Ten-Dollar Mules and a Hundred Dollar Coat

Posted on February 13, 2015 by Doc Arnett

I grew up reading Dick Tracy in the comic strips, reading spy novels and, once we actually got a TV, occasionally watching movies about detectives and spies and other shadowy figures. To me, the absolute epitome of sleuth, sophistication and steel cold nerves was the black fedora and matching trench coat. Plus, in the bitterly cold winters of the netherworld, there is nothing that rivals the double-breasted trench coat for stylish, well-dressed protection from sub-Arctic wind chills. Church, weddings, funerals, state galas and diplomatic soirees, you’d have to go full-length brushed cashmere to top the black trench coat. And with the cashmere, you lose the steely-nerved effect.

So, when I saw a like-new double-breasted black trench coat at the Goodwill store about fifteen years ago, I snatched that thing up like a duck on a June bug! I didn’t care that it was a size or two large for me. Then, I went straight to Penney’s and bought myself a nice black fedora. When the wind turns to the north and I must go forth in a well-dressed state of affairs, I bring out the black.

Yesterday was such a day. With the wind chill barely above zero, I didn’t think I was overdoing things.

I came home from the office needing to get to Saint Joseph as quickly as possible. I had to go by the drug store and out to the mall and then to the grocery store before heading over to Legends Bar & Grill for my Thursday night trivia contest as the rookie member of the defending champions, Sons of Answerarchy. I was in a hurry but there were a couple of things I had to get from the bedroom upstairs to take back to town with me.

So, I switched out my casual dress loafers for my Wal-Mart special camo-colored “mules” before heading up to walk on the new carpet. In case you’re like me and a couple minutes behind the current phraseology, “mules” are quick slip-on shoes that have a completely open back in them. I keep a pair for “indoor use only” to help protect the carpet and my noggin from not-so-subtle reminders from Randa. “Don’t forget to put your other shoes back on,” she called in a smirking voice as I darted up the steps. “Hah!” I thought, like I’d do that. Again, this quickly after accidentally wearing them to the elders and deacons meeting on Sunday afternoon…

My next memory of that conversation was twelve minutes and ten miles later as I was crossing the Pony Express Bridge and happened to notice that my feet felt unusually relaxed and comfortable for a drive. Yep, sure ’nuff! At the opposite end of the black fedora, well below the black trench coat with the stylish flap across the back and the belt across the middle: camo mules. I laughed so hard I almost thought it was funny. Actually, it was a comical dilemma.

I didn’t have time to go back home and get my errands done. Really, it wasn’t that hard a decision to make.

So, five minutes later, I walked right into to Rodgers’ Drug Store, head held high, daring anyone not to look me in the eye. I had to ask for help to find the Blistex that Randa needed and then stepped up to the counter and asked for her prescriptions. Got ’em and left promptly, not daring to look behind me.

Next to Sears to return the Dockers socks that looked great in the package and had the elastic qualities of your usual piece of cold spaghetti. As soon as I put on the first pair, they felt as loose as your big brother’s jacket. They started sagging down by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs. I walked across the parking lot in my very comfy mules and stepped up to the first register in the store, which happened to be in the tools section. The young man quietly and quickly completed my transaction, somehow keeping a straight face the entire time. I thanked him in my best Jimmy Cagney voice and then asked him, “Where are the men’s shoes?” He pointed, “Back there in the left corner.”

I could handle walking in and out of the drugstore, walking across two parking lots and through Sears on an early Thursday evening. But there was no way I was sitting in a bar for two-and-a-half hours wearing a black fedora, trench coat and camo-colored house shoes! I don’t always drink humility, but when I do, I prefer less than Dos Equis.

H. Arnett
2/13/15

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Be the Blessing

Posted on February 12, 2015 by Doc Arnett

As I look out the window by my computer screen, my view consists of two halves. The low ridge defines the cut point, an almost perfectly horizontal line. Below that line, everything is defined by darkness, a black screen in which only the lights of passing cars can be seen, along with the round points of yard lights scattered in the distance. If I move my head from left to right, a couple of other lights show up from behind the blocking of the huge branches of the old maple tree at the low edge of the yard.

Above that dark line of the ridge, black forms of tree trunks and branches interlace in stark silhouette against the dawning sky. They weave and sway, pushed by a bitter wind sent from the north. Beyond them, a backlight of rose sets beneath an icy blue. Just in the time of writing these words, the hues have paled to pink and powder. In this fraction of an hour, the light has risen higher and higher. Already, dim forms begin to show in the shadow of the ridge: near buildings, seams of snow running the ditches and banks.

