What Shall I Grieve?

Posted on August 15, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Shall I grieve the stillness of those hands that patched our jeans and sewed our shirts, made my sisters’ dresses and skirts, Dad’s underwear? Shall I grieve the stillness of those fingers that fastened buttons, mended socks, crocheted table pieces, embroidered pillowcases, and a thousand other things?

Those hands long ago swelled with the pain of arthritis, the knuckles became twisted and cankered, huge barnacles on slender fingers. She stopped shaking hands with church visitors thirty years ago because of the pain. Those hands no longer ache, no longer swell, no longer torment her with their pain and the reminders of the things she loved to do and could no longer do.

Shall I grieve the body that drove tractors and trucks, that milked the cows when Dad was sick or gone, that tended the garden, that canned countless jars of green beans and peas and whatever else was in season, that buried her firstborn after only a few hours of breathing and then raised six kids? Shall I grieve the stillness of that body that cooked countless meals for family and friends, for kith and kin, for neighbors visited by death, for fellow believers in their sickness or grief? Shall I grieve the empty kitchen?

That body long ago turned against her, trapped her in its shrinking prison. She lost nearly five inches of vertical measure in the last twenty years of her life. Near the time of her death, she weighed less than eighty-five pounds, could not be touched or turned upon her bed without her screaming from the pain. Unless they’d already given her the meds.

Shall I grieve the loss of conversation, the lack of those late night talks at the dining table with Dad snoring in the room down the hall and my children asleep in the basement? The phone calls that came every Sunday afternoon. Shall I grieve the voice that sang a soft sweet alto in the a cappella churches of my youth and “Happy Birthday to You” once a year over the phone? Shall I grieve the reading of Brer Rabbit and Uncle Reemus and a hundred other characters from hand-me-down books from richer cousins?

The conversations ended five years ago.

Shall I grieve the closed eyes that used to brighten when I came to visit? The smile that lit up her face as I hugged her? Her obvious pleasure in my company?

She hasn’t recognized me for over three years.

This grieving I have already done, these losses–and countless others–already mourned. The mother I knew–the one who raised me, who loved me, who delighted in my visiting – that woman disappeared years ago. Her I have already grieved.

I will not grieve, but rejoice that she has passed into rest, that her suffering is ended, that she is in Abraham’s bosom. I will not grieve but I will continue to miss her. Until the moment of our reunion, when all of grieving will have ended.

H. Arnett
8/16/14

Posted in Aging, Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Death & Dying, Family, Relationships, Resurrection/Return, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Even in Darkness, Light

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Doc Arnett

In these heavy dews of August,
when the grass would make us think
it surely must have rained in the night,
in spite of that clear brightness
of a full moon,

In the surprising chill of morning air
when it seems that this must be surely
be some early autumn’s dawning,
even though we know the apples
are not yet ripe,

In the soft stillness of locust branches,
when it seems that not even a breath
could pass without leaves flinching,
and the birches drape toward earth
without the slightest ripple,

In the low-hanging mist over the pasture,
when it seems that every gray particle
holds its particular place
in spite of all the gravity
that pulls against this week:

In all of this there is peace,
a quieting of my thoughts,
a knowing that even in the aftermath
of suicide and all other passings,
in spite of all pangs and pains,
all fears and tears,

The God Who Draws Near to Us
is continuing to work
for the good of those who love him,
who are called according to his purpose.

Even though the weight of what is
and what soon will be
may press down on me
like the heat of a prairie sun,
I will claim the peace of this good promise

and I will take the good of this good day.

H. Arnett
8/14/14

Posted in Aging, Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Death & Dying, Family, Metaphysical Reflection, Poetry, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Even in Darkness, Light

At River’s Edge

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Doc Arnett

She lay on her back all morning,
eyes fixed,
maybe seeing something
no one else could see,
cankered hands lifted toward the ceiling,
perhaps feeling the call
of children long ago
grown and gone
yet now still small,
reaching toward her.

Perhaps she saw the face
of her husband
dead now for five years,
ached for the feel of his flesh
once more.

She refused to eat
today,
yesterday
and the day before
and there was no store
of anything
in her eighty-four pounds
that could carry her ninety-nine years
forward for much more than this;
even her organs were shrinking.

No one could get a hint
of what she was thinking,
whether angst or anger
or if maybe she just hoped
that reaching toward heaven
she might find some unseen hands
reaching down to draw her out
of this shriveled prison
and she would be glad
for whatever she could gain
from fingertip to elbow

in shortening her time
left this side of Jordan.

