Better Light

Posted on November 14, 2012 by Doc Arnett

I don’t know yet if it’s still dark because I’m up earlier than usual or if it’s because the sky is completely covered with dense clouds or if it’s a combination of the two. I do know that I am up earlier than usual.

Looking out through this window, I can see nothing except three white lights and one pale orange, all posted at the height of telephone poles beside houses in Blair, Kansas. I hear the occasional whine and rumble of eighteen-wheelers passing by on Highway 36.

Many days begin like this with us believing there is more beyond the walls and windows of our lives than what we can immediately see. We trust that the old familiar trees and fields, the neighborhood houses, will all come to view as darkness falls away into the dawning of a new day. We are confident that no one has come in the night and stolen our world away. Such confidence is easier to hold when each morning continues to bring us the things that we have come to count on, when expectation and reality continue to share the same sphere.

Such is the way of the world’s customary confidences, the un-rattled routines that frame our lives. But when cancer calls, when tragedy sends the walls tumbling and catastrophe has changed our perception of our world, routine expectation and confidence shatter like skim ice dropped on concrete.

What holds then is faith. Something deeper, stronger, tougher, more firmly rooted in things unseen. Things that cannot be perceived until we wake to better light.

H. Arnett
11/14/12

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Religion Before the Storm

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Doc Arnett

The wind came hard Saturday, a force from south by southwest, doing its best to rearrange whatever things were not rooted, nailed or weighted. Being none of the above, the green garden cart skidded across the concrete apron of the garage. I took it back to its place beneath the birch tree, laid it on its side with the open part away from the wind. A stronger sending a while later sent it sliding into the gravel of the driveway. With such as that going on all day, we went to bed expecting to wake Sunday and find broken branches and shingles scattering across the yard.

Sometime during the night, rain and thunder woke me, but only for a moment or two. I suppose that a hard day’s work and a relatively clear conscience can help a body through the rest it needs. The inch-and-a-half of rain helped the dirt with its needs.

I stepped lightly through the soggy places near the horse’s feed tubs, then poured out the water that had collected. I called to the horses as I shook out the mix of sweet feed and softened beet pellets into the black bins. At first, Cisco and Jitterbug simply stared at me across the field through the slow rain, then came trotting.

As they eagered into their breakfast, I ducked back out beneath the fence. Looking around, I saw no signs of branches broken, or roofing torn away. I walked back into a dry house, grateful for strong walls and good framing. We need something stronger than the storms, some place of refuge, some good place unchanged by the tempest.

Though some may mock the masses and scoff at crutches, I never met a skeptic who thought an umbrella good enough for facing a tornado.

H. Arnett
11/13/12

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Other Shoes

Posted on November 7, 2012 by Doc Arnett

We stood looking at the course before the start of the race, wondering why no one was running up the long steep hill just out of the gate. The sponsors of this 5K obstacle course in the bluffs of the Missouri River had cranked up the snow machine the night before, laying out a patch of ice just up from the base of the half-mile slope. From bottom to top, we could see runners walking their way up but none of them were running; they weren’t even jogging.

Like many things in life, a closer look from a participant perspective gave greater understanding.

Two men just over half my age joined me and over two thousand other entrants for this bit of masochistic challenge on the last Saturday of October. The first wave of runners started in sub-freezing temperatures at nine in the morning. By the time of our slot, it was a balmy forty-four degrees, yet still cloudy. Here at Snow Creek Ski Area near Weston, Missouri, we’d earned the second part of the Rugged Maniacs description just by showing up on a day like this. We were about to see if we could earn the first part.

In the chute for the start at one o’clock, we figured out that the race didn’t start out up that big hill but headed around the valley in the opposite direction. We hit the first mud-and-water challenge in less than two minutes. With Brett leading the way, we charged into and through the mess. I fell down at least half-a-dozen times. One step would find the bottom at knee depth and the next it would be waist deep. Slickened by hundreds of other shoes, the muddy knobs beneath the surface made no good place for footing. Brett and Luke beat me out the other end but waited for me. We would run the next three miles soaked and plastered.

