Evening Grazing

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Doc Arnett

I work my way along the fence
on the east side of the pasture
where mulberry and pigweeds
keep pressing their needs
against the line of the wires
that set the boundary of grass and grazing.

Unclipped, their green stalks
would short the circuit that is meant
to keep the horse from pressing his way
through the course of wires into the longer grass
that is just past the reach
of twisted neck, extended head.

He could easily run right through
the weave of thin strands of extruded plastic
and micro-thin strands of conductor
that carry the current from solar charger
to the circuit of the field.

But the gelding has generally agreed
to forego free will
and spare himself that momentary pain
that would gain him greater range,
which would also include the highway
only a few seconds away
where pickup trucks with flatbed trailers
and semi’s fully loaded
run by at seventy-miles-an-hour.

I doubt that he has any notion at all
about how his yielding to a higher power
gives him so much more
than a quick wad of greener grass,
a brief moment of unfettered running.

He stands near the short silhouette of a scrub oak tree,
sleek hide burnished by evening sun,
tail and mane training toward the north,
soft blades of bluegrass and brome
hanging out both sides of his mouth.

H. Arnett
9/4/14

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25th Anniversary

Posted on September 2, 2014 by Doc Arnett

My earliest memory of building or remodeling is of taking old pieces of wood and driving nails into them. “Hold the handle down here,” Dad said, “and swing like this so the head of the hammer comes down right on top of the head of the nail. You’ll get more power that way.” By the time I was seven, I’d gotten enough practice that he let me “help” drive a few nails into the Sheetrock we installed in finishing out the upstairs of the garage we lived in while our new house was being built. I’ve been addicted to building and remodeling things ever since then.

Randa’s earliest memories are of riding horses. Before she could even walk, her dad had her sitting up in front of him, riding. By the time she was six or seven, she could ride well. She rode so well in fact that Scotty once used her to “show up” some college kid who had lied about his ability to ride and wrangle. On his first day, he came back to the corral without bringing up a single horse of the group he was supposed to be gathering up for a day’s work on the ranch in Wyoming. Scotty grabbed Randa and swung her up onto Spyder. In twenty minutes or less she had the full string up to the corral.

“What does that have to do with anyone’s twenty-fifth anniversary?” you might be wondering. Reasonable question. I’ll see if I can wring out an answer for you.

After sleeping in an hour or two later than usual, we had breakfast on the patio yesterday morning. There was a lovely breeze as the last straggling clouds from the storm the night before made their way east. We chatted a while, reminisced about our early celebration trip to Wyoming this summer.

Then, for most of the afternoon, I worked on painting the “new” master bedroom and Randa worked with her horse for a while and then went for a ride. I guess some folks would say that’s kind of a strange way to celebrate an anniversary, the two of us doing things separately that seem completely unrelated. In fact, we were both doing something that we love doing, something so deeply a part of us that it defines who we are. It also defines us as a couple and speaks to the key of a strong, healthy relationship.

We’ve learned to take pleasure not only in the things we do together but also in allowing one another the freedom to take pleasure in the things we do separately. Whether it’s my mud runs or her horse clinics, we find fulfillment in each other’s pursuit of other things. And we still have plenty of things that we enjoy doing together. Not the least of those things is a good steak supper at the end of a long day of painting and horseback riding.

By the same Grace that has led us through all of our troubles and trials, and the same Mercy that has given us so many fine and wonderful memories, I think we’ve got a pretty good shot at another twenty-five years.

H. Arnett
9/02/14

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A Prayer for Strength and Comfort

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Sometimes, we come bleeding before the throne,
barely believing that our own needs are known
before we have spoken them,

yet knowing that groanings too deep for words
have spoken to the Father’s heart,
the Spirit having done his part

to express what we can barely sense
in this taunt tension, this mixing of mind and emotion,
oceans stirred by thoughts and feelings

that run through our deepest core,
mined from the store of memory and dread,
ruining both yesterday and tomorrow.

We let ourselves forget that worry
borrows from the future to ruin the present day
(whose own evil will be sufficient.)

May you today, then, believe in mercy and grace,
face whatever comes your way,
knowing that God has not given us a spirit of fear,

but a Spirit of Love, Strength and Power,
one who draws near to us
and bends the ear of God toward our greatest needs.