In a little while, the lights will flicker and dim to darkness as the greater light of day shapes the morning. In this peaceful forming, in this silent shifting, we move from rest to labor, giving ourselves to the work of this day, to the lives that we fill. Even in the stinging cold and aching wind, we may send good into this world. We were made for this purpose.

H. Arnett
2/12/15

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Jalapeno Jam

Posted on February 11, 2015 by Doc Arnett

I guess it was some time after the Maytag repairman died of loneliness that the company manufactured our refrigerator. We’ve had one of his brethren out to our place three or four times in the past four years.

A couple of times, the refrigerator side had quit staying refrigerated and there’s just something about warm milk and melted margarine that frankly seems a bit unappetizing to my spoiled tastes. Pun intended. The cold-water dispenser only dispenses cold water in the winter but that turns out to be a malfunction of design, rather than performance.

According to the manual, it’s only intended to cool the water to fifty degrees, which hardly qualifies as “chilled” to my expectations on a hot summer day. I can’t help wondering if they actually designed it that way or re-wrote the manual rather than replacing several thousand defective cooling units. In any case, I’m sure the company’s market researchers realized that labeling the device a “Tepid Water Dispenser” would have a chilling effect on customer demand and so they decided we’d rather have them lie to us and call it a “Cold Water Dispenser.” They knew we weren’t going to read the manual before we purchased the refrigerator and it never occurred to me to ask the salesperson at Lowes, “What is the actual temperature of the water that emanates from the Cold Water Dispenser during the summer months at our latitude?” Next time, it will.

The current issue is from a rather opposite direction; lately we’ve been finding frozen foods in our refrigerated section. Carrots, salad and one other thing of greater concern: the little jar of jalapeno jam that we brought back from New Braunfels, Texas. For the first month of its residence here at our place, the jam had the same jalapeno-ey green color that it had in Texas. Now, it’s sort of a milky looking color, somewhat resembling a lumpy mayo-mustard concoction. But… and in this case it’s a very important little conjunction… it still tastes like the stuff we loved in Texas!

There are things in which appearance is not only an important point, it’s the whole point. Art, hairstyles and portraits come to mind. In others, it’s not quite as crucial. Fortunately for me, that includes Randa’s devotion to me. Admittedly, she does like the fact that I bathe regularly, comb my hair and usually keep my beard trimmed. Even more fortunately, I know that God does not judge us based on appearances.

We might have more in common with a jar of jalapeno jam than we realize.

H. Arnett
2/11/15

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Seed Money

Posted on February 10, 2015 by Doc Arnett

We got a letter from one of our granddaughters yesterday, the only one who is big enough to write. It was a wonderful little letter from Maria, written inside a polar bear card, thanking us for the Christmas gifts. We’d sent each of the families a big box. Inside the box, along with the wooden casserole rack, were individual paper bags with fresh roasted peanuts and a plastic bag with a huge homemade cookie and one other small surprise.

Maria said that her oldest brother had salted his peanuts and roasted them some more before eating them. She ate some of hers and then decided they’d still taste good later and last a lot longer if she put them in the freezer. She also put that sharp little mind of hers to work on how to handle the slight shipping damage to the cookie.

Traveling from Kansas to Key West is bound to include a few jerks and jolts. Between transfer and turbulence, and all the other incidentals of commercial shipping, an oatmeal raisin walnut cranberry cookie is going to lose a detail or two along the way. So, Maria mixed some peanuts with the cookie crumbs and had herself a fine little snack. She said the ten-dollar bill really smelled good, too. She didn’t try to eat it, though; she’s saving that to buy a “shiny, very shiny red Mustang.”

Now folks, that’s possibility thinking there! That’s planning and purpose, determination and dedication.

A lot of people, and many of them a lot older than Maria but not much more mature, would think, “Sheesh, it’s just ten bucks. That’s nothing. I might as well go buy some candy or a couple of cheeseburgers, or go see a movie.” Which is fine, really, there are worse ways to spend Christmas money. They’d eat, burp and move on to the next disappointment of their lives. And go right on, always thinking life never gives them what they deserve and feeling sorry for themselves because they never have anything.

