The Weather is Beautiful

Record lows along the third coast with low humidity and no storms on the horizon.

Thanks, God. You have a way of making us take notice.

Walker Percy and Flannery O'Connor

Two Southern-Catholic writers connected by region and religion, searching for answers to questions that most other people never even ask, or think to ask.

If you have not read both or either, pick up one of their works soon. You too will become a searcher and a seeker and you will gain insights along the backroads and bayous of the place we call home.

Mass and Me

I like going to mass. It is the time when the sacrafice is not of me but for me. Manna becomes man and man becomes food for the body and spirit. My soul is not of my making. My prayers are not of my taking. My heart is connected to the one next to me and my soul joined at another mass has become one in being with her and with the Lord. The sacrafice is not mine, but, it is for me.

Afternoon Reflection

The economy is causing problems around the world. The decline of expendable income affects the feeding of those that need help. Prayers are still accepted. We rush to work, hurry to complete obligations and hurry home. Traffic creates anxiety. I am often more exhausted from the drive than I am from the day's work. To unwind, I sometimes have to pray.

Prophets

There ain't no prophets in my home community; except unless you count Gay and Eddie. I always knew them as dirt-scratch farmers and hard working men. They were old when I was young and so it seemed to me that they was just men, like the older men in my family. But they had a wisdom and a way of sharing that wisdom that made a young boy like me listen. Their intonation and vocabulary wasn't anything like what I heard on Sunday mornings. They spoke of a Lord that was "gracious" and "almighty." Scarred and calloused hands waved in the air as the lessons of Job and Elijah hung in the air above our porch.

They are all gone now and days pass without me thinking of those gentle but worn men and their words. I miss them when I do think of them and those days.

Rest in peace my friends,
In the hands of the "almighty and gracious Lawd."

Ignatius Loyola

The beginning of what we now know as education can be traced back to this man and his mission. The corruption of educations began when we began to move away from the Mission.

Punctuating "Death"

Death adds punctuation to our lives. The difference between a comma's brief pause and a semicolon's separation can make all the difference in the meaning of life, or; death.

“Death, Be Not Proud”
Holy Sonnet Number 10, by John Donne

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep which but they pictures be,
Much pleasure; then, from thee, much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’rt slave to fate, chance, kings, and desparate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell.
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well,
And easier than they stroke. Why swell’st thou then?
One short sleep past, we live eternally,
And Death shall be no more. Death, thou shalt die.

- OR -

And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.