The Smell of Dreams

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Doc Arnett

The feel of a strong southern breeze on my face tells me there will be no trace of dew on the fescue that bridges the walk from the gravel driveway to the horse shed. In the unsettled darkness an hour before dawn, I see the faint flickerings of distant lightning working their way through the clouds. I can barely see the shape of the gelding moving toward me in the round pen. Journey reaches his nose through the metal frame, sniffs the cat I am holding.

While Randa finishes fixing her hair, I set Ginger on the ground and open the door to the shed. I stand still for a moment, drawing in the scent of hay and sweet feed, leather and horses. Ginger stretches and scratches the door frame. Then, I feel my way toward the tub of feed, take off the lid and dip out a small serving for the horse. He comes around from the pen, stepping quickly toward the bucket mounted on the outside wall of the south end of the shed. I lean through the waist-high opening and dump the feed into the bucket. Journey happily starts his chewing while I drop the old coffee can back into the tub and feel the lid back into place.

In another thirty minutes, the gelding will be loaded into the trailer and Randa will head off with him for their weekend clinic with Cal Noyons a hundred miles away. An hour after that, I will head to work. I’ll come home this evening and let the dog out for her evening constitutional. Tomorrow, I will probably mow the yard, do some sort of home handyman thing or another and continue preparing a sermon. Head over to church Lord’s Day morning and deliver it, I reckon.

Randa will spend three days gaining greater skill and confidence at training her horse. It seems like a pretty mundane weekend so far as I can tell but I swear she seemed almost giddy this morning as she was getting ready to leave. That’s how it is when dreams take another step closer to becoming real, especially the ones that got put on hold for a few decades.

After learning to ride almost before she learned to walk and having to give up her horse when she was fifteen, it took Randa forty-five years to get back to this dream. It took me just over twenty years to fulfill my vow to help her. It is a powerful thing in a marriage when lovers lean toward one another in fulfilling their deepest yearnings, making the small and not-so-small sacrifices necessary.

I stand at the door and watch the taillights of the truck and trailer as Randa turns onto the highway at the end of the sloping drive. Sure is a good kind of giddy going on around here this morning.

H. Arnett
10/4/13

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Rolling With the Flow

Posted on October 3, 2013 by Doc Arnett

With tomorrow’s predicted high at ninety and Saturday night’s low expected in the thirties, it’s no wonder that we hear a bit of thunder this morning. You can’t drag mid-summer temperatures into October without getting a bit of a ruckus, I guess. Sometimes a little bit of one season dropped into another can be downright refreshing and pleasant. Other times, it can be just upwrong disastrous.

Like the moods of an aggressive bipolar bear, extremes seldom make for a good combination. When a roiling mass of hot, moist air collides with the stern edge of a powerful cold front, trouble comes.

For today, we’re hoping that we’ll have nothing more than a thunderstorm or two. In fact, given our druthers, I think the only folks in this neck of the woods wanting rain would be the three or eight of us needing to sow grass seed. A half-inch of so of slow rain would sure make working the ground go much better in another couple of days. I suspect that the farmers with their miles of rows of corn and soybeans would just as soon have another three or four weeks with no rain at all.

Whether they’re thinking of re-seeding a small section of the yard or of harvesting a trainload of grain, I’m pretty sure that just about everybody in Doniphan County, Kansas, has something for which to be grateful. Flash flooding hasn’t destroyed half the bridges in the county, no tornado has leveled half a community, and there’s not a possum’s chance on blacktop of a hurricane blowing through tomorrow.

I’m sure there’s plenty else about which to fret and fidget and some of it is serious enough to drive even a stubborn heart to prayer. But worrying won’t make one whit of difference in the situation, only in the worrier. Sometimes the point of prayer is to change the circumstances, to turn the storm or bend the breaks. Sometimes, though, it’s about making us stronger or gaining more grace. Running the rapids in a strong raft is better than building a dam at every bend of the river.

