Pleasant Pastures

Posted on March 12, 2012 by Doc Arnett

The clay slope by the hay feeder is glazed and slick, the sand in the round pen soaked and sloggy and the step-off into the lot is nothing but muck, but this rain could not have come in better fashion: twenty hours of drizzle when the grass is just beginning to come out of its winter dormancy. A couple days of warm weather will trigger a surge of green, a welcoming declaration of spring.

The burnt black of the pasture will change quickly and the horses will prance at the chance of fresh forage. They eat their hay readily enough when there is nothing sweet and soft, but nothing out of the loft will compare to tender growth, sweet and pleasant.

Those who approach in hungry humility, eager for the very words of life, hearts and minds yearning for the refreshing of the Spirit, find a filling in Scripture that cannot be found in anything else. In the words revealed and in the Word Revealed, they find a satisfaction that soothes the soul and renews the mind.

H. Arnett
3/12/12

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Heart Trouble

Posted on March 8, 2012 by Doc Arnett

For some reason or another, there was a new blockage one of the veins leading into Frank’s heart. This, the doctors told Frank at his visit last week. He had a stent placed in that area just a couple of years ago and couldn’t understand why it would no longer be working.

Something not working is not something Frank is prone to understand. In his mid-seventies, he continues working twelve or more hours a day. Just in case that’s not sufficient activity, he also exercises each day, including doing sixty or so pushups each day. His body is as hard as a horse-worn path on clay soil. But the stent has not held up as well as Frank’s biceps. So, he reported to the hospital early Tuesday morning for stent replacement.

After inserting a tiny camera in through a vein in Frank’s groin area, the surgeon navigated it up to the problem area. Indeed, he found that in a very rare malfunction, the stent had collapsed. He also found that its collapse had probably saved Frank’s life.

The resulting constriction of that stent had trapped a blood clot and prevented it from entering Frank’s heart.

Though I cannot explain why so many lives are taken by heart attacks, tornadoes, cancer and car wrecks, that will not keep me from celebrating Frank’s little miracle.

I would rather be grateful and adore a capricious God than spend my life in the hollowness of skepticism.

H. Arnett
3/8/12

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Truth in Advertising

Posted on March 7, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Over the years of remodeling, I’ve helped strip off old wallpaper more than once. It’s not my favorite job. In fact, it’s often an exercise in persistence, patience and frustration. I’ve scraped, scratched, torn and then sprayed on enough vinegar to alter the pH level of an entire limestone quarry. I’ve had soggy strips plastered to my arms, flecks on my face and enough specks in my hair to alter my identity.

But I’ve never seen paper as stubborn as what we’re trying to remove in the small guest bath upstairs.

With most papers, you can tear off a strip, even if it’s only an inch or two wide. This stuff, you can’t pry it off with a razor scraper without digging into the wallboard. I got so frustrated the other evening, I even read the guide at the Wallpaper Removing Section at Menard’s. Brought home a sackful of stuff I’ve never used before.

I got two scratcher/pointy-wheel thingeys, a four-inch industrial duty scraper and a whole gallon of Zinsser’s DIF Wallpaper Removing Gel. After I got home, I ran the scratcher/pointy-wheel thingey over a small section of the wall. Its purpose, according to the propaganda, er, information bulletin, is to make hundreds of tiny holes in the paper so the gel stuff can soak through and soften up the glue that holds the paper on the wall.

Having made hundreds of tiny holes in the section of paper, I then rubbed on a fair amount of the blue gel. Then, once again indicating how desperate I was, I actually waited the recommended ten-to-fifteen minutes for the gel to soak in and work.

When I came back, there were just three or four little bubble places on the wall, showing the paper had turned loose in just three or four little places. Irritated and disillusioned, I took my little putty knife and checked to see if I could scrape off at least a little bit of paper. To my delight and surprise, the whole section lifted right off! I actually had bought a product and used a process that worked exactly as described. How novel!

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if every preacher preached the Gospel and every Christian lived the Gospel in such a way that every person who witnessed the Gospel would have to declare, “You know, that Gospel thing, that really works!”

I think the real secret to that is beginning with that piercing of the heart, so that truth and conviction can enter in and have their proper effect. You know, beginning with true repentance so that the whole of sinful life can be stripped away. Not just the easy parts.

H. Arnett
3/7/12

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A Few Concerns

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Doc Arnett

The wind has begun already this morning, branches swaying in its push. By mid-day, they say, gust will be in the forties and the temperature close to seventy. With the tumblings of trash and the thrashings of limbs, I am thinking about such things as this:

This morning, Frank will have two stents placed in or near his heart.
This evening, Bobby will have an MRI that will help the doctors decide whether or not to amputate his legs.
Rusty is trying to recover from surgery to remove a blood clot from his lungs.
F. N. got conflicting information from two specialists at the same office regarding the probability of cancer’s return, the likelihood of serious side effects from radiation therapy, and what the odds are that the weeks of radiation will prevent the cancer from resurging.
Libby will have eight hours of surgery on Friday that may prevent the necessity of having spinal fusion. She is thirteen.

In all of this and more, I remember that we live in a fallen world, a world of pain, disease, affliction and death. I remember that the power of faith, often expressed in prayer, is remarkable and inexplicable. I remember that the God of the Storm has promised that I will be able to bear every burden, every test, every temptation.

And, perhaps not at all the least, I remember that the curse of this body and the prison of this flesh are only for a little while.

H. Arnett
3/6/12

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A Prayer for Affliction

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Doc Arnett

May you bear
the blessed burden of friendship
in a way that brings
blessing to those who are burdened.

May you share
the sweet sting of sympathy
in a way that balms
honey on the wounds of wicked.

