- 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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Mist Will Lift
A coworker who sits next to me at my office tested positive for the Covid-19 thingamajig, so I was required to be tested at a local hospital. It was interesting to note what a ghost town the hospital was. I was expecting squads of harried nurses and doctors to be running up and down the hallways, calling out orders and wheeling lifeless bodies on gurneys and asking for assistance. But the place was all but abandoned. A girl young enough to be my granddaughter performed my test, which, while not especially painful, was markedly unpleasant. She asked me if I was okay when she removed the fourteen foot swab from…
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Contemplating Foolishness
Christian history and tradition are rich with stories of the “holy fool” and the mendicant religious pilgrim. I possess neither the inclination nor the mettle to say goodbye to my wife and family and life to pursue such a course. And yet… There is a facet of my spirit’s personality, obscured usually even to myself, that is drawn to the idea of solitude and wandering and abandoning the things of this world. I have known a handful of people whose lives have been so marred by sudden and devastating tragedy that I cannot imagine how they found the grace and strength to soldier on until the end of their own…
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Chosen: Custody of the Eyes
We recently watched an interesting short documentary, Chosen: Custody of the Eyes. The film traces the discernment and pursuit of a young nun’s vocation as a member of a cloistered community of the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration. Most striking about the young woman was the sense of deep, quiet joy at the privilege of withdrawing from the world and devoting herself to contemplation and prayer for that same world. Watch any “coming of age” or “trial by fire” documentary these days and you will notice how the film’s subjects will stress the difficulty and challenges of their undertakings, how disconcerting the new environment, and how traumatic the privations or…
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Before My Candle
I sit before my candle and watch it the flame. How can a thing so still be so alive? The flame is mysterious to me. I’m told that energy is never destroyed, that it merely changes form. What form does the blue-and-yellow flower of fire morph into as it reaches to the ceiling, immobile as long as my breath does not reach it? Does it cycle back to be used by some other soul, some child of God asking questions that all seem rhetorical? The candle illuminates my face, and I wonder how I appear to it. I suspect that animals can see and hear and sense things that are…
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From A Near Distance
I stepped outside before dawn this morning to listen to the first birdsong of the day. Standing in the damp grass, I drew a deep lungful of sweet air and kept still, listening, listening. Off in the northern sky, traveling south by southeast, was what I first took to be an airplane. But the light was over-bright, had no flashing lights, and was traveling at a very high and steady speed, like a lethargic comet. I watched the light until it was gone from my sight, and then I went back inside and fetched my phone to check my suspicion. And there it was. An app on my phone confirmed…