H. Arnett
10/3/13

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Beer for Prayers

Posted on October 2, 2013 by Doc Arnett

This past Monday evening marked our fourth “Beer, Beliefs and Barbecue” meeting at Ernie’s Bar and Grill in Highland. A younger elder and I have been hanging out once a week with three of the young married men from our church. We meet in a semi-private dining area, eating ribs, discussing scriptures, getting to know one another and spending some time in prayer. It’s not your typical setting for such things but sometimes “typical” isn’t what God calls us to do.

In spite of our posted offers of free beer, no one else has joined the group but we did manage to pick up a little related interest this last meeting.

I made a quick trip through the main dining area and passed out some cards that made a pretty simple offer: identify someone you know who needs prayer and we’ll give you a free beer. And… we’ll pray for your friend.

As you can imagine, folks were a bit surprised at first. But, whether owing to thirst or simple sincere concern for someone else, we got seven cards filled out and returned. That’s not bad for a place with less than a dozen booths. And the needs seemed to be pretty real to us: an eight-year-old boy with a severe concussion from a football injury, an adult with a broken shoulder from a four-wheeler accident, two people with cancer, a man whose brother had just died and a couple of others.

After we’d prayed for those and some others whose needs we were aware of, Neil excused himself for a couple of minutes. On his way back to the front of the place, he overheard a group of three or four young guys discussing our strategy. One of them clearly did not approve. “I can’t believe they’re using beer to buy prayers for their church.”

Obviously, he’d sort of missed the point. The prayers weren’t for our church; they were from our church on behalf of other people. People we don’t know, people who might very well have no one else in the world praying for them, people facing tremendous challenges and difficulties, people in need of God’s intervention and blessing. People just like us.

I can’t turn water into wine or walk on it, either. I can’t feed five thousand people with a few fishes, heal lepers, raise the dead or do any of the other hundreds of thousands of wonderful things Jesus did that drew people to him. But like him, I can eat and drink with sinners.

And, I can buy one beer for a stranger. Buying that beer will get at least one person’s needs shared with others. Buying that beer will get at least a few people to interrupt their meal long enough to think about someone else’s needs.

If buying beer gets people’s needs shared so that they can be lifted up to God, if buying beer reminds people that there are things more serious than eating and drinking, if buying beer shows the world that we are willing to meet them where they are and do good to them, I’ll keep buying beer until the tap runs dry at Ernie’s.

H. Arnett
10/2/13

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Sunday Afternoon Tea Time

Posted on October 1, 2013 by Doc Arnett

On the last Lord’s Day afternoon in September, we walk along the dirt trail leading down toward the barn on a small farm in Doniphan County. Thanks to unseasonable rains, the grass, weeds, trees and thorn-less blackberry vines are all as green as gourds in May. Beyond the stacked split rails of the holding pen, grayed and frayed by a dozen years of Kansas weather, a limestone bluff rises up from beyond the creek. The shades and shapes of its face bring a pleasing contrast to the forms of slopes and trees.

We avoid stepping in fresh cow manure as we walk across the dried mud of the creek bed then turn uphill toward the shed where the horses are gathered. Four mares and three geldings mill around whatever hands are holding carrots out as an offering. A couple of them come to the fence while the others follow the man around inside the lot. They are a mix of shades, mostly bays, with one blue roan. The paint mare stands out, wide slaps of white scattered over a dark brown base. We finish the petting and head back toward the house.

A single car passes on the gravel road, leading a trail of rising dust that lifts and then settles. Miles of fields stretch out across the hills, following the furrows of the earth’s shaping. We sit in the house, sharing stories, iced tea and brownies. In this two hours’ time, we learn more about each other than in two years of church meetings.

I am convinced that we may certainly share our faith in our assemblies of worship. We may very well grow together in hope as we sing songs of praise and encouragement. But if we want to cultivate a stronger fellowship, we must move beyond those confining walls. In order to build the bonds of love, we must share our lives and our hearts.

H. Arnett
10/1/13

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Gentle Morning

Posted on September 27, 2013 by Doc Arnett

I pull the covers into place,
find the shapes of pillows
dimly traced in the darkness of the room
and set them into their spaces on the bed.

Having dressed,
I feel with one foot for the first tread,
grip the rail and head downstairs.

At the landing,
I look out the window
and see the clear shape of shadows
marking house and trees
in the nearness of the north yard,
deck boards stretched
beyond the casting of the maple.

