Again

Posted on December 1, 2014 by Doc Arnett

After the gorge of Thanksgiving dinner, after the table has been cleared and Randa is finally able to shift out of holiday gear, we sit together on the small couch in the TV room. Some of the other adults sit on the larger couch. A couple of the men sit in the large doorway between the dining room and TV room. One of the teenagers sits on the hassock, playing with one of the dogs. He scratches her ears and ruffles the loose skin on her neck.

Ann Marie, who is the only female here less than thirty years old, ignores her brother for a while and comes and sits on my lap.

She is jam-packed with energy and imagination and a persistent inclination to find very good reasons for doing something other than what she has been told to do. She apparently cannot walk past any knob, lever, dial or switch without turning it, flipping it, rotating it or otherwise manipulating it. I would say that if she’s not sleeping, she’s in motion. However, Dan and Christie say that even when she’s sleeping she’s still in motion, twisting and flipping and flopping about in her bed.

She is certainly in motion on my lap: twisting, squirming, bouncing and talking a mile a minute. After a bit, she turns around so that she is facing me. I lift up both hands in what a reasonable and prudent adult would mistake for a sign of obvious surrender. Ann Marie knows that I’m inviting her to play Pat-A-Cake or something similar.

She starts slapping my hands vigorously. I pull one hand away and then the other and she catches the cue to start alternating hands. I start slowly, then increase the pace until it becomes staccato. After a few turns of that, Ann Marie starts pushing against my hands, trying to force them backwards. I yield to that until my hands touch my shoulders, then push her back until she is lying against my knees. “Again!” she yells and we do it again.

After each turn, she demands, “Again, Papa Doc; do it again!”

I’ve gained enough wisdom and lost enough strength over the years to know I’m not going to wear her out with this game. It is a delight to me, though, to see the delight in her eyes and to have her close like this. When grandchildren live five hundred miles away, there are too few of these moments and we cherish this closeness, this brief pleasure, this simple sharing.

I think our heavenly Father enjoys such moments, too, when we delight in His presence, revel in His closeness. I bet His eyes light up when we experience the nearness of His Spirit, rejoice in the divine nature and cry out to Him, “Again, Papa God, again!”

H. Arnett
12/1/14

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Answers

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Doc Arnett

We sometimes wake to mornings like this–
a light mist formed above frozen ground,
muffled sounds from the road up on the ridge,
an old bridge groaning under the load
of a grain truck easing its way toward town,
the neighbor’s damn dog barking… again.

On these windless days, we make our way
toward the next of our lives–
habits of work and weekends,
spending what time we can call our own
doing too little of the things that bring us
something like satisfaction,
cramming what we can of diversion
into such small spaces it feels
more like punishment than pleasure.

We measure the distance between what we have
and what we were pretty sure we wanted
and wonder how it is
we ended up this far apart.

At some point, we begin to think
of those we’ve loved and lost,
gauge the cost of giving up against going on.

At some further point, if we’re truly averse
to our own happiness, we begin to reflect
on how we will someday join the going on
and how little difference it will make.

A week, a month, a year or two,
and the mist will rise again above frozen ground,
trucks will rumble toward town,
and some other damn dog will be barking
in this great, grinding cycle of that grand benevolent indifference
which is so vital to the world, so numbing to the one
listening for the echo of his own yapping through the fog,
waiting for some reflecting ripple
from the lichened limestone bluffing the bank of a stony creek.

Even through the grayness of such days as this,
we listen through the mist, meekly sensing the Spirit
in his drawing nearness, speaking in that soft, intimate voice,
of choices and changes, the beauty of duty done in small ways,
reminding us that we are not measured in the ways of the world,
not in gains and losses, trash and treasure,
but whether or not we have listened to something more grand,
yielded to the touch of an unseen hand.

Regardless of the size of the stone that marks our passing,
regardless of the size of the crowd that mourns,
all else matters not but the asking of two simple questions:

Have we loved one another?
Have we loved the One Who Has Made Us?

H. Arnett
11/21/14

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Wednesday

Posted on November 19, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Walk in the way of peace.

Enjoy the least of God’s good blessings.

Delight in doing what is right.

Nurture the needs of loving and kindness.

Enjoy being mindful of others.

Speak words that bring healing and encouragement.

