- Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Photographs, Reflections
Ash Woden’s Day
And so Lent begins today. This is the first year since my awkward and stumbling embrace of Catholicism began that I will not be observing the day or the season. It is a fitting coincidence that today also marks the anniversary of my receiving my honorable discharge from the United States Marine Corps and became a civilian again. Leaving the Corps was an interesting experience, bringing with it a feeling of being unmoored and yet settled on a somewhat shrouded path. That’s a good description of how I feel today. I look outside and see the tiniest patches of green in the woods and little emerald dots along the length…
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St. Valentine’s Music
Mrs. Orr and I tend to ignore Valentine’s Day, seeing it as just another Hallmark holiday. We do, however salute each other every February 14th morning, and we even grab a kiss or two during that twenty-four hour period. She is my Valentine, in the old-fashioned sentimental sense of the word, and she is my dear dream. So here’s to you, beloved wife, from one of my favorite singers. And I’m your Valentine, too, sweet Texas girl. ~ S. K. Orr
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What Tumbles Out
I have been reading, thinking, pondering. I have been living and breathing. I have been observing. Rain and night are here now, and it will not be warm again for a while. What is my chief desire for my remaining days? What will I die for — that is to say, what will give my death meaning? Do I fear death….or do I fear not mattering at the end of my days? What is my inner sense of what I must do, and what I must cease doing? The answer is within me, like the slumbering sliver within a cold seed. Away with the wispy existence, the inner fixation that…
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Up The Irons
I’m tired and my eyes are grainy from much reading, so nothing deep or meaningful today. The recent Chinese balloon incident was very amusing to me, mostly because of the response of the mature, seasoned, and reasonable adults who rule over us. Of particular interest was the crowing about how impressive the fighter jet pilot was, the fellow who shot the thing down. Yes, I was thunderstruck by the difficulty of firing a projectile into an object the size of — what was it they said? — three city buses. With skills like that, the military should be reasonably expected to be able to hit an elephant. IF it swallowed…
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She Dreams
As I read, my arm is draped across Bluebelle, who snores. Just now, while scanning some lines by Ezra Pound, I felt her muscles beneath my forearm bunch and twitch. Her breathing quickened like an engine starting to rev. Her breath funnels down into groans, then tiny yips, and a tide rushes across the surface of her warm body just beneath the brindled fur; she dreams now. And I, pater lacking perception, cannot tell. I cannot tell if her dream is a bad one or joyous. Is she fleeing some foe, or chasing a rabbit…or her own multihued tail? And even if I could stroke her small arena of a…
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Febyooerry Beguines
Ah, February. When we are forced as a country to come to terms with how rayciss America is. Because why else would those politicians assign Black History Month to the shortest month? We were spared the ice sheet that fell down on Texas, Arkansas, and Missouri, and we were grateful. We’ve been down that road before, and it ain’t something we want to repeat. A couple of years after we bought this farm, we were hit with an ice storm. The fences around the chicken coop were bowed over to the ground, having become glittering drapery for the poor beleaguered girls inside the henhouse. Massive limbs from the old pine…
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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
- Bluebelle, Daily Life, Dixee, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Lectio Divina, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
The Delta
This past weekend was a time of animal intrusion. The dogs were all quite obnoxious. No matter how I tried to command them or cajole them, they were on the rampage. By Sunday afternoon, Mrs. Orr and I were looking at each other with weariness in our faces, and our whispered conversations contained words like giveaway, shelter, dogcather, euthanasia, pistols, and shovel/mattock. They calmed down at some point, but we were not perky dog owners by Sunday night. Sunday afternoon, I dressed for the rain and went for a walk. I made my way up into the woods and finally climbed over the fence separating my neighbor’s pasture from our…
- Bluebelle, Books, Daily Life, Dixee, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Brakes Is Gone
It snowed much of yesterday, nothing significant, just periods of near-whiteout with the wind tossing around those little Styrofoam pellet-looking bits and scooping them into interesting patterns on the ground. I wiggle my numb toes and look to the skies and think of spring weather. A rare green comet is supposed to be visible these days in the early morning sky. I keep forgetting to find out where I can look for it and to go outside before sunrise to gaze up into the realm of stars, that place that has enchanted me since I was a small boy. This is the first year I can remember that I did…
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Grand Tour
Grand Tour The kitchen was the room where they were most themselves, and they were there now, standing at the counter. She spooned sugar into her coffee and stirred it, watching his face as she did so. She smiled at the creased expression of concentration as he pressed the toaster handle down, the two pieces of bread disappearing into the machine. The toast popped up and she clapped and he carefully extracted the slices and buttered them with oleo from the tub, and he cut them diagonally the way she liked her toast. She held onto his arm as they walked to the kitchen, and they sat together in…