Up the northern slope, over mats of leaves on a steep trail, over bales, back down the hill, through tunnels, into the mud under low-hanging barbed wire, across ditches to the halfway water station. A twenty-second break there and then over the fire jump. And then, that long slope up with the snow patch near the bottom.

We continued our jog up to the snow and then slowed to a fast walk. By the time we’d gone another hundred yards, it was just a walk. About halfway up, in a dip hidden from view at the bottom, we slid down culvert tubes into another pool of mud and water underneath more barbed wire. Then, had to pull ourselves up by ropes through tubes going up the other side. And then, continue up the now steeper slope.

On the steepest section, just beneath the top, I dropped to all fours in a bear crawl. There was no longer any mystery at all about why no one was running up this slope. Not this steep, this slick, and after already running nearly two miles. Long before we crossed the finish line back down at the bottom, I was reminded again of the empathy gained by walking in someone else’s shoes.

Especially when they’re full of mud and the race is barely half over.

H. Arnett
11/7/12

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The Easier Way

Posted on November 6, 2012 by Doc Arnett

It is easy enough to find the rough,
whether on an old road often traveled
or in casual words that deserved more thought
than was given.

It is easy enough to find the blade
in a choice made that favored someone else
and left us wondering whether or not
we held quite the respect we had believed.

It is easy enough to find the barb
in the shards of time given to others
by those we love
when we have paid the price—many times—
of lessons they have learned.

Such skills are made easy by constant practice
and a tilting toward finding such things.

Harder, perhaps,
and certainly requiring a greater wisdom,
is finding and sharing the grace
that will smooth the rough,
dull the edge,
blunt the point
of all hurts.

Harder, yes,
but skill well worth the finding,
that blinds us more to unintended—
and perhaps, intended—wounds
and more attuned to that divine ointment
that heals even more in its giving
than in its receiving.

H. Arnett
11/6/12

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Making a Good Day

Posted on November 5, 2012 by Doc Arnett

This seems like November:
chilly drizzle falling on a dark morning,
bare branches in soft silhouette,
matted leaves drenched in the grass,
no hint of dawn in the eastern sky,
just a vague notion of lessening darkness.

Seasons may be defined by weather
but days more by the way we wear them.
I could pull out some old mood from the closet
and wrap it around me like moss in the shadows.

But I think instead I will be glad
that I was able to rise from a bed not made of clay
and embrace the good air of this good day,
learn well from an honest mistake,
treasure the touch of a loving hand,
return understanding for some intended sleight
and be at least some bit of light
underneath an overcast sky,
a gentle reflection of a greater source.

H. Arnett
11/5/12

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Reach Out and Be Touched

Posted on October 29, 2012 by Doc Arnett

I’m kind of a lousy father-in-law/grandparent in some respects; I’m horrible at remembering birthdays and anniversaries and sort of a sporadic communicator. I get myself busy with what I think I need to do and sometimes slack off on things that I should do. But, I do try to be the kind of grandfather that grandkids enjoy being around and may catch themselves actually having fun with at times. I’m hoping that helps compensate for some of the lacks. But the bright side, if there is one, is that when one of the daughters-in-law gets a call from me, she knows it’s a call from me to her, not just the coincidence of having answered the phone when I’m looking for my son.

Mike’s wife, Sarah, got one of those calls on September 11, 2001, when they were living in the Washington, D.C., area. I think she rather appreciated it. Sam’s wife, Sara Jane, alone now with their three sons while Sam is in Kuwait, got one this morning. She and the boys are living in Newport News, Virginia.

I checked to make sure they were okay. Even though they’re not directly in the path of Hurricane Sandy’s center, they have been getting deluged with enough rain that the James River had nearly swamped the bridge on Sunday. With even more rain and flash flooding coming, I wanted to hear her voice and know that they were still safe and sound.

She assured me that they were and are and we talked for a few minutes. The kids began doing what little kids do whenever a parent takes a phone call and then, just as we were beginning to say our goodbyes, she got a call on her cell phone. It was Sam. Another father needing to hear the voices of his loved ones and to know that they are okay.