Deepen your awareness of those around you.

Acknowledge the power and presence of God.

Yield to the shaping of the Holy Spirit.

H. Arnett

11/19/14

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A Strange November

Posted on November 17, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Something has gone amiss in this land of bliss and sunshine,
something has gone awry in this place of cloudless skies.

Someone has flipped the calendar at least two months ahead,
or else the map has twisted and the continent fell on its head.

The wind that we are feeling over here in the good old Heartland
has more of an Arctic feel than what we’d like to stand.

What they’re calling “today’s high” seems much more like a low;
and I’m almost completely certain that it’s much too cold to snow!

It is not just or right to be stealing weather from the Eskimeaux
and dumping it on top of people who live this far below.

I can see the signs of dawning above the ridge to the east,
but when the sun arises, we will not feel it in the least.

It should not be like this, this early in November;
ten days below freezing–now that’s something we’ll remember!

The bunnies are buying booties and the birds are sporting bonnets,
I just saw a fox run by with a thick fur coat upon it.

And if the animals of the wild survive without so much as a heater,
I’m sure I’ll be alright, but I dread to read the meter.

Through sixty winters of such thus far, the Lord has seen me through,
and I am fully confident we’ll make it through this one, too.

Though the trees are bare and the aching snow covers the hills,
He’ll not only keep me safe, He’ll help me pay my bills!

H. Arnett
11/17/14

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Vinegar

Posted on November 13, 2014 by Doc Arnett

I was pretty sure that the first batch of hard cider I made this season was going to ruin. To do it right, the first thing you’re supposed to do is dump in a carefully measured dose of food grade potassium bisulfite (also called Campden) or some other such thing that’s designed to annihilate every living organism in the general vicinity. As the story goes, the chemical breaks down or disappears or just loses its hostility within eighteen hours and leaves the juice sterile and all the sugar intact, just waiting for the cultured yeast that is specifically engineered to turn the juice into cider. Or wine, if that’s your goal, which it isn’t in my case.

Now, of course, simple country folk like me have been making cider without going through all that for several millennia. In fact, unless you boil the fresh juice or dump some kind of chemical into it, it’s pretty darn hard to keep it from turning into cider. The yeast that turns apple juice into cider is already there in the apples. Problem is, sometimes so is the yeast that continues the process and turns the cider into vinegar.

I’d read on the internet, and of course, you can’t put it on the internet if it’s not true, that the vinegar yeast tends to be on the outside of the apples. So, I started rinsing my apples in a very weak but still effective solution of bleach water and then rinsing them with clean water. Apparently, that makes a difference. Or else I was just plain lucky.

Like I said, I fully expected that first four or five gallons in the garage to have turned into vinegar. But, before I threw it away or gave it away to people who inexplicably find vinegar useful and desirable, I figured I should at least check it and be sure.

Expecting the sample to be about as sweet as alum, I took a very small sip. “Hmmm… this actually tastes a bit like hard cider.” So, I took a little larger sip. “Hmmm… this actually tastes quite a bit like hard cider.” So, I drew off another, larger sample. By the time I’d finished three or four more samples, I was convinced, “This is actually pretty darn good stuff.”

So, instead of filling a few plastic jugs with vinegar, I ended up filling up forty-eight glass bottles with cider. It’s a hard thing for a recovering pessimist to admit, but sometimes things do turn out better than I thought they might. And yet, even though the occasional shortcut might yield better results than expected, it’s still a good idea to make it a habit to use the process most likely to produce the desired outcome.

Of course, we can always just take our chances. I’ve found, though, that the less attention we give to getting rid of the negative stuff in our lives, hearts and minds, the more likely we are to taste vinegar.

H. Arnett
11/13/14

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Beyond the Shadows

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Sometimes the shadows stretch into the light,
sometimes the night snatches what belongs to day.
Sometimes darkness makes its way
into the deeper parts of heart and soul.

We find our minds running the deeper furrows
of long valleys that wind their way along,
burrowing through the barren places
where everything feels cold and lonely.

Gray rises from within us,
making its way through the well-worn paths
of love and friendship that have lasted
from days long past,

threatening the very source
of our most sacred happinesses.