H. Arnett
8/13/14

Posted in Aging, Christian Devotions, Death & Dying, Family, Metaphysical Reflection, Poetry, Relationships, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The Aftermath of Suicide

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Doc Arnett

There are many tragedies in this world and few departings from it that do not involve at least some degree of sorrow and sadness. Even when we can see the release that death brings from some long lingering disease, we still feel the pangs of sadness in the separation. It is a futile thing to try to compare degrees of despair and heartache; all of grief holds pain.

All of that notwithstanding, there is something peculiarly painful when a loved one takes his or her own life. We feel something of the knife’s own edge ourself, feel that our lives have taken some of the impact. It seems unlikely than any life is so completely solitary that its taking doesn’t leave a void in the lives of others, that no one else feels the pain of its dying.

We find ourselves wondering, even in the midst of our anguish, what we could have done differently, what we might have said at some particular moment that could have pierced the gloom, brought some light of hope. How do we explain to children and grandchildren? How do we help the spouse or sibling understand the depth of darkness that overwhelmed the soul? What do we say that can possibly help stave away the blunt-toothed gnawing of guilt or its long-fanged sharpness?

Even when we reach that point of understanding that reminds us that we cannot control the choices that other people make, we still sorrow, we still grieve, we still miss the one we loved. Even those of us who have ourselves slipped to the very edge of that dark chasm, even though we believe that we can understand the depth of that despair and hopelessness, still feel the pain of those left behind. We cannot keep from thinking about all of life that could have yet been lived, priceless moments that will go unspent.

In the end, we know that it takes a greater grace than lies within us to heal the woundings of a loved one’s suicide. It takes a soothing greater than what we can offer to bring a balm of comfort to the aching hearts, torn lives. We should not pretend to know what others feel, even when we believe that we have been through the same thing ourselves. Perhaps the best that we can offer is to acknowledge their aching and offer our sympathy and love. And to pray for them in the fervency of truest compassion.

Even in this, we may feel inadequate. But no matter how clumsy our offerings, we should keep in mind that the most awkward caring is far more loving than the most eloquent pretension.

Maybe we can remember that the purpose of our expression is not to erase their pain but to let them know that it is shared.

H. Arnett
8/12/2014

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Feeding After the Storm

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Doc Arnett

In the waning light of dusk,
a three-quarter moon
seeps through clouds
the color of rust and bruises,
edges tinged in the least hint of a sunset
that passed a half-hour earlier.

Still soaked from afternoon rain,
the black locust tree, thornless,
droops slender limbs and small leaves
against the pale stillness
of the western sky,
its stark silhouette graceful and delicate.

Lush as April
on the first Thursday of August,
a blend of perennial rye and bluegrass
passes into the darkness
shaded beneath the trees
on the eastern side of the slope
that leads to the neighbor’s place.

There is a peace
in the passing of the storm
and even a hard rain
leaves some gain in the ground.
Already, the tomato plants
have started to straighten
from the pounding of wind and water.

Just now,
the moon gleams
from a break in the clouds
and I see clearly
the path from the barn to the house.

H. Arnett
8/8/14

Posted in Farming, Gardening, Metaphysical Reflection, Nature, Poetry, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Feeding After the Storm

Driving through the Storm

Posted on August 7, 2014 by Doc Arnett

Absorbed in my computer tasks yesterday afternoon, I didn’t notice how dark it was outside at five in the afternoon. As I shut down the system and picked up my cell phone, I looked toward the window in the opposite corner of my office. It could have been eight at night based on the lack of light coming in through the window. I closed the door and turned off the lights in the outer office and hallways, paused at the outside doorway. It was raining.

I ran across the grass, jerked the door open and pivoted quickly into the truck, then headed out of town. A jumble of blue-black clouds swarmed around. In the space of twenty seconds, I saw five distinctive jabs of lightning straight ahead of me as I drove south toward 36 on K-120. All seemed to be very close to the same spot. Rumbles of thunder sent me on my way up the ramp, heading east toward home.

The heavy rain hit just as I crested the rise of the ramp. Silver sheets came from the south, sounding their pounding against the hood and cab of the truck. Tall rows of corn bent and waved in the driving wind; heavy-stalked seams of soybeans shuddered in the blast. I could feel the bursts against the side of the Ranger, twitched the wheel again and again to keep my course. Several times in the stretch between Highland and Troy, I had to downshift because of the drag of heavy water on the road. Spikes of lightning ripped through the shroud of the storm; a couple of times I could feel the thunder vibrating the truck.

There is a sort of odd pleasure, for me, in driving through a thunderstorm. There is so much sensory stimulation, so many sounds and sights, feelings absorbed through every capacity of the mind and body. There is the challenge, too, of driving safely, of sensing the drag on the tires, keeping enough speed to make my way without being reckless, avoiding the helplessness of a hydroplane.

