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Hallways
There’s something sublime about wandering through our home in the quiet hours, alone and unnoticed, looking at all the little bric-a-brac we’ve accumulated through the decades, listening to the whisper of my own feet on polished boards or soft rugs, inhaling the air through which my wife and I move each day and night. The holy hush. I am surrounded by it. I feel forgotten, like one of Merton’s monks, and I enjoy the feeling. Through the hallways I move, watching, listening, aware, ready. But time and the outside world always intrude. ~ S.K. Orr
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Prayer’s Labyrinth
I received a call today from a friend who asked my wife and me to pray for her family. To say that they are walking in the valley of shadows would be an understatement. I promised that we would be praying for the family and asked her to keep us updated and to let us know if we can do anything of a hands-on nature. Then on the way home, I passed a state trooper headed in the opposite direction. He must have been doing 80mph in a 40 mph zone, lights and siren going. Right behind him were two ambulances, flashing and wooping with equal dynamic presence. I crossed…
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Walking Up An Incline
Walking up to the mailbox today, I had an epiphany of sorts. I never leave myself alone. I am forever telling myself that I need to be doing x, y, or z. I am perpetually dissatisfied with how I spend my time. I sift through my past days, months, decades, and ignore the glittering flecks. Instead, I focus on the dark sludge along the bottom lip of the pan. There’s always some project that I should be doing. Some habit I need to break. Some improvement I need to make. Some shortcoming I need to fix. Such a mess. There are two of me, (And there are two of you,…
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The Epi-Tome of Coziness
Full disclosure here — the photo above was taken almost five years ago…we have no snow on the ground here today. I use it here because when I stepped outside this morning, the weeping willow — larger now — was festooned with cardinals just like in this photo. I didn’t have my phone with me, so I have no photo, and it wouldn’t have been as dramatic as the one from 2015. Male cardinals have an endearing habit. They cock their little scarlet heads to the side when looking at something. You can see them doing the math. You can almost see their nonexistent eyebrows knitting together in concentration. You…
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Dividing Asunder
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. (Hebrews 4:12, Authorized Version) It’s always interesting for me to ask people questions about things I assume they understand, only to learn that my assumption was misguided. For example, the New Testament verse referenced above clearly delineates between soul and spirit; the divinely-inspired (I trust) writer assumes such a delineation. And yet when I have asked Christians to explain the difference between soul and spirit, I have received less than…
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The Finest Fine Morning
The kitchen’s lamplight was slanting down through the blinds from the breakfast nook window when I stepped out to check the cat food situation. Our old barn cat hadn’t eaten quite all his food from the night before. When I started to dump a cup of the pebble-like chow into the bowl, I stopped and look a second look. Two daddy longlegs (harvestmen) were crouched in the sloping slick surface, their bodies almost the size and color of the cat food, touching the remnants, feeding on the battered tabby’s table crumbs. I left them undisturbed and instead placed a small mound of food on the window ledge next to them.…
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Where Do They Go?
By the time I took my lunch break, my head was pounding from the effort of a morning spent choking back my responses to idiocy and incompetence. I stomped outside to my parking spot, got in, and unclenched my teeth long enough to put food between them, and then I clenched and clenched again, rage as masticating fuel, rage as my mealtime companion. I thought I might doze into a nap, escape for a little while, but my mind would not obey. It fed me the little imaginary conversations that are always worse than the ones that actually happen. I sat in the seat and reacted again and again to…
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Boll
“There were some days when he hated everything except himself, but today was like most days, when he hated only himself and loved everything…” — Heinrich Boll “In The Valley of the Thundering Hoofs“ ~ S.K. Orr
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Awareness And The Spirit
I arrived at work this morning like Bob Cratchit, in a post-holiday rush, behind my time, dithered in the head, fumbling with my keys. I spent the morning trying to catch up on backed-up tasks. But busy as I was, something in my spirit was troubled. As the morning wore on, I realized that I felt a crushing sadness in my very bones. What could be making me feel this way? I thought. And then it came to me. Five years ago today, my sister called me at work to tell me that our mother had died. My memory is not what it once was, but my spirit, my internal…
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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…