In these days, we struggle to rise from rest,
reluctant to leave the warm nest of sleep
that keeps us safe, gives us a break
from the long days of melancholy that we can’t explain.

Embarrassed and awkward,
we try to break through the darkness,
knowing there is no reason that justifies
the shadows in our eyes, the flat tone.

But even within this clinging veil,
we know that we are not alone,
even in the palest tones of life’s longest days,
His light makes its way through the clouds

that shroud our thoughts with exaggerated faults
and the whole long list of what we wish was otherwise.

In the end, we know, that it is His perpetual sending
of love, hope and faith,
that keeps us from the chasm beyond the realm of grace.
Even in the midst of this aching numbness,

He comes to us in a thousand different ways,
gently reaching through the humbling darkness,
touching us in the voices we barely hear,
His Spirit always near us, always drawing close and closer

until one morning, we see the blaze of dawning
burning through bare branches on the frozen ridge
and know that we will yet again
feel the ancient fire stir within us,

we will once again feel the smiles of those we have missed,
soft as whispered kisses upon half-closed eyes.

H. Arnett
11/12/14

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The Un-giving Trees

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Doc Arnett

At the western edge of the Wolf River Bottoms, where the highway turns north at Sparks toward White Cloud, a small orchard nests on the edge of the first slope. A dozen old-line trees cluster their branches above thick grass. As the seasons pass, sprigs turn into leaves, buds open into blooms and blooms morph into fruit. As the summer moves along, the apples grow thick and heavy in the good years. There are at least four varieties of fruit in the small orchard. I’m not sure what any of them are but my guesses are for Golden Delicious, Granny Smith, Jonathan and Red Delicious. In reflection, I think there are a couple more types as well.

Each tree produces according to its nature and the season, with four of the trees producing huge rounded reds, another two or three the speckled greens, noticeably smaller but still good-sized. One tree, near the middle, yields a smaller red apple, less sweet than the big reds but with a pleasing flavor and firm meat.

Every tree in the orchard is a heavy producer. The branches bow toward earth with limbs loaded with fruit by late summer. As the apples continue filling in early autumn, the branches bend down toward the ground. Occasionally, owing to the strain of weight and the stress of wind, a branch will break. Otherwise, the little orchard will be filled with apples.

In spite of the bounty, almost no one comes to pick the apples. As they ripen, they begin to fall, heavy with sap and sugar. By mid-October, the ground within the arc of each tree’s branches will be completely covered with apples. Except for the two trees near the eastern edge of the orchard.

It is not that these trees don’t produce; their branches are as loaded as any of the trees, filled with small-to-medium sized greenish-golden apples. The apples have a good flavor, too. But they do not drop. They hang in the tree like ornaments instead of fruit.

I last visited the orchard on the first Saturday in November, a cool but clear day in Northeastern Kansas. In less than thirty minutes, I picked up six hundred pounds of apples and left two thousand more covering the ground beneath the trees. Beneath all but that stingy pair. They stood there, branches still filled with apples… and every apple thoroughly rotten.

Something about that reminded me that it really doesn’t matter how gifted we are, unless we are willing to give.

H. Arnett
11/10/14

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Burrs & Cockleburs

Posted on October 17, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Years ago, I worked in a community that was so small it had only one office supply store. If you needed paper, you bought it there. If you needed printer supplies, you bought them there. If you wanted to make copies, you made them there. The next closest outlet was twenty miles away. As you can imagine, their prices reflected their unique market position. As you might not imagine, so did the manager.

He was curt, unfriendly, snippy and sarcastic. In addition to those fine qualities, he was also prone to backbiting and criticizing. Any time I requested help with a particular order, it was obvious that I was intruding on his personal time and making an unreasonable demand by asking for help clearing a paper jam. It didn’t matter that he was charging me per copy; that was beside the point.

In spite of the lack of reward, I made a deliberate effort to be friendly and pleasant. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not so much. He could be semi-pleasant on occasion but he was never friendly. In fact, he was generally unpleasant and so I avoided going there as much as I could.

His co-worker worked under his supervision. She, by great contrast, was invariably friendly, pleasant and helpful. I could not understand why the owner didn’t fire the jerk and put her in charge. I could easily understand why she finally packed it in and sought her economic fortune elsewhere. I think the nearest salt mine would have been a good alternative.