Sometimes in making the calls to hear the voices that we need to hear, we also give loved ones what they need to hear. It’s easier to feel that you’re in someone’s heart and thoughts when it is their voice speaking that reassurance. I think that’s at least part of the reason why God has sent his Comforter to be with us in this world of storms and darkness. To speak his calming love in the midst of the surge and the blast. To remind us that we are not alone.

H. Arnett
10/29/12

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Storm Sandy

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Our forecasts here in northeastern Kansas for the next several days are for definitionally lovely autumn days: mostly sunny skies and highs in the sixties, with crisp evenings and chilly mornings. It appears that we will transition from October to November with some fine, fine weather. It would easy to get absorbed in this prediction, this expectation of the kind of days that I love. But elsewhere there are other predictions of a far different nature.

The storm formerly known as Hurricane Sandy has morphed into a colossal system, reportedly the largest North America-bound, post-tropical cyclone in recorded history. Massive amounts of rain and a historical storm surge are predicted over a huge portion of the country, including most of the eastern seaboard.

This includes North Carolina, where my sister and niece’s families live and Virginia, where my second son’s wife and kids are staying during Sam’s deployment to Kuwait. Other family and friends, some closer to the expected center of the storm, will be affected by it. If predictions are fulfilled, there will be a wide range of devastation. An estimated 60 million people or more will likely experience dramatic to severe challenges.

We pray for those we love and for strangers, unknown masses. We pray for divine intervention, for mercy, for sparing and deliverance.

And where those prayers may not be answered as we choose, we ought to be praying already for our own generosity. Those whose billfolds and bank accounts remain unaffected by their own supplications cast doubt on both faith and prayer.

H. Arnett
10/28/12

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Dealing with the Neighsayers

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Jitterbug, our eighteen-year-old Foxtrotter mare, began her tenure here with us as a mute, more or less. She never nickered, never whinnied. At first, she wasn’t even very interested in eating. She’d sniff the blended sweet feed and beet pellets, then walk away. She grazed very little, spent most of her time standing inside the shed, staring out in a sort of quadra-ambulatory catatonic state.

Her personality has changed a bit over the past few months. Now, whenever one of us steps outside, she’ll nicker in a low, throaty call. Sometimes, it seems like a greeting of sorts, a “Hey, how’s it going?” kind of a thing. When she’s hungry, it’s just, “Hay. Hay. Now.”

Her nickers become more persistent, maybe even insistent, if she believes we are behind schedule on feeding. That was the source of my curiosity yesterday morning. I fed her around 6:30 and she started eating immediately, finishing up fifteen minutes later. Around seven, I went out to put some jugs of cider in the back of the truck, deliveries to the college as part of my tiny little fund drive for the local food bank. Jitterbug nickered at me. I nickered back. On my next three trips, same thing. She nickered, I nickered. I have no idea what either one of us was saying but it was clear that she was not satisfied with my answer.

When I headed out to the truck to actually leave for work, Jitterbug nickered yet again. “This is odd,” I thought to myself, “I think she’s actually trying to tell me something.” Feeling a bit foolish, I decided to walk around to the water trough that we keep at the edge of the pasture on the north side of the house. It was dry as could be with a bunch of fallen leaves plastered to the bottom.

I wiped out the leaves and dumped them on the ground, flipped the trough back over. Then, I plopped the hose into place and walked back to edge of the house, turned on the water. In less than a minute after I started, Jitterbug trotted around, shoved her nose in and started drinking. After a bit, she lifted her head and looked toward me, water dripping from her muzzle.

There are times when the nickerings of those around us are a bit unclear, maybe even misleading. Sometimes, listening effectively requires us to do a little bit of looking around. Fortunately for us, our Maker has no trouble understanding us, even when we don’t understand ourselves.

An empty trough can sure explain a lot.

