• Books,  Church Life,  Daily Life,  I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation,  Lectio Divina,  Prayers,  Reflections

    Suffering’s Work

    I have for the last several days been in a sustained mood of contemplation and prayer, feeling and responding to an almost urgent sense of needing to pray, to seek companionship with God the Father, with Christ the Lord, with the Blessed Virgin Mary, and with my patron saint, the Maid — St. Joan of Arc. Today before entering my place of work, I offered a very focused supplication that I might not be drawn into nor affected by the dozens of little soap operas whirling about me on any given day. Regular readers of this blog know that I have been battered by the foolishness that is the norm…

  • Daily Life,  Prayers,  Reflections

    Those Who Are Aware

    Some years ago, we obtained a pretty little house plant with dark green, white-speckled leaves. The plant is known as a scindapsus pictus, or “argyraeus.” Not long after my wife installed it on the baker’s rack in the kitchen, it began to climb the wall behind the rack. We were utterly charmed by the little suckers the plant used to attach itself, and by what a living presence it was, even sitting among some other, more dramatically-leaved plants. Each tiny, pale shoot of jade at the end of the vine was cause for exclamation. Several weeks ago, while cleaning around the baker’s rack, I managed to tear the vine away…

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  • Daily Life,  Dreams,  Jinx,  Reflections

    Quickly Forgotten

    “That is a blessing of bad dreams, they are quickly forgotten.” ― Joyce Carol Oates I was awakened this morning by my wife, who was calling to me and telling me to wake up. Her voice came to me as if from very far away, and I was fighting, kicking my way to the surface, out of the blackness of sleep and the frightening dream that was trying to pull me back down. I had been trying to awaken myself for what seemed like an hour, trying to yell and startle myself into the waking world, but only able to manage a thin whimper. As soon as my wife heard me,…

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  • Daily Life,  I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation,  Jinx,  Prayers,  Reflections

    Returning Home

    Sunday evening, a flicker landed in the snow outside the door. He drilled down like a sewing machine in search of his meal, solitary in the white yard, looking around as he did his work He must have seen me taking photos through the window, because the flicker flew over to the weeping willow tree and perched on the trunk for several minutes, looking fat and sleek, before he departed for the deeper woods. When I returned home last night, I was so glad to see Jinx and he was so glad to see me, we danced around each other. He barked and whined and did his best to tell…

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  • Daily Life,  I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation,  Reflections

    Septuagesima Sunday

    There was snow on the ground this morning, but it was all gone by noon, a quiet rain melting it all down into the winter grass, clearing the way for more on the way overnight. Jinx and I did a fair amount of rambling, and I spent quite a bit of time examining the buds on the bushes and shrubs in the woods. The green is slumbering, but it will awake. Will Arthur ever awake? Or will his England stagger on without him, growing colder and more pecked-apart by the hour? I envy those who have legends. Here, in my haunted South, we have no more legends. We have kudzu-choked…

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  • Reflections

    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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  • Daily Life,  Reflections

    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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  • Quotations

    Violent And Original

    “Be boring and regular in your life, like a bourgeois, so that you can be violent and original in your work.” ~ Gustave Flaubert

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  • Daily Life,  Holy Days,  Jinx,  Reflections

    Between Solstice And Celebration

    I didn’t plan to stay away from this blog for so long, but life sort of ganged up on me there… We’ve been preparing for the grandkids’ visit. Once again, I am amazed at the number of things that need cleaning, stowing away, and rearranging. And in the midst of all the preparations, we’ve had repairmen and contractors and electricians here to do some much-needed work. For the past few years, my wife and I have been torn about whether to stay here in the mountains or to return to Texas. We’ve back-and-forthed ourselves to the point of exhaustion, covering all the pros and cons, exploring as many options and…

  • Daily Life,  Jinx,  Reflections

    Nearer

    So often in life, we have moments of awareness of the present moment, an awareness in which we think, “If only…if only this could go on and on, this feeling of peace, of contentment, of quietude.” Such is the present moment for me. The morning’s chores are done, and I have a soft stretch of minutes before I have to travel from my home and enter again the environment that abrades my soul every hour that I am there. But for now, Jinx is sleeping in his bed near me, his spotted paws twitching as he dreams of chasing or being chased. The (brand spanking new) heat pump is blowing…

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