Entries in A Long Listen (25)
What I’d Promised to Baltimore
The time had come to produce all that good stuff I’d promised!
To Harrisonburg!
From Alum Bridge to Elkins the isolated hills of central West Virginia gathered themselves together and merged into long, long ridges — the ridges of the Allegheny Mountains — and the road I followed became one of long, glorious climbs and descents to a highway-traffic soundtrack, each one culminating in the clamorous crossing of a little city at the end of the descent.
Half-Way Across West Virginia
Hillsides with slopes of twenty-five to forty degrees — incredibly steep slopes — had been entirely stripped of trees and were now protected by nothing but sparse pasture grass, grazed so heavily that you could see the bare soil everywhere. Ravines were cutting down those slopes, and the creeks at the bottoms of the slope were gullied…. Much of the land … had been worked so hard that the grass was brown and weedy brush was replacing it. This is how you convert lush forest to a lunar wasteland, folks.
Called Meeting at Athens
Marshall Massey
in A Long Listen, Appointed Meetings
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A Friend spoke of how, in a near-death experience, he saw a valley and flowers and a stream that he eventually realized were a place he’d known as a boy in Tennessee. The place, he said, has been long since scraped off for a surface mine. “What did we get in return? Plastic toys and hair driers. When I think of what I paid for what I got, I get angry, which I can’t afford to do, and then I burst into tears.”
Two Encounters
Marshall Massey
in A Long Listen, Relating to Creation
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Communication between the creatures and ourselves comes in all sorts of flavors. In the presence of that black snake, I knew that I’d been sized up and casually dismissed.
Across the Hocking Hills
“People want to feel that they are part of the solution,” the biologist said. “It’s hard for them to take a lasting interest in a problem unless they feel there is something useful they can do. That’s why they focus on recycling.”
A Crossing Between Worlds
I hit the beginnings of Appalachia with an almost physical sense of impact.
Report from (Xenia and) Jamestown
Marshall Massey
in A Long Listen, Appointed Meetings
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A Friend said simply, “I think Christ is calling (on this matter) but I’m not listening.” This led to a discussion of why various groups of people don’t listen.