Eventually, at least a decade or more after the change should have been made, the owner finally dismissed the employee and hired a new manager. Talk about contrast! The new manager was friendly, cooperative, helpful and pleasant. She also began to stock new inventory with an evident interest in customer satisfaction. The atmosphere changed so much that I not only no longer dreaded the necessary trips, I even began to drop in just to say hello if I happened to be going by the store.

Over the years, I have continued to notice how much effect one person can have on the climate in a store, an office or at a small school. You can have a group of three or eight really nice people; throw in one grouch and the whole place is affected. Even though my natural inclination is somewhere between old badger and sore-tailed tomcat, I have tried to be a positive component of the setting regardless of where I have worked or lived. I know that there have been times when I’ve failed and a time or two when the failure was pretty miserable.

But that’s not going to keep me from trying to act like a decent human being today. If I can keep up the act long enough, I think I might even start to believe it myself.

H. Arnett
10/17/14

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Alarming Ideas

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Some mornings, when the alarm clock starts its shrill beeping, I just tap the snooze button and keep on sleeping. Some mornings, I pop right up out of bed, dress in two minutes and get right to whatever it is I have to get right to that morning. Some mornings, I groan, flop over and slap the snooze button then repeat as necessary until I’m at that absolute last decision point, “Do I feel lousy enough to use up a precious sick day or am I going to drag my worthless carcass out of bed and go to work?” Those mornings feel more like moanings, which also goes to show how important a single consonant can be in a word. “I’d like to buy an ‘a’ and throw that ‘r’ away, please.”

This morning, the alarm sounded, I hit the snooze button and immediately started wondering, “Why is it called an ‘alarm clock?'”

Okay, look, it’s early, I’m sleepy and should not be held fully responsible for my initial cognitive response. Whether that gets me off the hook or not, I continued pondering that question.

Doesn’t an alarm signify danger? Isn’t it a warning of some kind? Isn’t the message, “Run! Save yourself! Something really awful is happening; you should escape as quickly as possible!” I’d say that flopping over and dozing off hardly seems like an appropriate response to imminent danger. If that was an alarm, seems like it failed pretty miserably to provoke the correct reaction.

Now the “warning” part, I can go along with. “Look, Buddy, that sweet rest of yours is pretty much over. You’re gonna have to face the fact that you are a responsible citizen, drag yourself out of that warm bed and go earn your daily bread, Bubba.” But we don’t call them “warning clocks,” do we?

If I can be granted the hypocritical indulgence of at least feigning optimism for a moment or two, shouldn’t we call them “welcome clocks” or something like that? “Good morning, my friend. I just want to be the first to welcome you to this new day, the day the Lord has made. It’s just waiting for you; the whole universe is conspiring to do you good today. Welcome, my friend, to all the good things it will bring.”

Maybe we could even see them as “invitation clocks,” inviting us to opportunities and challenges, precious moments and trials alike, always remembering that all of those things work together for good for those who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. That certainly sounds to me like a better way to start my day.

Maybe, at the least, we could just call them “reminder clocks.” “Hey, look, sorry to be the one that has to remind you, but…” At least then we’re not in an adversarial relationship, expecting bad news and thinking only of danger and disaster every time the little fellow makes a noise.

I mean, seriously folks, how good can we feel about our lives when every single working day starts out with an alarm?

H. Arnett
10/15/14

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Making It Through the Muck

Posted on October 14, 2014 by Doc Arnett

I knew it had been raining in the vicinity of Shamrock, Missouri, last weekend but I had no idea how much rain they’d had. I know they hide information like that in newspapers and online articles and websites and such but I didn’t demonstrate enough initiative to investigate. On the one hand, I figured it didn’t matter; I was just hoping the forecast for rain and mid-fifties during the race Saturday afternoon would turn out to be inaccurate. I was hoping for sunny and sixty, at the least. As we turned off County Road 1042 into the pasture-slash-parking area, I took a different point of view regarding local rainfall.

Two tractors were busy towing minivans and sedans toward their parking spots.

Part of the problem, a big part of the problem, was that a lot of people have no idea how to drive through mud and mush. Some try to creep through, apparently afraid of getting muck on their car. Others floor the accelerator, as if spinning their tires at eighty-miles-an-hour will give them some advantage. It does not.

