Reflections
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Early Patterns Of Grace
The first television show I remember is “Stoney Burke,” starring Jack Lord. The first drawing I ever made was of Jesus on the cross. The cross had flames shooting out of the bottom of it and it powered Christ through the spacious universe like a rood-rocket. The Lord’s hands looked like little broccoli florets, and you could clearly see the nails in His palms. The first dog I ever knew was our German shepherd, King, who died of cancer before he was even two years old. I was seven at the time, and I held his head as he panted before the end. He seemed to me to be the…
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One Warm Day
Ice is forecast for Thursday, but for now, the pleasant respite of warm air has settled upon these mountains. Snow is a memory, the birds are a painted and scurrying mob, the clouds have fled, the honeysuckle almost looks green, the waterfall sounds like artillery, Jinx resents every minute spent indoors, the crape myrtle and the snowball bush keep pestering me to prune them, and the furnace has enjoyed a small rest. One warm day is a luxurious stretch of the limbs of the soul. But it will be spring soon enough, and the noisy, insectified summer will follow, and who will stretch whom then? I am forever tugged between…
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Old Man In Winter
This morning the air is balmy and mild after a night of heavy rain. The temperature is supposed to rise to about 60F today, which will be a nice break from the grip of cold. A nice break for my joints, as it were. When I opened the door a while ago to let Jinx out, I could smell a skunk on the air, and I hoped that Jinx would not find the aroma delightful and decide to go investigate further. I have recently spent much time thinking about my life and what remains of it. Sometimes the plainest facts elude us until one day when they come home with…
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Tidbits From An Old Master
Ever since I found one of his books at a library sale, I have enjoyed and benefited from the writings of Abbe de Tourville. His slender volume, Letters of Direction, is a book I frequently use in my lectio divina. Here are some passages from that book that I think my readers might enjoy and from which you might gain nourishment: Let us be able to depend quietly on ourselves. Let us judge for ourselves which things most help, guide, and teach us, by observing the degree in which they fit our own particular temperament; learning by experience those things which help us and which we most need. Live according…
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A Day No Cows Would Suffer
Le On the drive home Friday, I was thinking about how nice it is to be able to leave Jinx in the house while we’re gone, and how pleased we have been that he has never displayed the slightest inclination to destroy anything out of boredom. When I arrived home, I saw him poking his snout through the blinds, waiting for me to let him out. When I approached the door, I noticed something odd about Jinx’s appearance. “Odd,” I thought. “He looks like Stonewall Jackson. I wonder when he grew a beard?” When I opened the door, I got my answer. At some point during the day, Jinx had…
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Goodbye, Mr. President
The Holy Scriptures enjoin us to pray for those in authority over us: I desire therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all men: for kings, and for all that are in high station: that we may lead a quiet and a peaceable life in all piety and chastity. I Timothy 2: 1-2, Douay Rheims version As President Trump is still my President for another 14 hours at the time of this writing, I am praying for him and his family tonight, as I have done so many times in the past four years. I would encourage my tiny group of readers to do…
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Land Within Reason
Out here in the country, we don’t have a trash pickup service, so we have to take ours either to the county landfill or to one of the smaller drop-off stations situated in various places around the county. The one we mainly use is a few miles from our house, on a two-lane highway that offers beautiful scenery year-round. Just before the turnoff for the drop-off station sits a small farm. Out in front of the house is a pasture with an old but still serviceable barn. In the pasture is a hay ring, and most times I pass the place, there is an old horse and a goat…
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Wings Of Contemplation
We received a surprise skiff of snow during the night, and an even more surprising squall of the stuff during the morning, giving us a couple of inches of nice, fluffy snow, the kind that squeaks beneath the boot and provides good traction. The sun came out a while ago, but more snow is supposed to move in during the night. Jinx is keeping a close eye on the weather forecast, as snow is one of his great joys in life. He enjoys speeding along the ground like a spotted rocket, nose barely above terra firma, mouth slightly ajar and scooping up loads of the stuff. He stops occasionally to…
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Hodie
I poured a cup of coffee this morning and then let the dogs out into the back yard. Standing on the ice-slick deck, I listened to the sounds from the dark. Fog made everything sound close, amplified yet muffled. A deer broke and ran in the woods. I could hear the heavy rhythmic thumping as it leapt over logs and obstacles on its way to the far fence. Jinx was transfixed by the sound, but I suspect he knew better than to give chase. It occurred to me just then that so much these days is obscured by fog and darkness. I do not know all of what moves out…
- Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Movies, Quotations, Reflections
Blue Skies, Hidden Lives, Unvisited Tombs
The day dawned under a sheet of gray, with the clouds in the east giving way to the sun, as if a long florescent tube had been flicked on just beyond the mountains. Jinx cavorted in the snow and carried chunks of ice around as if they were prizes beyond compare. The roosters one farm over called to the brightening sky as I crunched my way past, and the breeze was slight enough that my face was not numb when we reached home. While drinking our coffee, Mrs. Orr and I finished watching a movie we’d started last night. The movie was A Hidden Life, directed by Terence Malick, and…