Holding the Rare Moment

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Doc Arnett

This full moon seems huge and bright
in the low light of dawn
as I walk across the lawn,
along the gravel of the driveway
and then turn through the heavy dew
in the fescue that leads
past the peaches to the barn.

The chocolate gelding
is lying in the sand of the round pen,
alert but still
with his legs gathered underneath him.

I am expecting Journey to rear up
in a horse’s awkward rising
at any time
but he doesn’t move
except to turn his head slightly,
watch me as I climb over the railing.

This animal could kill me
with a single kick
but he doesn’t even twitch
as I kneel beside him,
lightly stroke the short hair
beneath his mane,
rub along his neck,
move the forelock from across his eye.

I barely dare to breath
for fear of losing this moment
as he rests his nose against my knee;
I could live another sixty years
and never have this again.

When we come to these times
of such powerful vulnerability,
the touch of trust
must run softly and smoothly along the grain,
else we never gain such ground again.

H. Arnett
8/22/13

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A Pretty Simple Theology

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Doc Arnett

As we were leaving Menard’s yesterday evening, we debated going over to the Sonic less than a quarter-mile away. At the west end of the parking lot, you turn right to go to Sonic. Go straight to head home. “Whaddya think?” I asked Randa as we pulled out of our parking space. “I’m not all that hungry,” she replied quietly, “I just had a sandwich before we left the house.”

“Okay,” I answered, “Home it is.”

But, as I looked to the right at the intersection, I saw a young man sitting in the grass beside the street, maybe two hundred feet away. So, I turned right.

Turned out he works at Menard’s and had missed his ride. “Sometimes at the last minute they’ll want me to stock freight or something and it makes me late,” he explained. So we took an alternate route toward home.

As we rode toward the north end of 22nd Street, I asked him if he was going to school. “Yeah, I’m going to Mo West.” We found out he’s majoring in computer science and in digital animation and has dreams of going to Hollywood some day.

Just north of Frederick Avenue, the conversation hit a lull. I was thinking about asking him whether or not he’d ever had any bad experiences with church. Or any good ones. I was also thinking that maybe we’d just give him a ride and not worry about his religious concepts.

My thoughts were interrupted by a question from our guest passenger. “You folks have a church?”

“That is so weird,” I replied, chuckling out loud. “I was just thinking about asking you about your church experiences.” Turns out our rider is looking for a church.

“What kind of church are you looking for?” I asked him. “A friendly one,” he quickly answered.

Instead of some particular doctrinal bent or style of worship or distinctive program, this young man just cut right to the heart of human connection and relationship. He wants a church that will make him feel welcome and accepted. A church that honors a Savior who opened his arms, reached out his hands and said, “Come to me. And I will give you rest.”

H. Arnett
8/21/13

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For a Daughter, Five Hundred Miles Away

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Doc Arnett

The relentless ratcheting
of a solitary locust
drones from the cluster
of birch branches silhouetted
against an August moon
so bright that I can tell the colors
of rose blooms from thirty feet away;
even the lavender of the Rose of Sharon
shows against the stone pillars of the porch.

While the owl in the elm tree
sends its soundings into the stillness,
the gelding stands beneath the Bradford Pear
at the edge of the pasture,
head drooping toward the ground
in what passes for sleep for a horse.

The cat plays in the patterns
of pin oak leaves traced on the dirt,
and I sip my drink, tilt my head back
against the chair
and stare at thin traces of single clouds,
drifting through the bright shroud of the moon,
south by southeast.

How I wish that the peace of this night
could somehow soothe your heart
in the midst of this agony of betrayal and loss;
the costs of bitterness and lust,
wish that you could trust this gentle drift
of cool air sifting through the low places
of night’s long and lonely shadows.

I pray for something stronger
than a father’s words,
something closer than knowing
that the burden of your hurt
aches the hearts of those who love you;
I am crying out to our Father
for a faith you can feel
in the midst of this numbing darkness.

I am asking that the Comforter
come alongside you,
that you may be convinced
within your own aching spirit
that groanings too deep for words
have reached the very Throne of Heaven,
that you may know
peace that passes understanding
and rest in the very Heart of Christ.

H. Arnett
8/20/13

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Something’s Up

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Doc Arnett

The younger man who was first to share wanted to thank the church for their caring in providing a place for a family memorial service. “Like every family, we have some who don’t care much for church. But they came and I heard many of them talk about how nice it was that you did this for them and about how good the food was.” Even the relative who pretty much hates preachers and religion said regarding the eulogy, “It was awesome.”