Instead, Maria has a plan, devotes what she has to the purpose and keeps moving in that direction. And, in an age that seems devoted to the neglect, if not deliberate destruction of courtesy, propriety and decency, took the time to write a wonderful letter thanking us for thinking of her.

Those who sense God’s blessing in the small things and gratefully steward their opportunities often find greater blessings come their way. We might just go ahead and double our contribution to Maria’s project. I’d love a ride in a shiny red Mustang in about ten years!

H. Arnett
2/10/15

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A Tithe of Thanksgiving

Posted on February 9, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Just over a year ago, our little congregation found itself in rather disturbing financial condition. Frankly, some of us wondered whether or not we’d lose the building and property within the coming year. It looked rather challenging, one might say. Another one might say our chances of making it through our financial crisis resembled those of a snowball in a place one hears of from time to time in church.

Circumstances and chances notwithstanding, we resolved to trust the Lord and continue seeking his will and serving him. And to tighten our belt in regard to monetary matters.

When our elders and deacons met in the first week of November and got the monthly treasurer’s report, we found that we were in better shape than we expected. We immediately devoted part of that to our benevolence fund. When we met again in December, we found ourselves in even better shape. Way better shape! As we discussed the change with excited and grateful hearts, one of our elders suggested that we ought to put our gratitude into tangible expression.

“We’ve been blessed far more than we could imagine,” he stated calmly but with conviction, “Last year at this time we were afraid we might lose this building. Now we find ourselves in far better shape than I ever expected.” He paused for a second or two and looked around the table at each person, “I think we should give a tithe to the Lord.”

Most often, when modern day believers think about tithing, they think about giving to their church, their congregation or denomination. How does a church give an offering? Some do it by tithing to their denomination. That wasn’t what this fellow had in mind.

“I’d like for us to give a tenth of our church balance to benevolence; whatever we have at the end of the year we give to the poor to show the Lord that we appreciate what he has done for us.”

There was immediate positive reaction from every other elder and all the deacons. We decided that even though we were going to use a considerable portion of the money to help complete the building and do some other outreach projects, we were going to base our tithe on the balance we had before those other things were done.

We’re not going to bring any huge financial change to anyone’s life, I guess. But by God’s grace and blessing, a few folks will know that the Lord has been thinking about them and has prompted us to give those thoughts more tangible expression.

H. Arnett
2/9/15

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Homemade Memories

Posted on February 6, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Something about the sky this morning reminds me of Mom’s cobbler crusts. It’s certainly not the colors; nothing about the faint hints of pink and orange splotched into the blues and grays of the eastern sky does that. Her colors were shades of baked flour, hues of tans and browns and beiges in rippling blend across the top of the Jewel Tea baking dish with a bit of sugar sparkle. I think it’s that texture, that pattern of dips and rises, varying intensities of shade shaped by hand and laid across the top of apples or peaches.

As I walk out toward the barn, there’s a warming glow starting to show across the ridge that runs along the creek. A hint of heat coming, even to this cold morning.

There’s nothing in the feel of the air or the haloed shape of the moon settling toward the west above these miles of snow-covered fields and hills that brings her cooking to mind. Maybe something about the crunching sound of the frozen layer toward the barn has me thinking about that first serving, the way the crust crumbled around the edge of the spoon, the steaming smell of baked fruit.

I can see her hands, one holding the dish and the other lifting the spoon from bowl to plate, hear her voice, “Is that enough or do you want more?” even though she knew the answer would always have just one syllable.

In remembering those scents and sounds, flavors and textures, I know it’s more than the taste of hot cobbler I’m missing this morning. And yet, there’s something strangely comforting in the glow of the morning sky and the changing shapes of passing clouds, fading toward the east, toward that place that we all will meet someday.

H. Arnett
2/6/15

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A Good Start to a Cold Day

Posted on February 5, 2015 by Doc Arnett

I suppose it would be easy enough to curse the cold in Kansas this morning. There’s certainly enough of it, even here in the least east corner. With Mr. Fahrenheit’s red-eyed glass slumping at the minus-four mark, it’s cold. It feels cold. This is the kind of cold where a cup of boiling water bursts into steam as soon as it hits the air and nary a drop hits the ground. The kind of cold where your fingers start tingling by the time you get to the mailbox.

I suppose I could also curse the snow, what with the fresh three or four inches on top of the five or six we already had and a melted, thawed re-frozen base beneath it that makes it slicker than oil on glass.

