Quotations

  • Bluebelle,  Books,  Daily Life,  Dixee,  Holy Days,  Jinx,  Mrs. Orr,  Photographs,  Quotations,  Reflections

    Like Most Others

    Today started out like most other Sundays. Mid-morning, all the dogs wanted outside, so I let them out while I was preparing breakfast for the missus and me. A few minutes after the dogs went out, I heard what sounded like the spotted twins a-rasslin’ on the porch and didn’t pay it much attention. But a minute later, I heard Dixee’s shrill shriek of pain and went running. Jinx was holding her down with one paw and Bluebelle’s snout was buried in the fur on the right side of Dixee’s throat. When I burst out of the back door, bellowing and cursing, the twins scattered. Dixee was flailing around on…

    Comments Off on Like Most Others
  • Bluebelle,  Daily Life,  Dixee,  Jinx,  Movies,  Mrs. Orr,  Photographs,  Quotations,  Reflections

    Blessings Of The Day

    The day began with the spotted twins catching a possum in the backyard. When Mrs. Orr summoned me, the poor critter was doing his award-winning act, lying on his side, teeth exposed, still as a stone. I saw  his mouth flinch slightly when I picked him up by the tail, so I was pretty sure he was all right. I tossed him over the fence into the next pasture. Sure enough, when I checked on him after daybreak, he was gone. And we caught another mouse last night, this one a clean kill. The weather is getting ready to change, so the little things are seeking shelter in a warm…

  • Church Life,  Daily Life,  I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation,  Paintings,  Quotations,  Reflections

    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…

    Comments Off on The Fleeting Light
  • Daily Life,  Dreams,  Mrs. Orr,  Quotations,  Reflections

    Of Infinite Space

    This flu or virus or whatever it is continues its unwelcome visit within me. I went to bed earlier than usual last night, weary and feeling the congestion in my chest and head like a double ferris wheel, spinning and changing position, rumble and roar, chest and head, rumble and roar. I had been thinking all day of my mother, and the last thought I had before I slipped down into sleep was to wonder whether Mother’s spirit is ever near me, if she ever tries to contact me or watch over me. An odd thought, and I soon left it and all thoughts and entered that nightly place of…

  • Daily Life,  Holy Days,  Movies,  Mrs. Orr,  Poems,  Prayers,  Quotations,  Reflections

    Third Sunday in Advent

    At the start of this post, I need to make a sad announcement. Our friend Laura Wood, host of the excellent blog The Thinking Housewife, has shared tragic news. Her 18-month old grandson, Trevor Joseph Wood, died yesterday morning of a sudden illness. Please remember Laura, and Trevor’s parents, and the entire family when you say your prayers. I cannot imagine the grief and loss they are enduring right now. I keep thinking of the little fellow’s Christmas presents that he will never open, of the family meals he will never attend, the books he will never read, the life milestones he will never reach. At times like this, we…

    Comments Off on Third Sunday in Advent
  • 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…

  • Church Life,  Daily Life,  Movies,  Mrs. Orr,  Photographs,  Quotations,  Reflections

    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…

  • Bluebelle,  Daily Life,  Dixee,  Jinx,  Mrs. Orr,  Photographs,  Poems,  Quotations,  Reflections

    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…