The middle-aged man shared how his wife was just leaving the building after printing up bulletins on a Friday when someone in a white SUV pulled in and asked for money because a pregnant woman with diabetes needed to get to a particular hospital eighty miles away in Topeka. Our bulletin printer called her husband and he told her “Send them back over here to my office.” He put out of his mind concerns about lies and swindles and gave them fifty bucks. Two weeks later, just when he was about to leave his office after a long day at the end of a long week, a white SUV pulled into his parking lot. “Great,” he thought, “I just want to get home and they want an insurance policy.” A really big guy and a small woman carrying a newborn baby got out of the SUV and came in. “We just wanted you to see the baby that you helped get to the hospital in time to be born.”

Then the elder in his eighties shared how he’d come to church for two or three months, thinking about how much the preaching needed to change. “It wasn’t what I wanted;” he explained, “It wasn’t how I wanted it to be. I thought if the preaching was different, we would grow. And so I was coming to church with a hard heart. You can’t get nothing out of it when you come with a hard heart.” He paused for just a few seconds, noticed that the corners of his eyes had started to cloud a bit. “And then Doc started preaching on submission and I realized, ‘I’m the one that needs to change; I need to submit.’ And so… I am.”

And then, the outspoken woman sitting near the front asked the pastor for permission to also speak. She stood and confessed that she, too, had wanted the preaching to be different. “I even invited the pastor to lunch and told him how I wanted the preaching to be. But we’ve been studying Ephesians on Wednesday nights and we’ve studied about submission. And I know that he’s right; God wants us to submit. And I am, too.”

When a church focuses on serving, on making the most of every opportunity, whether it’s giving someone a ride to the next town or hosting a hundred strangers for a funeral service, that church experiences a transformation. When a congregation begins to repent and confess its sins and submit to God, it becomes a changed church. This is called revival.

In the words of the first young man, “I think if this church keeps serving people like this, it’s going to be huge.” Even if it doesn’t gain a single new member.

H. Arnett
8/19/13

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Light and Shadows

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Doc Arnett

Low mist creeps slowly along the fences,
seeps into the ditches and eases out
along the lower fields.

Each blade, each leaf, each stem
seems drenched with the damp darkness;
they disappear until only what is nearest
can be seen.

A muted moon fades through
the upper veil,
swelling slightly in the night’s soft covering.

The limestone gravel on the road up the ridge
emerges from the dimness of the valley,
rises through the corn-covered hills,
oddly gray in its showing
between the greens.

Even in the mists of night,
even in the slightest of light,
there is witness
that there is more to this life
than what appears to be
instantly clear.

We are touched by Light
and shaped by shadows.

H. Arnett
8/16/13

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A Leading to Service–Part II

Posted on August 14, 2013 by Doc Arnett

Over the past year-and-a-half, and especially for the last several months, we’ve been racking our collective brain at our congregation, trying to figure out how to “grow the church.” We’ve had money-making ideas, member-soliciting suggestions, arguments about Sunday School versus Small Groups and on and on. We’ve lost a few members in the process.

Some didn’t care for our non-traditional worship, some didn’t care for our elder-led structure and some didn’t care for our non-traditional pastor. It might be that some of them didn’t like any of that. Their departure shot a double-barreled,12-gauge buckshot hole in our budget. Predictably, the smaller the crowds and the contributions, the greater the discontent.

It sort of came to a head a couple of weeks ago. Frustrated by the perpetual criticism of a few members, the pastor, yours truly, finally leveled with the whole group. Convicted by the Spirit’s leading that it was time for him to focus on submitting to God instead of trying to please the outspoken few, he told them, using multiple scripture references, “Either fire me or submit to God’s pattern for church leadership.”

In forty years of preaching, I’ve never been that assertive. Certainly, I have my ego and my confidence, my mistakes and my selective boldness, but one thing I’ve never had was such a clear sense that I needed to step up and take charge and truly lead a congregation. It took a particular scripture, a lot of prayer and a sequence of events that seem to speak quite clearly to me that God is making his presence known in a much more tangible way in our church and in my life.

After the home visit I described in yesterday’s posting, I stopped by our church building to check on the progress of the work our contractors were doing. As I looked around at the emerging kitchenette in the youth area, I couldn’t keep from being profoundly affected by the prayer encounters at that member’s home a few miles away.

I was still contemplating that as I got back into my little pickup truck and headed out the church driveway. Just before I got ready to pull onto the highway, I was struck by a thought so powerful and tangible it seemed spoken out loud: “If you will serve, the church will grow.” I just sat there, letting that soak in, absorbing the concept. “Serve. Grow.”