But instead I’m being grateful this morning. Grateful for my insulated coveralls. Grateful for my insulated boots. Grateful for thick gloves, wool scarf and hat. Grateful for my tractor and a garage in which to park it. Grateful for natural gas. Grateful for electricity. Grateful for the sausage sizzling in the skillet when I come back in from blading the driveway. Grateful for the woman sizzling the sausage. Grateful for jobs, a car with a good heater and good tires.

I think if I keep this up for another minute or two, I just might be ready to start the day! And starting a day with gratitude sure feels better than starting one with grumbling.

H. Arnett
2/5/15

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Training Run

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Doc Arnett

One of the little resolutions that I’ve made for this year is to be slightly more competitive in my mud running hobby. In my usual way of not over-challenging myself, I’m not setting my sights on actually winning any of the races. I found out a long time ago that setting high goals usually means an awful lot of hard work. Aspiring to the middle of the pack generally lowers the workload considerably and I’m all about lower workloads.

Having rocketed from the depths of obscurity to the heights of mediocrity early on in my career, I’ve managed to sustain a moderate pace throughout. But this year, I’m going to stretch myself a bit; I’m going to see if I can’t shave a few minutes off my course completion times in Warrior Dash, Rugged Maniacs and Conquer the Gauntlet. I’m going all out for Tough Mudder and trying to cut a whopping fifteen minutes off that one. I may actually try to run part of the time in it this year!

Just to show you how carried away this insanity is becoming, let me tell you about my last outdoor training run.

The temperature last Saturday was in the upper thirties with a light to moderate drizzle falling all day. The ground was soggy in the grassy places and mushy in the bare places. By late afternoon, the temperature had fallen slightly. I thought the conditions were just about perfect so I put on my shorts, dry-fit tee shirt and trail sandals then headed over to the dirt bike, Moto Cross, hill climb trail near our house.

I drove my little truck down the spongy gravel lane and parked at the trailhead. By the time I’d got to the footbridge, my shoes were already muddy. By the time I’d gone a hundred feet on the trail, large clumps of mud had clamped onto each shoe. As I made my way around the pond and headed up the hill, I felt the drizzle soaking into my hair and shirt. Wet leaves slid beneath my feet as I plod-jogged up the trail. At the bottom of the first hill, I turned off the trail into the trees. I crossed a frozen ditch where the ice pitched over an edge and created a tiny waterfall: three feet of frozen white, several inches thick.

I made my way up the next hill, down it and up another and then crossed the bare hill at the creek. My footprints had grown from size 9 to size 15 with all the mud packed onto my sandals. I slipped and slid down the mud banks, turned back along the creek and toward the starting point, then kept on going.

As I was nearing the end of my second lap, I felt the drizzle begin to sting a bit and knew it was turning to sleet. Halfway up the first hill on the final lap, I looked off into the trees and could see the snow, sifting silently into the brush. I grinned to myself, “I can’t believe I’m out here running in the snow!” With daylight fading and the snow falling more heavily, I slogged on through the woods, mesmerized by the magic of the moment. The treacherous footing made me keep my focus primarily on the path, but I had to gamble on a few looks. The air was filled with white streaks of falling flakes, filtering through the branches, backdropped by the dark trunks and fallen leaves.

I was soaked, my hands were tingling and my feet stinging. Mud plastered my shoes and streaked my calves and splotched the backs of my thighs as I pushed myself up the last hill. My lungs burned and my legs ached but I was laughing out loud. “I can’t believe I’m out here, running in this mess and actually having a ball!”

Maybe it’s more of a gift than a talent, but when we can appreciate the beauty around us in spite of our pain and the mess we’ve put ourselves in, there is hope for better days. And, hey, if I can keep this up for a few months, I just might be one of the fastest old crazy guys out there. Hopefully, there aren’t many others like me…

H. Arnett
2/4/15

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An Agonizing Victory

Posted on February 3, 2015 by Doc Arnett

There can be no question regarding the grief and pain of this occasion. It is clear in the expressions and manner of the family and friends. It is unmistakable in the faces of parents and sibling, aunts and uncles, cousins and other kin. This man they mourn was murdered not quite a week ago. Andrew’s girlfriend’s ex-husband used a vehicle to crash the garage door while they lay sleeping. Even though his own two children were also asleep in the house, the ex made his way into the adults’ bedroom, where he shot both Andrew and Amanda in the head. He then left the scene and turned himself in a little later to law enforcement authorities.