And may you remember that you were loved
when you were still His enemy,
and that the One Who Died For You

also stands at the right hand of God,
interceding for you
without weariness or declining interest.

And in that memory and awareness,
as you strive to continue walking in the Light,
do your part to make a good day.

H. Arnett
8/29/14

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The Challenge of Teaching

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Doc Arnett

It seems like there is nearly always some degree of tension in teaching a subject area that you really love. Most teachers seem to choose something they are passionate about, something that they see as interesting, engaging and important.

Enter the reluctant adolescents.

Through force of mandated requirements, parental pressure or sheer stroke of scheduling, they find themselves stuck in classes taking subjects about which they know very little and care even less. Maybe their friend is taking third period Art class so they sign up for third period Art class. Maybe they have to have another year of math and yours is the only section left open. For whatever reason, they are stuck with you and you are stuck with them.

Of course, the incredible teachers in the movies are able to unlock the secret gateway to every student’s true love and passion and stir in each of them an insatiable desire and thirst for whatever subject it is that incredible teachers teach. The classroom transforms, usually within three days or less, into a dynamo of learning, enthusiasm and the deepest possible fulfillment of discovery and expression. That’s how it is for incredible teachers in the movies.

The rest of us try to figure out some way to engage the engage-able, thwart the mutinous, console the phobic, and survive for the current semester. Along the way, we manage to cover a respectable amount of material and generally agree to not kill, maim or cripple anyone in the process, at least not with malice aforethought. Usually, we find a few students who truly possess or develop an appreciation of the subject that we teach. Every now and then, we even change a life or two.

I used to think this was especially the case with teaching high school. Now, I think it’s much the same at the college level.

For one thing, many entering freshmen and sophomores are still more adolescent than adult. A society that at one time seemed to expect some level of adult behavior from humanoids that are twenty years old has now extended its apparent acceptance of adolescent behavior clear through grad school. And these humanoids still enroll in classes they really don’t want to take for the same reasons as in high school: graduation requirements, where their friends are and scheduling issues.

And so, college teachers and professors find themselves dealing with the same issues as their public school counterparts: irresponsibility, lack of interest and behavior. It is never easy to watch people all but spit on what is precious and dear to you. Which is something I should keep in mind the next time I’m about to be flippant or irreverent about something that is precious and dear to someone else. And I should also remember that I am not the only person on the planet who still needs a Teacher who can see through my adolescent anger and insecurity, who can see the person that I could become. Who will also love and discipline me until I become that person, who will never give up on completing His work in me.

H. Arnett
8/28/14

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Spiritual Contemplation, Teaching | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Second Time Around

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Doc Arnett

I am glad that it was August when my friend, Don Riley, extended to me the Ice Bucket Challenge. Had it come in January or one of the other six months of winter in Kansas, I suspect that I would have passed on the bucket part and just made a small but relatively sincere contribution to ALS research.

Instead, just under the twenty-four deadline, I put on my swim trunks and tee shirt, dumped a few pounds of ice into a bucket of cold water and handed Randa the camera. No big deal dumping ice water on your head when it’s for a good cause and it’s nearly ninety degrees outside, right? Randa pushed the red button and I did my intro, blaming Don Riley for the whole thing and attributing the good part to the memory of our friend, Ben Jackson, “who died of ALS back in 2003 in Cynthiana, Kentucky.” Then, I lifted the five-gallon bucket, and started dumping ice water over my head. Other than the difficulty that Randa had in holding the camera still while laughing hysterically, no big deal.

The only problem was that while I was reviewing the video, I realized that Ben Jackson died in 2001, not in 2003.

At first, I figured I would just make the correction in my written introduction to the video whenever I get around to posting it online. The more I thought about that idea, though, the less I thought of it. If you’re going to honor someone in such a weird way, the least you can do is get the year right. Right?

Right.