As I reflected on the experiences with the hitch-hiker and then the biker from the previous week, the unprecedented direction in my pastoral leadership and the prayer opportunity just twenty minutes earlier, I realized that Christ-like leadership is service, just as much as hospitality and benevolence and prayer.

When we lay aside our human drive to control, our constant preoccupation with our ideas and opinions, and genuinely embrace each opportunity to serve others in love, we prepare ourselves for an outpouring of God’s grace and Spirit and blessing unlike anything we can even imagine!

Here’s to serving even the least of these, the family of Christ. Even when we don’t act like that’s what we are.

H. Arnett
8/14/13

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A Leading to Service–Part I

Posted on August 13, 2013 by Doc Arnett

Lately, there have been so many “unusual” events in my life that it’s just downright exciting: getting Godly direction from a hitchhiker, having a wonderful blessing from taking in a cyclist in need of medical rest, sensing God’s leading in what seemed like a routine pastoral visit and getting another blessing from a bizarre impulse. I don’t think I’ve ever had a time in my life when there were so many “signs” that God was visibly active.

I’ve written already about the hitchhiker and the cyclist; I’ll give a relatively short account of the pastoral visit.

I went by to visit one of my church members, a woman who is too old too be middle-aged and too active to think of as elderly. Having thought for two years that she is a widow, I was surprised to meet her husband. As I visited with them, he said something that deeply stirred my spirit. “I really need to offer to pray for this guy,” I thought. That’s not something I normally do with people I’ve just met.

Just about the time I started to ask, an adult grandchild showed up. “Aw, man! What lousy timing,” I thought. But the Spirit wouldn’t make giving up that convenient for my spirit. So, at the risk of personal embarrassment and rejection, I said to the man, “I know I’ve just met you and this may sound really weird, but I just have a really strong sense that I need to pray for you. Would that be okay?”

“Sure,” he said, provoking more than slight surprise in me, “that’d be fine.”

As I knelt in front of him, I took both of his hands. Immediately, I sensed deep, piercing ache and pain. I began sobbing, trying to be quiet in spite of the waves of anguish I could feel. After twenty seconds or so of that, I began praying.

When I finished, I moved back across the room to my chair. The granddaughter said, “There’s a woman I work with who just found out she has cancer.”

“And she doesn’t understand why?” I asked. “She is a believer and she hasn’t lived a sinful life and she’s wondering ‘Why me?'” There was a look of surprise and puzzlement on the granddaughter’s face, “Yes. Exactly.”

So we prayed for her friend at work and then just to make it three in a row, I prayed for the woman I’d come to visit.

Once again, God had taken something mundane and normal and turned it into something much more powerful and significant. I had to marvel at his timing and purpose.

And then, twenty minutes later, he turned it into something even more powerful and significant. Lord willing, I’ll write about that tomorrow.

H. Arnett
8/13/13

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Brent Young, Rider for Christ

Posted on August 7, 2013 by Doc Arnett

Electrocution,
fibromyalgia,
divorce,
addictions,
disabilities,
and an even longer list
should someone want to twist
the meaning of his life
into the past fifty years
instead of the future.

Instead,
he chooses to use
what God has given him:
a love of people,
a love of cycling,
a love of hard work,
a simple submission,
a seemingly boundless faith
and little green Bibles from the Gideons.

He hungers and thirsts
for righteousness,
for knowing God,
for learning scripture,
for service.

And so, he rides,
listening,
testifying,
sharing,
trusting the love of strangers,
keenly aware of the dangers
of passing semi’s
and glazed paint strips in the rain.

Pressing on toward the goal
of the upward call
and leaving the lives
of those who dare to share
the risk of caring
infinitely richer.

May God’s peace and protection
part the wind before you
and always tilt the road
in the direction you are going,
my friend, my brother, my angel.

H. Arnett
8/7/13

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Biking for Jesus–Part II

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Doc Arnett

After introducing myself to Brent Young on the highway and directing him across the road to our church building, I headed over there myself. A couple of contractors were doing some finishing work inside the building and I wanted to be sure they understood Brent was supposed to be there.

Brent rolled his bicycle in through the side door and parked it in the fellowship hall. He took off his helmet and I showed him the men’s shower, the washer and dryer and then the couch in our informal class room/hospitality room. “Oh, man, this is great!” he exclaimed, “This is great. Thank you so much.”

I introduced him to Gary and Charles and let them know he was going to be staying there for a while. Actually, I had no intention of him staying there for very long. “Brent, I’m pretty sure we’re going to be having you stay at our house but I need to give my wife a little notice.” He countered, “Oh, I’ll be all right here; you don’t have to do that.”

