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Final Sunday of October
Jinx, once the solitary rambler who ranged over the acres surrounding our little farm, now rarely goes outside by himself. When Bluebelle wants out, he’s always up to accompany her, or when Mrs. Orr and/or I open the back door, Jinx is quick to push past us and run out, tail slashing and head on a swivel, looking to challenge all comers. But open the door and beckon him to come out while Bluebelle is sleeping or otherwise occupied, and he will offer a quizzical glance and walk away. Perhaps he finds meaning in his life to be attached to companionship. And so this morning I was puzzled but pleased…
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Where I Am
For the past two days, a charcoal-gray tabby cat has strolled across the patio in front of the door next to which I sit while I work. Today I managed to get up and open the door before he got out of my field of vision. When I opened the door a crack, he scampered under the front barn and disappeared. Mrs. Orr and I were talking about him last night after I told her about seeing him, and she remarked that he would be welcome if he were a good mouser and could pull his own weight. This morning at about 0400, Bluebelle, she of the keen ears and…
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The Individual Name
I have long believed that the voiceless things in the world around us – the trees, the stones, for example – are aware of us, of our movement among them. This morning, sitting at my desk at work in my home office, I watched the birds in the grass outside and smiled at their antics, and then I found myself watching the weeping willow tree a dozen yards from the door. Leafless and still, it seemed to be looking back at me. And for the first time, a question arose: do the trees and the rocks and the other silent things out there have names? I don’t mean names as…
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Kingdom Of Remnants
I am looking through the glass doors, looking outside at the peach trees Mrs. Orr and I tucked into the earth several years ago, now standing bare-limbed in the cold air at the edge of the front meadow. The trees have never done very well in terms of producing edible fruit, but they are lovely when they blossom and their leaves provide a nice shade beneath which we sometimes sit in the Adirondack chairs in warm weather. Someday those trees will be dead and gone, and perhaps no one in future years will ever know that beautiful peach trees once stood in that spot, on that gentle rise in the…
- Bluebelle, Church Life, Daily Life, Holy Days, Jinx, Movies, Mrs. Orr, Music, Photographs, Prayers, Reflections, Saints
Memorials
I walked the road the other morning alone, leaving Jinx and Bluebelle to romp in the backyard while I strolled the mountain lane, and I noticed how the gravel at the edges of the road had been ground down by the tires and tires and tires until it resembled nothing so much as gray aquarium rock. If I had one of those glass boxes full of water and marine life and topped with a humming light — I’ve never in my life owned an aquarium, and usually only think of them when I read Loren Eisley, who spent a childhood making and stocking his own — I would scoop up…
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The First Sunday in Lent
Another glorious day. I think it got up to about 72F today. Started out cloudy and gradually cleared through the day, with the breeze intensifying every hour. The weather people — none of whom are fit to touch the hem of my maternal grandmother’s apron when it comes to weather forecasting — are saying it’ll be snowing by this Friday night. Mrs. Orr and I had a lovely, leisurely, reading morning, settled in chair and sofa with dogs all around, our new used treasures piled before us, and we dipped into them like a all you can eat dim sum restaurant. I spent part of the day outside planting bulbs…
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Winter Begins
And now we sit in the deepest pocket of the year’s darkness, with the night air so still that even the nocturnal predators do not dare to disturb the hush with their cries. We have reached the farthest point on our yearly circle around the great light in the sky, and are now beginning to swing back to complete the ring, spinning always, the great seas and the vast acres containing numberless bones slipping in and out of light and dark, and so it has ever been since ages ago, back when certain words were spoken. It’s difficult when I stand in the yard to remember that this bleak patch…
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What Matters As Advent Approaches
It felt so cold this morning that I could feel it working in my bones, as if little ice crystals were forming in the synovial fluid of my knuckles and knees and ankles. The world outside was a frosted sheet of patched russet, an expanse of the leaves weighed down by the same sort of tiny ice crystals. While Jinx and I were walking (Bluebelle sticking close to my wife in the warm house), I saw a large red oak leaf detach from the tree over near the cemetery and glide like a paper airplane down, then over, then back this way, then down a little more, then that way,…
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A Week In
Today the world is a leaf-world. The wind has had its way with things, and the trees are being stripped by the hour, and the shower of color would be, even if unaccompanied by its whispery chorus, an oratorio of the glory of Him Who spoke it all into existence. The little tree under which I park at work is almost completely bare. There is one branch that hangs over the driver’s side door, and the most prominent leaf is the one I touch each morning and each evening when exiting and entering my vehicle. Yesterday I stood in the blue light and contemplated the leaf, and I decided that…
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Waste
Some of my acquaintances enjoy poking fun at me because of the tender spot I have in my heart for animals. Their (mostly) good-natured ribbing descends to the level of derision when I include in my circle of affection the plants and trees in this world around me. A few years ago there was a lovely little maple tree in the area adjacent to my parking lot at work. Like all such ornamental trees, it stood in the manicured and mulched borderlands around the striped asphalt rectangle where overpriced, over-gadgeted cars sit and drip oil and antifreeze while their owners are inside, trading hours for dollars. I never parked near…