So yes, good folks, dear friends and distant neighbors, when you see that video of me standing in front of a big ole spruce tree and dumping a bucket of ice water on myself, that’s actually Take Two. I’m not sure that Randa wasn’t laughing even harder this time. I’m also not sure what kind of a moron has to rehearse something as simple as that. I’m quite sure I have a friend in Mayfield, Kentucky, that thinks it’s about the funniest thing he’s heard all day. Don’s laughter notwithstanding, anything worth doing is worth doing right, even if doing it right involves more effort and discomfort than we intended.

Whenever someone starts the Snake Pit Firewalk to raise money for the treatment of Religion Impaired Grillmeisters, the first person I challenge is going to be Don Riley.

H. Arnett
8/27/14

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The Ice Bucket Challenge

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Having got caught early on last spring in one of those “Take the Plunge” challenges, I’ve been lying low lately, hoping to avoid the “Ice Bucket Challenge” or whatever it’s called. I thought I had made it, frankly. The likely culprits, the men at church and my small circle of friends in this area, had mysteriously spared me. I was beginning to feel like it was safe to go out again and had even stopped wearing my Groucho Marx disguise to the grocery store.

Then, through the long arm of the internet, my old friend from western Kentucky, Don Riley, reached out and touched me yesterday. Standing there at the edge of his swimming pool in the scorching heat and soaring humidity of the upper South, he shattered my happy little shell of obscurity and drew me into this beneficent madness.

And so, it appears that sometime in the next several hours I will join the hundreds of thousands of other lunatics who just can’t resist doing some ridiculous decent thing for thousands of other human beings that they don’t know. Mine will be a bit less anonymous, though, a bit more personal.

I’ll be thinking of Ben Jackson, my next-door neighbor in Cynthiana, Kentucky. I’ll be remembering how ALS stripped him of every shred of dignity, how it robbed him of his personality, his ability to communicate. I’ll remember the long transformation that changed one of the most humorous, pleasant and witty men I’ve ever known into a helpless mute. I’ll remember, too, how some glimmer of that humor still sparked in his eyes the day before he died. I’ll remember how I never heard him complain throughout his yearlong decline and the warmth and openness of his heart and smile.

So, Don Riley, friend I have loved for over thirty years, I’m taking your challenge, buddy. You knew I wouldn’t be able to dodge a dare, didn’t you? It’s certainly not what we typically discuss in our Bible studies when we come across that scripture that tells us to “spur one another on to good works.” But, I guess it fits… and I know that Ben Jackson would fall off his porch swing laughing if he could see this!

H. Arnett
8/26/14

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Storm Cloud Sunrise

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Doc Arnett

It has been a strange season weather-wise. On the plus side, all this rain has produced a bountiful corn crop. From Colorado to Indiana, it appears to be a record year. From the looks of things, soybeans will be bulging the bins, too. With temperatures mostly peaking in the moderate range throughout the summer and with rain coming frequently and in ample measure, the crops have been well-blessed.

On the other side, it’s been quite a challenge to get hay harvested and housed. Ideally, you want at least three days in a row with bright sunshine and no rain so that it is properly cured before baling and storing. Rain can cause the hay to degrade and hay that is housed with too high a moisture level is at risk of spontaneous combustion due to heat generated by biological decomposition.

It’s also been a bit aggravating trying to keep the lawn looking well-tended. Two years ago, I only had to mow five or six times the entire season. This year, it’s been quite the opposite. Warm temperatures and lots of rain keep fescue, clover and other warm season grasses growing like crazy. Two days after mowing, the yard looks like it needs mowing again. And, with rain predicted for every day this week, it’s going to be a challenge to find a good time for the mowing.

Back to the plus side, there are those spectacular moments when the first bit of sun catches a gap in the clouds. Beyond the thick of those dark blue bulges of a passing thunderstorm, the sun catches the edges and they gleam silver and white in that rising light. Soft curls take a pink glow and there is a few-minute show of shapes and colors above the dark line of trees on the ridge. Given the just-right angle of light, there is more than enough beauty in these few minutes to last clear through till night.

I believe that he who has given the glory of the sun will keep me safe through the storm.

H. Arnett
8/25/14

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A Good Race

Posted on August 22, 2014 by Doc Arnett

I faced a bit of a dilemma last weekend. After getting news of my mother’s death early Thursday evening, I had to decide what to do about the mud run on Saturday for which I’d registered back in April. In addition to paying the entry fee, I’d already reserved a hotel room near Des Moines, Iowa, and was inside the twenty-four hour cancellation deadline. Those, however, were minor issues.

