I started writing this about nine o’clock at night in a tractor cab; had been looking at fall changing hedgerows all day while drilling wheat, and a friend sent and shared a beginning instrumental melody with me to listen to. It was somber, and in the background of it, you could hear his kids going […]
All Posts By: Byron McCoy
Journal Pages
NERO
“What if Nero wasn’t a monster? What if he was not an abomination, the destroyer of a once great civilization, but the epitome of what its culture sought to make? Maybe there is a point of declension from which a culture may never return or rise again. All movements need scapegoats, but what if […]
Journal Pages
DANGEROUS MEN
“Read the eyes,” he spoke. “Trust the eyes. They say what words cannot. In them, you see depth in soul and, in some, only an empty vessel. Exploiters of the world raise high empty vessels. Empty vessels are not a threat to those who help them rise, and, in their emptiness, such vessels drain […]
Poetry
BLACK-RIFLED
“There is…nothing really good that does not emanate from the ordinance of God, and nothing, however good in itself, can be better adapted for the sanctification of the soul and the attainment of peace.”—Jean Pierre Cassaude, “Abandonment to Divine Providence”
Short Story
WISDOM
The old man listened to the young man’s plight: convictions, doubts, wants, and dreams—indecisions that made him freeze, and hopes that moved him on. When the young man shared all he wished to speak, he waited for the old man’s reply. The old man reflected, thinking across years, on wisdom attained—lessons learned in […]
Journal Pages
THE LITTLE THINGS
THE LITTLE THINGS: They go a long way—affirmations, encouragements, recognition, simple kindness… Want a better world? Begin with the little things.
Poetry
MIRROR TO OUR MOOD
We all have our storms, days of gray when we can’t see the sun. They are a part of life and this world, but same as days of perfect sky-blue—our storms are not permanent. Our melancholies will pass, and sometimes—just like in the sky when a gray won’t break—we just need a little warmth […]
Quick Thought
MEMORIAL OF ST. THERESE OF LISIEUX
Today is the Memorial of St. Therese of Lisieux—“The Little Flower”—(only know because I saw it in last week’s bulletin). In coincidental (or divine) alignment of timing, I finished her autobiography this week. What I take from it, as have so many others, is the awareness that—however great or small—we all possess beauty to […]