- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Mrs. Orr, Photographs, Reflections
Paths of Freeze
Upon our second awakening this morning, the sun showed the crushed glass rug of frost all over everything, and my bones felt as if someone had injected crushed glass into the joints. Second awakening? Oh, yes. Our first awakening of the day was at about, ohhhhhh, 0230, when the dogs began snorting around outside our bedroom and demanding some attention. We got up to let ’em out and and see what might be yanking their emotional chains. They ran straight to the maple tree in the back yard and started leaping up on it like trained coon dogs. I shined the flashlight up into the bare branches and expected to…
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Blessings Of The Day
The day began with the spotted twins catching a possum in the backyard. When Mrs. Orr summoned me, the poor critter was doing his award-winning act, lying on his side, teeth exposed, still as a stone. I saw his mouth flinch slightly when I picked him up by the tail, so I was pretty sure he was all right. I tossed him over the fence into the next pasture. Sure enough, when I checked on him after daybreak, he was gone. And we caught another mouse last night, this one a clean kill. The weather is getting ready to change, so the little things are seeking shelter in a warm…
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The Watched
A few years ago, I watched a documentary about a young girl in Germany who was abducted by a deranged man and held captive in his basement for years. I can’t recall the circumstances, but she eventually escaped or was rescued. She described her hellish time in her suburban prison, recalling how she was able to see out of a barred basement window, catching daily glimpses of people going about their lives, walking their dogs, arguing with traffic policemen, lifting their faces to the warming sun or huddling in their heavy winter coats against the wind. The young woman recalled how desperate she was to be able to call out…
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The Tenth of August
Today marks the thirteenth anniversary of the day Bonnie came to live with us. Such a noble and big-hearted dog she was, and I miss her every day. This morning, Jinx and I walked up to her grave in the woods, and the place seemed to me to be in a holy hush, decked with dew and spider’s strands, with the quiet morning noises of the woods whispering all around us. A screech owl let loose her ghostly call, and Jinx was startled by the noise. We stood a moment at the grave, and then returned to the house, the spotted dog walking beside me with dignity and what seemed…
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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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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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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…