It is hard not to marvel
at such things as this:
a half-moon full bright
and the light of stars
marking the heavens
above the passing cars and trucks
out on Highway 36.

A few scattered clouds
stretch thinly between earth and sky,
their patterns set in white
between the passing of night and day.

I would like to pull up a chair,
sip a cup of coffee and stare at this
for a few hours,
but the voices of devotion and duty
are calling me to less simple pleasures.

H. Arnett
9/27/13

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A Hint of Autumn Comes to Doniphan County

Posted on September 25, 2013 by Doc Arnett

The stillness of this morning
has filled the spaces between the hills
with a light mist.

The ridge beyond the ridge
barely shows in its darker tinge
against the fringe of smooth slate
that waits for the breaking of day
to show the seams of soybeans
running in long rows across the slope.

Brown upward to the middle joints,
stalks of corn hold the last bits of green
toward their tops,
heavy ears drop toward the earth,
signs of harvest already beginning
to strip the fields along the Wolf River bottoms.

The last cuttings of hay
bend their way along the runs
of brome and fescue
and whatever else will pass for grass
when livestock strike their hooves
against frozen ground,
waiting for the sound of food.

But for now,
I will bow my head
in the fine stillness of this quiet morning,
and bless the One who has made it,
leave the wiltings of winter
for their own times.

H. Arnett
9/25/13

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The Spoils of Grace

Posted on September 24, 2013 by Doc Arnett

Long ago, in ancient Israel, men of war with a score to settle decided to settle one within their own ranks. Long ago, in ancient Israel, and perhaps in another place or two long before then, men of war realized that they could not go off to battle and still guard their tents and supplies. My guess is that this realization was rather dramatic at some point; it probably occurred when they returned from routing the enemy to find that their own camp had been routed as well.

So, they decided by whatever means men of war decide such things, that some portion of the army would stay behind to guard the gear, the food and whatever other things men of war leave behind when they go off to kill one another at some designated place. Aye, and here’s the rub, so to speak: it was the men who fought and won the battle who shared the spoils of war.

Theoretically, the ones who stayed behind and managed to skip the battle by tending to the camp were generally less exposed to risk of dismemberment, disembowelment and other such perks of war. Of course, this relative advantage disappeared as soon as some portion of the enemy or another enemy altogether raided the camp. Given that those who marched off to battle were pretty much assuredly at great risk of bodily harm, it was their notion that they should keep the plunder to themselves. That presumes, of course, that they collectively won the battle and individually survived it in healthy enough fashion to be plundering later.

So, those who stayed behind on guard duty would sometimes see the others returning to camp, laden with fine silver, gold, precious gems and other articles of some value taken from the camps or homes of the defeated enemy. You can imagine, I suspect, that the camp guards, even if they understood the logic, still resented the loading. Those whose lives had been put at the very edge of the blade, also resented the notion of sharing the yields harvested by their own blood and the blood of others who had fallen.

According to I Samuel 30, it was David, King of Israel, who decided to do things differently. In essence, he said, “Everything that we have gained and recovered today has been granted by God’s own hand. We will share equally with those who stayed behind and guarded our supplies.”

What a difference it makes in our willingness to share when we realize that everything that we have, we have by the grace and blessing of our Creator.

H. Arnett
9/24/13

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Beyond Survival

Posted on September 19, 2013 by Doc Arnett

Just minutes before we head up to the starting point, Olian offers Freeda an out. “Are you sure you don’t want to just make a forty-dollar donation and just go home?”

I could have told him what her answer would be; I know she has not spent the last three months getting ready for this day to just turn around and walk away at this point. Even someone who didn’t know him well would know that Olian is concerned, not convinced that she is ready to tackle a three-plus-mile walk that will include a few slopes and two river crossings. There are many times in this world when our fears keep us from enjoying seeing those we love take on their challenges.

Freeda is not as frail as she looks to strangers but there is no denying the slightness of her appearance. I don’t think she’s an inch over five-two or a pound over… well, let’s just say that she’s a bit thin. What strangers can’t see and even family members might not accurately perceive is the degree of determination. She would have fit right in with the pioneers who pushed their way through the Cumberland Gap a few generations ago.