It wouldn’t be much fun, though, without good tires and wipers that work well. Most of the time, most of us don’t really mind the challenges of life, as long as we believe we have what we need to overcome them. It’s certainly better when we have good tread on our faith and vision to clearly see the road. And enough wisdom to know that sometimes you just need to pull over for a while.

H. Arnett
8/7/14

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When Opportunity Seems Like an Oxymoron

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Doc Arnett

If you’ve read a few of my contemplations before, or a few hundred of them, you probably know that I rarely start out with a scripture quote. I’ll frequently end up with a thinly veiled reference to some verse and from time to time might have a direct quote. Normally, though, that’s not how I start out. Well, by this stage of my life, I’ve gotten fairly used to not having the slur “normal” hurled my way very often, so I think I’ll take the chance of doing something a little different. Here comes the scripture quote…

I was reading my Bible the other morning and came across this little gem near the beginning of I Corinthians 16, verses 8 and 9 specifically: “But I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, because a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.”

I don’t know if I’m the only loon on the lake or not but I’ve usually labored under the impression that when God opens a door for you, there’s nothing but smooth sailing ahead. Things fall right into place, everything works out great and all is peachy and wonderful. It’s almost like living at home on the range, you know? In fact, for much of my life, it didn’t take too many discouraging words before I’d start thinking about seeking my opportunities elsewhere.

What Paul writes here is an absolute contradiction of that notion. He puts this “great door” of opportunity and much opposition right in the same wall leading into the same room. Adversity and hardship are not evidences that we are not where God wants us or that we are not doing what he wants us to do; they are quite often unmitigated proof that we are exactly in the middle of his will. Great opportunity always comes with challenges, setbacks, rough spots and, well, “many who oppose.”

From a very fundamentalist and pragmatic point of view, why would Satan bother to oppose something that isn’t going to make a hill of beans difference in the number of souls he’s free to torment and afflict? If the opportunity you’re exploiting is nothing but soft breezes and full steam ahead, it’s damnably sure that what you’re doing is no threat to the kingdom of darkness.

On the other hand, just because you’re having a hard time of it is not clear and convincing proof that you’re doing the Lord’s own good work. If you’ve decided to open the door of opportunity that includes taking advantage of old people and orphans, there’s a good chance you’re going to run into all kinds of opposition once good people figure out what you’re up to!

If I take the apostle’s point correctly, we should divest ourselves completely of the thinking that equates opportunity with ease of accomplishment. It is not the degree of difficulty that separates good choices from bad choices; it is the likelihood that persistence will yield a harvest worthy of the effort.

All labor that is done in the Lord meets that test and they don’t call it “labor” for no good reason.

H. Arnett
8/6/14

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The Right Thing at the Right Time

Posted on August 5, 2014 by Doc Arnett

In the face of recent things,
I cannot help but bring to mind
how many times we struggle,
working so hard to do so much
and make matters such as we would have them;
each effort a heaving of sorts,
striving and straining to lift
what seem to be the lightest loads–
as if even molecules fight against us.

Then, perhaps at the moment just before surrender,
even the heavy timbers seem to lift themselves,
the things that we could not move
slip right into place:
someone unexpected, uninvited
shows up to do one key thing
and all around put themselves
into some slight but perfect position,
even the small things fitting together.

A house is built,
a business is born,
a church moves forward,
a family heals,
a community re-builds.

Either we marvel at the workings of the universe,
are amazed at the wonder of coincidence,
or else give thanks
to the God Who Moves
in mysterious ways.

H. Arnett
8/5/14

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The Duke

Posted on August 1, 2014 by Doc Arnett

He was definitely the neatest looking hitchhiker I’ve ever seen. Clothes and body clean, thick gray hair and mustache neatly cut and combed. He was about five-eight, lean and tanned and he carried a small backpack, like a kid’s school bag, and a non-digital 35mm SLR camera. Even though he was wearing a thin gray athletic undershirt (the type my kids used to call a “wife beater” when they were in high school), he looked like an actor. He even had a red bandana folded up and knotted around his neck in a sort of jaunty fashion. I pulled onto the shoulder at the top of the on-ramp where Kansas-120 merges onto US36-East and offered him a ride.

“Where you headed?” I asked through the open passenger’s side window. “Where you going?” he replied, leaning down and looking in. “I’m going east,” I answered with a bit of reserve. He was headed from Hiawatha, Kansas, to Independence, Missouri, slightly over a hundred miles total distance. “A friend of mine gave me a ride over here from Hiawatha, let me out right back there.”

“Throw your stuff in the back seat,” I instructed and he obliged, then got into the front seat. “If you would, buckle that seat belt.”

“Oh, yeah; I learned that a long time ago.” He looked around for the strap, found it and snapped it in place. The three seconds it took for him to do that was the only time he wasn’t talking for the next thirty minutes and that sentence was one of the few he used without any profanity in it. I will, however, omit most of that from the record that follows.

