I was a little boy, scared of the dark, that failed in being brave. No more than four or five, I remember the monsters and images over walls in room—shadows cast by silver light of rising moon. I went to my father, asking to be saved and comforted in my fears. He returned […]
All Posts By: Byron McCoy
Short Story
SPECTERS VANISH
“What is necessary to cause these specters to vanish? Light. Light in floods. Not a single bat can resist the dawn.”—Victor Hugo, Les Miserables He read alone in the shadows of the room beneath chairside lampstand and single candle burning at a distance. He read a book of God, fate, and Destinies and […]
Faith / Short Story
REASON WHY
“Now I am glad: not because you were made sorrowful; but because you were made sorrowful unto penance. For you were made sorrowful according to God, that you might suffer damage by us in nothing. For the sorrow that is according to God worketh penance, steadfast unto salvation; but the sorrow of the world […]
Journal Pages / Poetry
SKY-WRITE
“…this is not the only time nature has reflected the feelings in my heart; I have noticed it often during my life. When I cried, the heavens were full of tears, and when I was happy, the sky was a cloudless blue.”–St Therese of Lisieux, “The Story of a Soul” _____ _____ “…there is always […]
Short Story
BECKONED
“For all of us, mountains turn into images after a short time and the images turn true. Gold-tossed waves change into the purple backs of monsters, and so forth. Always something out of the moving deep, and nearly always oceanic. Never a lake, never the sky. But no matter what images I began with, […]
Short Story
SO SMALL A THING
“’You are kind,’ answered Frodo. ‘But I do not think that any speech will help me. For I know what I should do, but I am afraid of doing it, Boromir: afraid… I think I know already what counsel you would give, Boromir,’ said Frodo. ‘And it would seem like wisdom but for […]
Faith / SONG
PERSPECTIVE FROM A PEW
“Sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left.”—Itzhak Perlman Our father shared this quote with us today. He used it in his homily reflecting on today’s readings. In it, he spoke in acknowledgment of the first and third readings; the […]
Short Story
A MOVEABLE FEAST
Season lived, undecided, and as trees of the riverbank bloomed and showed with spreading buds, a cold rain fell from low-ceiling clouds in sky. Together, they walked the streets, crossing river over century bridges that spanned its course looking down on budded banks and rain-dappled face of the Seine. The city was not […]
Short Story
CHANGE IN COURSE
“In those days, there was no king in Israel: but every one did that which seemed right to himself.”—Judges 21: 24 __________ They walked upon trail through woods beneath winter sky of somber gray. In movement, dampened leaves of slow fall in night before collapsed with muted sound beneath their weight in steps. […]
Short Story
INFINITE EXPRESSION
“Are there limits to the ways one can love?” he asked. “I believe the only limit is the bound of our own acceptance to allow it to express,” she answered. “There is always a way, always a means, and it doesn’t have to make sense or fit a set design. If God is […]