H. Arnett
10/18/12

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Focusing on Fruit

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Doc Arnett

In the pleasant close of an autumn day, my eighteen-year-old friend and I are making cider. We have a few hundred pounds of bruised apples that will spoil soon in the resurging warmth of Indian summer and I would rather see them turned into cider than into ruined mush.

Ben’s first turn at cranking the mill goes by somewhat slowly. He is surprised at how much force it takes to turn the grinding wheel and by how much faster it flies when there are no apples in the hopper or when those that are get jammed up some way or another.

We swap places and he feeds the apples into the hopper. “Don’t reach down in there if it gets jammed,” I warn him, “I’ll take care of that.”

It’s not that I have a greater urge to have the tips of my fingers ground into sausage; it’s just that I figure as the old man with a lot more experience, I might be a bit less likely to misgauge the safe distance. So far, I’ve been right.

Later in the evening, seeing how many apples we have left, Ben cranks up the speed. I grin to myself, scoop up double handfuls of apples and drop them into the bin. In just two or three minutes, he finishes the batch. “Did you decide that we’d get done quicker if you cranked faster?” I ask. Now, it’s his turn to grin, albeit a bit sheepishly. “Yeah,” he admits, “I thought it might go faster this way.”

Ben has also figured out the rhythm of the press. He spins the handle, guides the maple press head into the slatted basket. While he squeezes out juice, I fill a couple of gallon jugs. Then, while I empty out the pummies and clean the cloth sleeve, he transfers juice from the collecting pan into the pouring bucket. Then, we’re ready to start the next batch.

In just over two hours, we mill out fifteen gallons of cider. Fifteen gallons of sweet, pure unadulterated apple juice. Much better than four hundred pounds of ruined apples.

Other than sin itself, there are few things around us that cannot yield some good thing, given the right effort and the right approach. What we must learn to do is to be ready for the harvest and to focus on the potential good rather than the obvious defects.

H. Arnett
10/17/12

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Farming, Gardening, Metaphysical Reflection, Nature, Relationships, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Focusing on Fruit

On the Fifty-Yard Line

Posted on October 11, 2012 by Doc Arnett

In late afternoon on a day of increasing cloudiness, Randa and I sit at a middle school football game. A few degrees cooler would give this eastern wind a bit of an edge but the temperature holds to around sixty degrees. Beyond the green of the field and the faint strips of white, a combine winds its way around a large soybean field. I am sure that the sounds of cheering do not penetrate the shell of the harvester though the sound of its engine does occasionally carry across the field. A thick cloud of dust spews out the thresher, drifts away slowly.

Our oldest grandson is playing in his third or fourth game. At its start, it looks like he and his friends will endure another lopsided defeat. The visiting team scores on the second play of the game and then again soon afterwards. Being on the offense on an under-sized team leaves Hunter standing on the sidelines for much of the game.

In the fourth quarter, though, things turn a bit. His team scores, the defense forces a punt and then the offense scores again. They hold the lead briefly, then the other team sustains a drive and takes the lead back. Getting pretty good field position, Hunter’s team scores on their third play to take the lead again. On the ensuing kickoff, the visitors fumble and the home team recovers and holds on as time runs out.

Players and parents cheer enthusiastically, congratulate one another. Randa takes a picture of Hunter standing in front of the bleachers, a wide grin on his face. As Eddie “Nuke” LaLoush comments in the movie, Bull Durham, “I like winning, man. It’s like, more fun than losing.”

It is fun, though athletically I’ve had little actual experience with that perspective. I did win a shuffleboard tournament at summer camp one year but that hardly scales out with the state playoffs. In my years of basketball, I never played on a winning team. As a Chiefs fan, I rarely get the opportunity to celebrate victory even vicariously.

But in the ultimate face-off, I daily experience the victory that Jesus has gained for me. My guilt is gone, my sins forgiven, my soul redeemed. Even if there are sometimes bits of turf smashed into my facemask and I’m peering out at the world through the earhole of my helmet, I still overcome by the blood of the Lamb.

It’s like, more fun than losing… my soul.

H. Arnett
10/12/12

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