I asked him his name and he said, “Barry. Barry Duke. You’ve heard of Duke University in North Carolina? Well, my family, you know, my ancestors, they’re the ones that donated the land to build that university. Dukes of North Carolina but I’m from the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and I’m part Indian, Cherokee, but I’m descended from England.”

He said his wife died in April and his mom died on Mother’s Day and he lost his house and he abandoned his girlfriend and moved to Hiawatha with some guy that came down with a U-Haul and moved him in the middle of the night and they went through Wathena at five in the morning. And his stepdad retired from twenty-four years in the Air Force and then flew a private jet for the king of Saudi Arabia, Prince Farouk. “We lived in the Philippines from ’79-’85 and then he and Mom moved to Saudi Arabia and I moved back to Virginia.”

Then Barry’s ex-girlfriend called on his cell phone but he couldn’t hear half of what she was saying and he told her he’d call her back when he got to the Kansas state line. Then he said his wife died in bed three years ago and they’d been together twenty-four years and he went in to wake her up and she was ice cold. He called 911 and the woman said, “Sir, can you put her on the floor?” “Yeah, I can put her on the floor but she’s dead.”

“Sir, can you put her on the floor?” “Yeah, I can put her on the friggin’ floor but she’s dead.”

“Sir, can you put her on the floor?” “I can take her outside and put her on the friggin’ roof if you want me to, but she’s dead. I know what ‘dead’ is.” He talked again about how much he missed her and about his mother dying and him losing his house and about his girlfriend’s brother breaking out his windshield. And each little segment had its own little bit of Barry’s salty language.

Regardless of rhetoric, he seemed to have no idea where we where when we crossed the river into Saint Joseph and then turned south on I-229. But when he saw an exit sign that said “St. Joseph” a few minutes later, he said, “Oh, Saint Joe. Yeah, I know Saint Joe real good. I spent eighteen months in the Saint Joe Prison. Violated my parole. Had contact with my wife. I knew she was going to turn me in. I told her, ‘I’ll see your fat butt in the morning.’ Told her that right to her face; I knew what she was going to do.”

I didn’t bother asking Barry if this was the same wife he missed so much and I didn’t bother telling him that Saint Joseph doesn’t have a prison, unless he was referring to the state psychiatric unit. On reflection, I thought there might be a pretty good chance, actually, that he might have looked at the world from the inside of that institution for a while. By this time, I was pretty sure that there’s not a lot of overlap between Barry Duke’s reality and that of the other folks around him. I also speculated that if his wife had secured a “no contact” order against him if maybe there was something to that stereotype about the kind of undershirt he was wearing. But, I figure even people like him qualify as “the least of these my brethren” so helping him out was a good thing.

For sure, when I pulled into the truck stop near Menard’s at 169 and I-29 South, he certainly seemed grateful, especially when I tipped him for the company. “Man, thank you, I really appreciate that. God bless you, Doc. I’m going to say a prayer for you next time I’m in church.”

“Don’t wait that long,” I chuckled, “go ahead and say one before that.”

“Oh, no,” he protested, “that’s something I started doing when I was going to the food kitchen in Independence. I started going to church every Sunday.”

Well, folks, I don’t know whether or not to believe a single thing Barry Duke said to me in that thirty miles or so. But he sure changes your image of “church people” now, doesn’t he?

H. Arnett
8/1/14

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

Hidden Treasures

Posted on July 31, 2014 by Doc Arnett

It’s the last house
before you pass the city limit sign,
on the opposite side from the water tower
and the same side as the grain elevators,
giant circular slabs of weathered concrete
marking the crow’s distance
between prairie towns with other houses like this.

Furrows of paint mark the grain
of pine planks and peel from the eaves,
last year’s leaves rot in the gutters
and the vinyl shutters have faded
into some color between green and blue.

In what was once a gravel driveway,
a minivan sits, covered with dust
and racked with rust around the edges
of wheel wells and the space beneath
the sliding door.

Between the drive and the front porch,
several plastic toys fade in the sun and grass.

Just past the edge of the mowing,
a big blue trampoline stands in the shade
of a huge oak tree.
Weeds and orchard grass grow up
through the spaces of black line lacing the edge
to the metal frame.

Twenty feet away,
from the lowest, largest branch,
an old tire hangs down,
crabgrass covering the old paths
of small feet dragging the ground beneath.
The rope is faded but unfrayed,
still strong enough to carry the weight
of children on the couch,
eyes riveted to high-def pixels

while their parents smoke in the kitchen,
oblivious to how much that has held their lives
will never catch the eyes of their children.

H. Arnett
7/31/14

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Family, Metaphysical Reflection, Poetry, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hidden Treasures