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Hiatus
We have a winter storm bearing down on us, with heavy snow slated to be dropped on us starting late tonight, and the attendant temperatures getting down into the single digits — some days the highs are forecast to be in the single digits. I think most of the rest of the country is staring into the same abyss, and I hope all of you stay warm and sequestered with those you love. Dear readers, my wife and I are facing a couple of major life challenges that sailed into our formerly calm harbor a few days ago. These things are going to occupy most of my time and emotional…
- Daily Life, I Never Thought I'd Be In This Situation, Jinx, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Quotations, Reflections, Saints
Squinting Towards Armageddon
“I can, with one eye squinted, take it all as a blessing.” ~ Flannery O’Connor Before I set down the day’s thoughts, I want to express my humble gratitude for the many warm and supportive comments I received on my most recent post (the most comments I’ve ever received, in fact!). When I say “humble gratitude,” I mean exactly that. I am grateful for the kindness, but I am also humbled by the display from you, my readers who mean more to me than you can know. I also wanted to say that I’m somewhat chagrined after re-reading the post, which I had composed at the end of a weary…
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The New Holomodor
Friends and family send me videos and podcasts all the time. I watch or listen to very few of them, simply because I’m not interested in most of the topics, or because I can see in advance where the topic is going, and I don’t have time to wade through something that’s not going to provide any genuine insights or epiphanies. I am confronted daily with the international scam known as Covid. I don’t mention it much on this blog because the topic is like evil in the world: it is pervasive and spending too much time thinking or talking about it tends to depress and defile the soul. But…
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Harness On Our Back
I gin to be aweary of the sun, And wish the estate o’ the world were now undone. Ring the alarum-bell! Blow, wind! come, wrack! At least we’ll die with harness on our back. MacBeth, by William Shakespeare (Act V, scene 5) We went down into town today to do some grocery shopping and to buy a new vacuum cleaner. Truly, appliances and tools are no longer well-made. They are disposable junk, without a crumb of craftsmanship in an entire acre of store. While in the store, I heard my wife mutter something with outrage under her breath. She pointed out a woman who looked like Oprah Winfrey’s big sister,…
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The Hardening Of The Heart
I managed to stay awake until almost midnight last night, intermittently checking the election returns. When I finally went to sleep at 1145 pm, Biden had 223 electoral votes and President Trump had 166. Still, things looked very hopeful for Mr. Trump. My wife couldn’t sleep and got up before 400 am to check the election status, so I got up with her. Our reaction was the exact opposite of how we felt four years ago when we awakened to the news that Hilary Clinton was not going to get to grind her boot in our faces for four years. I had been telling family and friends for months that…
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Storm Coming
Our house is quiet tonight, and the hills and dales among which it sits are quiet as well. Amazing how fast the change came…just a few weeks ago and we had the air conditioning on. Tonight, it’s the furnace. This is the way with powerful forces. They can change so rapidly it staggers anyone who witnesses the change. A flock of thousands of birds, a school of thousands of fish…they move as one when they change direction, and their energy is beyond comprehension. Our house is quiet tonight, but the land is not quiet. Tomorrow will see the beginning of something, and who can say what it will be or…
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All Saints Day
“Mom? Why did Jesus have twelve opossums? I mean, what did he do with them?” — Lizzy Beck This morning during my walk with Jinx, I was struck by how absolutely silent the world was. My own steps were the only sound in the pewter air. It was almost easy to believe that last night the air had been full of ghosts and spirits of ill-will, because the early Sunday hours were so clean, so spotless, so purified. Surely all the saints were watching as I crunched gravel beneath my boots and Jinx’s tail cut the air like a buggy whip. Into my mind came the opening line of Poe’s…