“If Jesus came to your church, would you leave him there all by himself for three days?” I asked, but the question was really directed at myself. It wasn’t a rhetorical question.

I think we who claim to follow Jesus find it really convenient to muse such questions philosophically and quite inconvenient to make the answers actually guide our behavior. And in the process, miss out on the opportunities to both build and demonstrate our faith.

When we went back over a few hours later, Brent looked like a changed man. There was no doubt that his knee was hurting but instead of the wilted, sweaty guy in biker’s gear, he looked like he’d stepped out of the summer edition of a men’s clothing magazine. He was wearing light shorts, flat loafers and a print shirt. His haircut fit his look perfectly. He might be fifty-two but he sure makes it look cool. When we stepped outside and he slipped on his sunglasses, I chuckled out loud. “This dude looks pretty sharp,” I thought.

But it wasn’t his looks that left such an impression on me. Throughout the weekend, as he shared his heart and his background, as he talked about a simple faith, Randa and I were profoundly moved. “I just prayed and asked God, ‘What can I do? You’ve done so much for me, what can I do for you?’ And he told me, ‘You love to ride your bike. Ride for me.’ So that’s what I do; I ride for him.”

He shared some of the things that have happened to him as he’s ridden across Missouri, Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas. How one church wouldn’t even allow him to put up his tent and sleep on their property, how others even rented hotel rooms so he wouldn’t have to sleep outside. He shared stories of sharing, stories of rejection, stories of touching people’s hearts and lives. And had no idea in the midst of his sharing, how much he was touching ours.

H. Arnett
8/6/14

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Biking for Jesus–Part I

Posted on August 5, 2013 by Doc Arnett

As I was driving home from work and a late lunch on Friday afternoon, I got a call from a stranger on my cell phone. Turns out Connie had gotten my name and number from a couple of other local pastors. A friend of hers is cycling through Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska and was heading back to Missouri but was suffering with pain in his knee.

“The pastor at the Lutheran Church said he could pitch his tent at their place and they’d give him a key so he could get in and use the bathroom. He said you might be able to let him stay inside at your church but he didn’t have your phone number. The pastor at the Baptist Church gave me your number.” She told me about Brent’s mission to ride his bicycle, witness to people about Jesus and give away Bibles. “He has such a sweet spirit,” she said, “But his knee is hurting so bad. He needs a place where he can stay for two or three days and rest his knee.” I told her I was pretty sure we could make arrangements; “We have plenty of room inside our church and we have showers, a washer and dryer and a sofa.”

She thanked me, profusely, said she’d text me Brent’s number and would call him and tell him to call me so we could figure out a rendezvous point. “I just talked to him a little bit ago and he said he was twelve miles from Wathena.”

Since we live three miles west of Wathena and Brent was pedaling east on Highway 36, I was hoping I could catch up with him before he got past the church and our house, which are less than two-tenths of a mile away from each other. About a half-mile before I reached the church, I spotted a biker and figured it was him. As soon as I got past him, I flipped on the turn signal, braked hard and swerved over onto the wide shoulder in the flat right in front of the church. I swung the car door opened and motioned for him to stop.

He did stop, about a hundred feet behind the car, obviously wary and wondering what was going on. As I walked back toward him, I could see that he was drenched with sweat. He also seemed to be tired and in pain. Given that he’d already ridden nearly fifty miles with sixty-to-seventy pounds of gear on his bike, that seemed a safe speculation. As I walked up close, the wariness showed in his face. God help me, I still couldn’t pass up such an opportunity.

“Your name is Brent and you have a sore knee. You need a place to rest.”

A pastor could live a lifetime without a moment like that. The wariness on his face gave way to sheer wonder and amazement. He leaned toward me, eyes wide open as he tilted his head to one side, “How did you know?”

I hesitated just slightly, relishing the moment, then gave in to decency. I grinned widely and confessed, “Connie called me; she told me about you.” He nodded his head, “Oh, okay.” I asked him if he had enough energy left to pedal his bike across the highway and up the driveway to the church door.

“Yes,” he replied, “You know, I just saw the church and I thought, ‘I could stay there; I could put my tent right here.’ Oh, thank you, thank you so much.”

The notion of calculating simultaneous arrivals at a given point on the highway for a biker pedaling from Sabetha, Kansas, and a motorist leaving Ernie’s Bar and Grill in Highland is just outright impressive, I think. Turns out God is not only Creator, he’s also an Engineer.

H. Arnett
8/5/13

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Exercise, Metaphysical Reflection, Relationships, Spiritual Contemplation, Sports | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Biking for Jesus–Part I