love — outside of reality and outside of life. And such a life cannot help but be an illusion. … The secret of my identity is hidden in the love and mercy of God. … Therefore I cannot hope to find myself…
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Great Things
“Great things are done when men and mountains meet; This is not done by jostling in the street.” ― William Blake