Of greater worry was my apprehension that my siblings and others might view running the race as disrespectful and inconsiderate. As I shared my apprehensions with some of my kids, each of them said quickly and simply, “Do the race.” It was Randa, though, who clinched it for me. As we stood in the kitchen talking about my concerns, she looked at me and said with quiet conviction. “Your mother ran a good race; I think you should, too.”

I thought about that and remembered how Brett Favre played the best game of his life only a day or two after his father died. I realized that this is how athletes honor those they love: they play the game, they run the race, they dedicate their effort to the one they loved.

And so we drove through the rain Friday afternoon up to Winterset, Iowa. Early Saturday morning, we drove through the fog and mist toward Earlham, including several miles of mud and chat on what were purportedly gravel roads. After walking through more mud and then pinning on my race number, I had Randa pin on the memorial bib I’d lettered with permanent markers onto a piece of Tyvek I’d cut from a used mailing envelope the day before:

“Run for Ruby”
Ruby H. Arnett
7/28/1915–8/14/2014
We love you, Mom

Under leaden skies and with a light mist blowing in my eyes, I ran three-point-three miles of Iowa hills and woodland in the mud from the rains the night before. Remembering that Mom faced some tough times and went through her own valleys, I crawled through mud trenches and climbed through pits and over mounds of loose dirt. Remembering that she overcame many hurdles and obstacles, I climbed over walls and scaled cargo nets. Remembering that there were rocky times in her life, I ran through the stone-strewn trough of a creek in the woods. Remembering how often she stayed up until past midnight ironing clothes while everyone else in the family slept, I ran past other athletes half my age, passing some of them while going up hills. Remembering how she faced whatever challenges life brought to her, I jumped over the burning fire and climbed up and over the final hurdle and slid down into the water below. After each obstacle, I’d reach back over my shoulder and pat the honor bib. “Thank you, Mom. For everything. We love you.”

A young woman only a little more than a third my age passed me as I was heading into the final obstacle, a mud pit with barbed wire strung so low I could barely keep my face out of the brown water. “There’s no way I can catch up with her,” I thought to myself, “she’s already ten feet ahead of me.”

Remembering Mom’s determination and perseverance and how many times she’d fought through pain and sickness to do what needed to be done, I pushed myself harder, clawing at the muddy bottom of the pit and straining my toes against the slippery mess beneath. Even though I’d already used up nearly all the energy I had, I somehow caught up with that young woman as we both passed beneath the last strand of barbed wire; fifty feet later, I crossed the finish line three steps ahead of her.

Considering all the junk that Mom saved, all the styrofoam plates and paper cups she re-used, I’m pretty sure that Mom would have been tickled with my handmade, recycled sign. I’m real sure that she would have been cheering my effort at the finish line and that she would have been proud of me, even though thirty or forty other people crossed the finish line ahead of me. I believe she would have felt honored by what I did.

I do know that there wasn’t one step of that three-miles-plus of trails and obstacles that I wasn’t thinking about her. And appreciating everything she had ever done for me and our family and others.

I hope that when I finish the course that she has finished that I can say that I ran as good a race as she has run.

H. Arnett

8/22/14

Posted in Aging, Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Death & Dying, Exercise, Family, Relationships, Spiritual Contemplation, Sports | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on A Good Race

Never Her Own Person

Posted on August 21, 2014 by Doc Arnett

I can’t speak to her years of growing up, of being a teenager but I suspect that as the oldest of at least eight children, Mom probably never really had the chance to be a kid. If memory serves me correctly, more than one of her siblings said, “Ruby was more of a mother to me than our mother was.”

Those early years of responsibility served her well when she married Dad and began a family of her own. Her firstborn son, Reuben, lived only a few hours. The following six have survived to this day with their ages spanning from seventy-three to fifty-three. Perhaps owing to her own early experience, there was never any confusion among the six of us as to whom was our mother.