I don’t know whether or not the man gave any thought at all to the horrible impact his actions would have on his own children, his own parents, his own friends and relatives. The great seductive power of evil is often based on its ability to blind us to its true consequences; we focus on the expected pleasure, whether it is lust or vengeance, to the exclusion of all else. In the heat of passion, we take action that ripples through so many lives, often altering our own with far greater effect than we imagine.

Whatever else he thought, it is apparent that the ex-husband fully intend to murder his ex-wife and her boyfriend. He succeeded, halfway.

Andrew died immediately if not instantly. Amanda did not. After she was sure the shooter had left, she took the children and ran to a neighbor’s house. Bleeding profusely from the wound in her face and almost blinded by the pain, she begged the neighbors to call 911 and told them who had shot her and Andrew. She was rushed to the hospital in Saint Joseph and then transferred to a hospital in Kansas City. At the time, there was serious question about her survival, not to mention possible long-term effects from the shooting.

Miraculously, Amanda recovered sufficiently enough to leave the hospital on Thursday of the following week. Not only did she leave the hospital, she was also able to come to the funeral the next day. Accompanied by both of her daughters and her father, she walked to the front of the sanctuary at New Life Church and stood at Andrew’s casket. With her heart breaking, she said goodbye to the man she loved, the man who loved her and her children. After her silent communion, after she had walked back to the hallway with her father, I introduced myself and spoke with her for just a moment or two.

“We knew right away we were right for each other. We never bickered; we never fought in any way. He was so gentle, so steady, so loving.” Then, she paused, shook her head sadly and spoke the words that cut me to the core, “We were going to grow old together.”

I cannot truly imagine the pain that Amanda and all the others who love Andrew felt at the funeral and still feel. But I do know that I found an immense satisfaction in seeing her there, in knowing that the vicious evil planned against her had fallen short of its intent. I know that she must have been in a dramatic degree of physical pain as well as emotional anguish. But she was there. And sometimes being there is so much more than what seems possible.

It is often in situations that we would gladly avoid that we achieve our greatest moments, our greatest expressions of courage, determination and character. I think this was such a moment and I was privileged to witness it.

I have a new hero; her name is Amanda Simpson.

H. Arnett
2/3/15

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Conflicted Lives

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Doc Arnett

In just a very few hours, Lord willing, the friends and family of Andrew Clary will gather together at New Life Church in Blair, Kansas, in a ritual as old as humanity. Beginning with the founding family from the Garden of Eden, we humans have dealt with death and violence. From the crucible of jealousy, anger spilled into wrath and Cain shed his brother’s blood.

I have sometimes wondered what horrific anguish that must have been for Adam and Eve, to stand at the grave of their son and know that he died at his own brother’s hand. The agony of loss compounded with the torture of knowing their surviving son was a murderer. Even to this day, there are parents who must endure similar ordeals when siblings kill siblings.

Though those pains have a different complexity, they are not completely dissimilar to the parents of those who murder others. It is an almost incomprehensible thing to me to try to put myself into the place of those mothers and fathers. It is awful enough when our children wreck their own lives in various ways. If possible, even more awful when they wreck their own lives and the lives of others.

These actions ripple from one life to another to another until the effects and after-effects spread throughout a whole family, neighborhood and community. Lives of children and parents, friends and relatives are inevitably and irreversibly altered. But they are not necessarily ruined.

Even with the loss, the pain and the scars that burn through our deepest parts, humans are still able to live fulfilled and meaningful lives. Even though it seems that we cannot possibly go on, we do. Or at least, we can.

As surely as others made awful, despicable choices that brought us into these circumstances, our own choices will determine where we go from here. We can give in to fear and pain, anger and bitterness, and despair. Or, in spite of the aching numbness, we take one more step, make one more choice in the direction of life. We focus on our loss and our heartache and shut down all other interactions, or we focus upon those that we love and we put our hands and theirs and move toward healing. We can hollow our hearts and our souls with hatred and shackle ourselves as prisoners of those we despise or we can rise above their example and move toward the mercy that sets us free.

Cain was punished but allowed to live by God’s mercy. Adam and Eve had another son, Seth, and grandsons by both Cain and Seth. They did not see loving them as dishonoring Abel, who has been with God ever since.

We do not defile the memories of those who loved us by moving on with our lives; we honor them.

H. Arnett
1/30/15

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