That seems fitting here in Boone, North Carolina.

As Freeda, Paul and I come up to the starting line, we can sense that the announcer is somewhat amused. “Well, folks,” he muses via the PA system, “I don’t know how fast this group is going to be but I am pretty sure they will finish this whole course. They have checked it over very thoroughly.” Indeed, our whole group has had a pretty good look at several of the obstacles within an easy walk of the parking lot. And I had a real close look at all of them during my morning run.

Freeda has spent the past two months getting ready for this. Less than two years ago, she had the first sarcoma mass removed. Just a few months past her seventy-second birthday in February of this year, she had a tumor removed from a lung. Following that, she took on the self-imposed challenge of getting ready for this day. Making herself walk farther and farther, she built herself up. A quarter mile past the starting line, she catches Paul and me ambling along the course, trying to be considerate of her. “Guys, I can’t walk this slow!” she complains. Ambling is over.

Except for the piggyback ride Paul gave her at the first river crossing, she walked every step of the course on her own. Insisted on wading through the river herself when the course brought us back to that opportunity. With the water two feet deep and the current pushing against her as she walked upstream for a hundred-and-fifty feet, the only assistance she accepted was a steadying hand.

She took pictures of him and me at some of the obstacles. We talk along the way and they both keep their distance when I make my charges through the mud pits. Paul and I keep an eye on her and ask her how she’s doing a few times. “I’m doing fine,” is the answer, every time.

It took us just barely over an hour to reach the finish line. Months of training and anticipation caught us up together in a swelling of relief and accomplishment. Olian gave Freeda a big, sincere hug of pride and relief. The words he shared with her are theirs to keep.

I hope to never know what she has been through in the past two years and I hope she never knows again what it is to face another cancer surgery. But I also hope she knows how proud I am of what she did on this day, how I treasure the sharing of this walk, this celebration of survival.

After Paul helps me clean off the last bits of mud with more hot water from the big picnic cooler, I change into clean, dry clothes. The three of us sit with Olian, our other sister Patsy and Paul’s wife Debee in the parking lot. I enjoy another pimento cheese sandwich and another of the peanut butter-and-chocolate “Buckeyes” that we made the night before.

A little later, as the six of us sit in folding chairs in the afternoon sun in the high country of western North Carolina, I realize that what we are celebrating today is much more than survival. After decades of distance and tension, resentment and jealousy, we have decided to reach over and around all of the reasons and excuses, hurts and disappointments, and just be a family.

This is the celebration of some folks that have chosen to overcome their own dysfunctional history and just have fun together. And that, my friends, truly deserves an RC Cola and a Moon Pie.

H. Arnett
9/19/13

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Joy in the Mountains-Part II

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Doc Arnett

A chilly breeze works its way through the trees, bending the ends of branches that bow toward earth in the soft light of this mountain morning. Horses graze in the pasture, majestic in their stance and stride as I walk outside for a short walk. I was hoping for a warmer start to this day; cool temperatures and wet clothes are not the sort of combination one hopes for such a day as this.

It is the inaugural event for the Mountaineer Mud Run in Boone, North Carolina, and I have come here for the fun and to help my oldest sister, Freeda, celebrate her survival of her second cancer surgery in less than two years. My brother, Paul, and his wife, Debee, have driven here from central Ohio and our other sister, Patsy, has flown in from Abilene, Texas. Our celebration began with a day of much-appreciated yard work at Freeda and Olian’s mountain home. It ended with a spaghetti supper made less risky by the custom-crafted shirt bibs that Freeda made.

Freeda and I leave early so we will arrive in plenty of time for me to register for the ten o’clock run. By race time, the temperature has risen from the low forties to the upper fifties. To my surprise, Patsy, Paul and Debee all come over in time to watch me do the 5K event, complete with two trips across the river and seven mud pits.

The intent of the organizers was that most of the entrants would be in teams of four. Since our team stint is scheduled for the afternoon, I am running as an individual in the morning. The starter, not wanting to burden some fit, well-prepared young group, tells me, “Just find a team of three people your age and run with them.”