Another part of the problem was that the volunteers kept directing drivers of cars with six inches of ground clearance toward a terrace that had a dip on the low side and another one on the high side, creating a lip that required at least a foot of clearance. But at least the combination of factors was keeping the tractor guys busy.

Finally, one of the volunteers gave me the okay to try a different route, one with a lot less slope and no craters. I got a short running start, kept my speed up without spinning into a stall and then took a sharp turn to the left after I passed the terrace. Those years of growing up on the farm, driving tractors and pickup trucks on dirt paths and logging trails had paid off yet once more. If you can drive an empty, rear-wheel drive pickup through a muddy bog and up a sloppy hill, doing it with front-wheel drive seems like cheating.

It would turn out to be a day of cheating for me.

No, I didn’t try to sneak in; I paid my parking fee, my entry fee and Randa’s spectator fee. I didn’t try to get a ringer to run in my place or take any short cuts on the eleven-mile jaunt through the mud. I didn’t even skip any of the obstacles. Knowing that I was going to be wet and in the chill and wind for a few hours, I’d stuffed a little help into one of my pockets.

About two hours in, after wading through the creek a couple of times and jumping into the pool from fifteen feet high, I started getting cold. Standing in line for the wall/rope climb, I started shivering. Then I started shaking. After waiting for twenty-to-thirty minutes, it was finally my turn.

I gripped the rope and lifted my leg to step onto the first slat fastened across the bottom of the fifteen-foot high wall. As soon as I lifted my foot, my right calf muscle spasmed. My foot slid off about eight inches away from where I was trying to put it. As soon as I lifted my left foot, the same thing happened to that leg. My feet splayed around and I spun toward the side, just like the guy a couple of places in front of me had done. Somehow, I got my feet to place in the vicinity of where I wanted them and started pulling and stepping up the wall. I grabbed the top ledge, worked around the rope and over. Then I grabbed the rope on the opposite side and made my way down those slats… in a bit less time.

As I started on down the mud trail, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the large black trash bag I’d stuffed in there. My hands were shaking so much I had a hard time getting it opened. Eventually, I got it opened, shook it to get air inside it and pulled it down over me. I even managed to poke my head through the hole I’d cut out just for such an emergency.

Within two minutes, I felt warm again. For the next five miles, I looked like the ace of spades from “Alice in Wonderland.” Big black bag with skinny legs sticking out the bottom and an old gray-bearded face sticking out the top. No arms; I figured I’d stay warmer if I kept them inside. Every time I’d go by a group of people, I’d hear someone snicker. One young guy ran by me as we headed into a woods. “Good thinking, man,” he panted as he went by, “Good idea.”

Every time I approached an obstacle, I’d take the bag off and stuff it into my pocket. On the other side, I’d put it back on. I loved my big black bag. It wasn’t toasty warm but it certainly blocked off the wind and kept me from having to deal with mild hypothermia. After the jump into the ice pit and having to duck below the center barrier and wade over to the other side, my love for my big black garbage bag approached life commitment status.

In the tenth mile, I passed a large group of young, athletic looking participants. As I jogged by, I heard one young woman start laughing out loud, “Did you see that?! That is ridiculous!” It stung a bit but I grinned to myself and thought, “I’m sixty years old; you’re twenty-three. If you want to laugh at me as I run by you ten miles into an eleven-mile race, go ahead.”

Soon after that, the sun broke through the clouds for a while and my bag turned into a real body warmer. Something about black and ultraviolet rays, I think. A half-mile from the finish line, I pulled off my bag and stuck it back into my pocket. I crossed the finish line about five minutes ahead of Laughing Girl.

I knew ahead of time people would laugh but I knew that I needed the help of a thin plastic garbage bag. Admitting that in front of hundreds of strangers wasn’t really something I looked forward to or enjoyed. But I was willing to endure it in order to conserve my body heat and retain enough strength to finish the race. I’d rather be laughed at as I cross the finish line than to be admired as they haul me off on an ATV.

That’s the same way I feel about being cloaked with the blood of Jesus. Sometimes, the fear of ridicule makes us lay down the garment of our beliefs. Let’s keep ourselves focused on the finish line; let’s not worry about who’ll be laughing then.

H. Arnett

10/14/14

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