She was as hard working a person as I ever knew, and I knew quite a few of them as I was growing up in western Kentucky. She was also as authentic a pioneer woman as was possible, I think. She made her own soap, made clothes for the family, canned just about everything that could be canned and would as soon have her hand cut off as to have someone accuse her of wasting anything. Throughout the years of my own recollection, her family had three complete home-cooked meals a day, three hundred-and-sixty-five days a year every year except for leap years. She also tended the garden, helped with the milking, planting and harvesting on the farm. And in all her spare time, she’d do for others, especially those in need or in grief.

Those habits continued up well into her eighties, I’d say, although not to the degree as when she was in her prime. It was not until she was in her nineties that the decline took away pretty much everything that defined her. The one thing that never changed, though, was the fact that she was never allowed to be her own person.

My Dad was a good man with many good and honest virtues but there was no question of his control over his wife and family. If Mom needed a new stove, he’d go pick one out for her. If she needed a new washing machine, he’d go get her one. In fairness, I have to say that I never saw him trying to tell her how to do her work. He was not a micro-manager of the household but he was, without question or contradiction, head of his house.

It wasn’t that Mom resented her role. In fact, she told me several years ago, “All I ever wanted was to be a preacher’s wife.” I never knew of anyone who defined that role as broadly and completely as she did. Her statement notwithstanding, though, the happiest I ever saw her was the few years during the early Seventies that she was the head cook at an elementary school in Mayfield, Kentucky. She had a talent for that and the school administrators there recognized it and rewarded it. Anyone who ever ate her homemade yeast bread or cinnamon rolls appreciated it, too.

So, for five years out of ninety-nine, Miss Ruby had her own identity, her own role independent of marriage or family. I think it was the only time and place when she was something other than “Brother Charlie’s wife.” And she loved it. When Dad decided, without any consultation with her, that they would move to North Carolina, she was crushed. She did her duty, submitted to his decision and resumed the preacher’s wife role, but she was never the same again.

She went directly from the control of her parents to marriage. Shortly before Dad died, she was placed under the control of a series of court-appointed guardians. She lived a good life, made a good name and gained the respect of nearly everyone who knew her. She was a virtuous woman, a woman of character and dignity with more than enough personality to distinguish herself. I could not miss the apt irony of her funeral sermon.

The minister, a friend of the family for over sixty years, spent more time talking about “Brother Charlie” than he did about Mom. At the grave, he admitted “they were such a team that it was hard to talk about one without talking about the other.” What he didn’t realize was that he seemed to have had no trouble five years earlier focusing on “Brother Charlie” when he preached Dad’s funeral. I know that it was not for lack of respect or love for Mom; he just didn’t realize what he was doing until it was too late.

I believe Mom deserved her own eulogy. Maybe this will serve as a start for one…

H. Arnett
8/21/14

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The Sharing of the Centuries

Posted on August 20, 2014 by Doc Arnett

There are so many ways in which we show our love for one another, too many to even try to list. There are so many expressions of caring and concern, things we do that carry with them clear messages of support, of tenderness, of compassion. Sometimes it is someone else stepping to do what we cannot do at the time; sometimes it is a lifting of a different kind. Sometimes it is something as simple as a phone call or a touch in passing. Among all of those things and certainly among the finest of them, are those conveyances of caring, consolation and condolence in the passing of a loved one.

In Murray, Kentucky, this past Sunday evening and Monday morning, I was so richly blessed it is hard to describe. How do you convey to others your appreciation for their hugs, their kind words, their warm smiles and soft voices? Friends from high school days and even earlier, people I barely remembered from my childhood, those who’ve loved me since before I can recall, made it part of their schedule to come by the funeral home during visitation or came to the funeral. Others sent cards, text messages or email. Still others, including some who do not even know me, helped prepare food for the family.

In all of these ways and in many others, they shared as they could in the passing of my mother, showed love in the same ways we humans have tried to show over the millennia of our existence upon this earth. They also shared the faith and hope that bring comfort that goes beyond the sharing of sorrow, a faith and hope that look to the ending of sorrow. Ultimately, for those who believe, it is the promise of resurrection that brings the closest bonds, that offers us the greatest comfort.

For all of those who have shared, and will continue to share in these expressions of love and mercy, I give thanks.

H. Arnett
8/20/14

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