I tell him with equal amounts of sincerity and wryness, “There isn’t a team of three people my age out here.” My conservative estimate is that at least ninety percent of the people sporting race numbers here are no more than thirty-five years old and most are in their early twenties. A young man and two younger women are waiting at the starting line during this conversation. The starter looks back along the line of teams, shakes his head and gives up, “Just run with this group.”

The first mud pit is less than thirty seconds from the start. I run through the pit and up the steep, short slope. I pick up one of the anchored ropes and toss the loose end back down toward the pit. The guy and one of the girls get up pretty quickly. We have to wait on the third girl. In less than a mile, she is a tenth of a mile behind us. The guy decides to wait for her and I decide to go on. At each of the climbing walls, I pitch in to help other teams get over, then accept their help for my climb.

It is very easy to tell who has conditioned for these events. Some who start off running are walking before they get to the two-mile mark. Some are crazy conditioned, running the entire course at a sprint pace. Some, like me, slog jog the whole course, not breaking any records but coming in well ahead of the walkers.

I finish in just under thirty-three minutes, reserving a bit of energy for the afternoon. Paul helps me wash off the mud and sand, pouring hot water over my head as I stand behind his truck in the grass parking lot. There is little sensual pleasure that surpasses the bliss of hot water when you’re tired and dirty. The feel of cleaning and soothing is absolutely delightful.

One day, when we have completed the course of this life, endured all its mud and sand and stickers, conquered or at least survived every obstacle and challenging test, we will enter a rest more blissful than this.

But for now, clean and dry, stretched out in the sun shining on a beautiful valley, with my siblings laughing and chatting, waiting for our walk with Freeda in the afternoon race, this is pretty darn good.

H. Arnett
9/18/13

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Fun in the Mountains-Part I

Posted on September 17, 2013 by Doc Arnett

I just spent three days of the most enjoyable visit I can remember with three of my siblings and the spouses of two of them. The pleasure of the visit was not rooted in nostalgia nor was it focused on entertainment or tourism. Not unless several hours of menial labor and a day of significant exercise is your idea of tourism and entertainment.

Last Thursday, Patsy flew in from Abilene, Texas, and I flew in from Kansas City via Chicago. Our oldest sister, Freeda, met us at the Charlotte airport. We headed directly for Freeda and Olian’s mountain home at the western edge of Wilkes County on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Well, “directly” in this case included a quick stop at Dick’s Sporting Goods so I could buy an extra pair of toe socks. Toe socks are crucial if your goal is to run a few miles with wet feet without getting blisters. More about that later…

We spent Thursday evening enjoying the views, walking around the cabin, talking and eating. At one point, I went out to the pasture up the hill and just south of the cabin. I met and talked with Michelle about the rescue horses she and her friends tend. There is something ethereal about equines in a mountain pasture, particularly those that are inclined to tolerate human attention. These did.

Late that night, Paul and Debee made it in from Ohio, having made a late start and then encountering an accident scene that provided further delay. After a hearty breakfast the next morning that included hot muffins, oatmeal and a variety of enticing toppings, Paul and I took a walk in Two Acres Wood. Happily, we found a few dead trees and amused ourselves by finding out experientially which ones we could push over. There is a primal satisfaction in rocking an old rotting tree one way and another and then tilting it all the way over until it crashes against the ground.

We continued our entertainment for the next few hours by cutting down branches using Freeda’s surprisingly effective electric chain saw. We trimmed away some of the limbs blocking their view of the mountains and took down several dead ones that an ice storm a few years ago left dangling in the trees. While I wielded the chainsaw, Paul used a rope to keep the severed branches from swinging down and knocking the ladder out from under me.

Later, while Paul and Olian worked on the riding mower, I toted limbs and chunks down into the woods and piled them up. At the end of the day, there was a clearer view from the back deck, the big stack of old shingles was loaded into the back of Olian’s truck and his Scott’s riding lawn mower was working again.

There is pleasure in the work and satisfaction in the results when men who are brothers in the flesh and in the Spirit focus their efforts toward a common goal.

H. Arnett
9/17/13

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