Reflections
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As The Winds Cool The Earth
That’s another picture of Jinx’s likely sister, taken from the shelter’s Facebook page, which I was able to access even without having an account there. The resemblance is remarkable. Same slightly worried facial expression. Due to their very limited hours, the first day we’ll be able to visit the shelter to see her will be Saturday at one pm. We’ll see how it goes. I asked Dixee how she’d like to have a little big sister. She said, “Knee grow, please,” and walked away to watch Mrs. Orr cook supper. Supper was homemade chili and cheddar & garlic biscuits. Perfect fare for a chilly night like this. *** I saw…
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Poorer Relations
We recently drove past the new county animal shelter without realizing what the building was. When we saw the sign, Mrs. Orr and I both exclaimed, “So that’s where it is!” We had heard that a new, badly-needed shelter had been opened and that many cats and dogs were up for adoption. For some mysterious reason, I decided today to look at the shelter’s website. I scrolled through the photos and read some of the descriptions. Then I was brought up short by one dog for whom the shelter is seeking what they call “a forever home.” The dog was described as a female blue heeler mix, about 2-4 years…
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All Hallow’s Eve
I remember dragging shopping bags through the damp grass, bags filled with Halloween candy, praying that the bottom of the bag wouldn’t give way like it did on my cousin Debbie that one year, and how she lost all her candy in the weeds outside old lady Hutt’s house, and I didn’t care, because I never liked Debbie anyway. I remember wearing my costume to school, and how my breath condensed inside the cheap plastic mask, and how scary and powerful I felt when we prowled the streets in a mob of ten or twenty, back before the idea of vandalism or violence had ever crept into our minds. I…
- Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Photographs, Reflections, Saints
Something In The Air
We awoke to one of those days that couldn’t be more perfect for the Orr temperament if we’d sat down with a Weather & Scenery Catalogue and ticked off all the boxes for the Saturday we were ordering. A muted, witchy glow of cloud-shrouded afterthought of a sun, leaves layered like the scales of Jonah’s fish across the slippery skin of the mountain earth, the rain as fine as the mist at the produce section in the grocery store, the stillness and sacredness that churches and even libraries once had but will never have again. When I swung my legs over the bed and touched the floor, the Spotted Southern…
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Numbering The Stones
If you look carefully at the photo above, you will see a daddy longlegs in the upper left quadrant. I took this picture this past Saturday while Jinx and I were exploring in the little country cemetery near our farm. We were there explicitly to count the gravestones, something I had been meaning to do for some time. The gravestone itself is one of my favorites, the marker of a Jesse Lane, who served the Confederacy in a regiment from his home state. The stone is simple and dignified, like the ones at Arlington National Cemetery, and I usually touch it in passing. On this particular cool day, it radiated…
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Tones of Heaven
Mrs. Orr and I stumbled on this piece of music recently. We both sat and listened while watching each others’ faces. It’s an aching piece of chest-music, with a melody that makes me want to close my eyes and write a loved one, repent of a sin, stroke a dog’s ears, gaze at an old photograph, hold my wife close. The composer is Michael Hoppe, and he seems to be a very interesting man. This evening while acquainting myself with his work, I found Mr. Hoppe’s gorgeous Ave Maria. I’ve included it here for you. If I may presume to offer a suggestion for your evening prayers, look up the…
- Church Life, Daily Life, Dreams, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Lectio Divina, Prayers, Quotations, Reflections
Despair, Sleep, and Heavenly Mother
Bruce Charlton has posted a really good essay over at his blog, one of those posts that stopped me in my tracks. I commend it to you. I’ll include here the checklist Bruce wrote to assist in spiritual re-encouragement, and then a couple of thoughts. 1. Reality is ultimately created by God – and continually being-created by God; and I participate in this creation (as a sub-creator) insofar as the world is understandable to me. I look around and remind myself of this. 2. The world is Not dead, mechanical or random; the world is alive and conscious: this is a world of beings. Every ‘thing’ is actually a being, or part…
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Hoist By His Own Inner Retard
Mrs. Orr reported that when she let Jinx outside this morning, he was full of zest: bounding around, leaping, grinning, eager to get outside. I got up shortly after she did and after pouring a cup of coffee, I went to see if Jinx was ready to come inside and eat his breakfast. He was, and he trotted through the door and into the dining room. And that’s when it hit me. “Could you come here a sec? I think I smell something.” I called to my wife. She poked her head around the door. “Oh, no,” she said. Skunk. Majorly. Ah, hell. This is going to be a very…
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Intact Routine
Yesterday was one of the most perfect days I can remember. When we awoke, a cool front had blown in and it was raining steadily. After feeding the dogs, my wife started breakfast (breakfast burritos from scratch…just one more element in a perfect day) and I took the spotted menace out for a soaking ramble through the hills. The mist was curling like Fafnir’s breath, silver and sinister, reaching into hidden places erupting from black chasms in the slick rock. We padded along, Jinx’s paws making a curious leatherlike sound on the wet leaves. We walked and looked and stopped and gazed and strolled and smiled — yes, Jinx smiles…
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Let It Stay
The sky was as blue as a cornflower marble, wisps of cirrus clouds high in the ceiling, and there were no vapor trails, no intruding airplanes. There were only hawks up there, and Jinx, sky-aware as always, sat with me and watched them in their fixed-wing thermal soarings. We were in the cemetery grass, and it was warm and soft there in the green, on the carpet that covers the sleeping remains of fathers and daughters, mothers and sons. The carved and lettered stones stood around us as if watching, and they were speaking, though not in voices a waking man can hear. I watched Jinx as he watched the…