May you walk
in the haunting of holiness
that transcends religiosity
and refuses the easy out of compromise.

May you live
in the lancing cut of light
that makes your own sins
more clear than those of others.

May you embrace
the piercing pangs of humility
and treat others
as if more deserving than yourself.

May you yield
to the fierce fangs of faith
so willingly that they sink deeply
into every aspect of your doing.

May you endure
the awful cost of love
with such determination
that all reluctance is worn away.

Then,
may you, as it were,
bear the very wounds of Christ
so that his name gain glory
in all your daily dying.

H. Arnett
3/2/

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A Strong Wind

Posted on March 1, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Here in the Missouri-Iowa-Nebraska corner of Kansas, it is a rare day that the wind does not blow. Farther out, where the land changes from rolling hills to rolling land, it is even more constant. Go far enough west in Kansas and you’ll see that the trees lean to the northeast. That speaks of constant wind, wind that is strong.

Around here, the trees that bend do so from some other reason, most likely an ice storm, though some are formed by the dropping of a higher limb or a larger tree. Our winds do not blow strong and steady enough from a single direction to bend the fencerows.

This is not a complaint, by the way. There’s not a lot of wind-surfing in the area and it’s some drive to a lake large enough for sailing. What we had yesterday could have put a boat on the opposite bank in a matter of minutes.

Not being on a boat, I had to content myself with wry amusement at the pile of corn shucks collected in the doorwell of the Communications Technology wing as I went over yesterday. Even though the nearest cornfield is over a tenth of a mile away, a forty-mile-an-hour wind can send things flying for some little while. Caught in the eddy of the north wall, these shucks had piled a foot deep by mid-morning. And, of course, every time the door opened, some of them blew in to strew along the hallway.

Obviously, this was the first time we’d had a wind this strong from this particular direction since the harvest last fall. The chain link fence on the west side of the football field was plastered with shucks. I won’t say that it was lovely but it was interesting. Attractive in a whimsical sort of way, especially if you aren’t the custodian in the CT building.

It’s not terribly unusual in this world that we are rather more inclined to enjoy diversions that mean more work for others. And we ought to be careful, whether buying art or investigating philosophies, that we do not confuse novelty with beauty.

H. Arnett

3/1/12

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After the Storm

Posted on February 29, 2012 by Doc Arnett

The rain came round last night,
not gentle and seeping slowly from the clouds
but loud and pounding,
driving hard against the panes,
pummeling the walls and windows,
carried by the wind,
sending sheaves of water
in the midst of the wind’s relentless harvest.

In the aftermath
of mud and muck
the horses paced the fence,
eager for morning’s feeding.

As I dropped leaves of hay
into the bay of the feeder,
each strand that dropped loose from my hands
was jerked away by the wind,
whipping and whirling across the pen.

It is chill this morning
and not pleasant for work
but I think
that when we have survived the storm
we ought to be cautious
in noting our inconveniences.

H. Arnett
2/29/12

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Teachers

Posted on February 28, 2012 by Doc Arnett

I had a good long conversation with a colleague yesterday, discussing poetry and language and such. Since the colleague has been an English/Literature instructor for a good many years, I felt like the weak link in a short chain, but nonetheless enjoyed the conversation quite a bit.

I suspect the apostles experienced that just about every time Jesus spoke with them. Often confused, often bewildered, frequently astonished and sometimes having almost no idea at all what Jesus meant, they still followed him about from place to place. Even though they were not able to fully grasp everything that he said, they took in enough that they found themselves knowing more each day than what they did the day before.

I also suspect that there are people who give up on reading and understanding Scripture because they encounter portions that do not readily yield themselves to easy comprehension. Even the apostle Peter commented that some of Paul’s writings were hard to figure out and prone to being twisted by those more eager to reinforce their own philosophy than to gain true knowledge and understanding.

God has not given to every person equally when it comes to understanding and interpreting things that are written. If this is true of anthologies and plumbing manuals, it is surely true of sacred writings as well. We find that if the novice writer and the novice plumber will devote themselves to their craft and pay careful attention to those who know more than they do, they will continually become more proficient.

If we then find that our poetry and our pipes both benefit from such deliberate focus and humble appreciation, we will also find that such efforts yield even more precious results in our understanding God.

It is to our immeasurable benefit that in regard to the latter, he has also offered his Spirit as teacher and guide.

H. Arnett
2/28/12

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Under the Curse

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Early in our two-hour-long conversation, the young man told me that he believed he was cursed. I suppose I could have responded, “Well, of course, we’re all living under the curse of Adam,” but I held off on that. Instead, I let him go along with his discourse of how time after time, things just hadn’t worked out for him.

After a while, I started to probe a little bit, asking him for details of one thing and another, including how he happened to choose to come to Highland. Turned out, he’d spent less than two hours getting information on the school and community. When the athletic scholarship he’d hoped to get from another college fell through, he looked for some other school. “I found out that HCC had dorms and a cafeteria,” he grinned, “that’s all I needed.”

It was my turn to grin, “We still have dorms and a cafeteria; we didn’t change.” I then went on, using the information he’d given me to examine the situations he’d described to me to show that he “was cursed.” In every one of them, he’d demonstrated a pattern of making decisions that either ignored the available information or had been made without getting any information.

I’ve found, certainly, in my own life and seen frequently in the lives of others, that most of the blame for bad situations rests ultimately on the decisions that we have made ourselves.

I guess that at least in some ways, it seems easier to blame God for the messes we find ourselves in rather than to accept that responsibility ourselves. I guess, too, if we choose to trace it all the way back to Eden, right to that fateful conversation by the Tree of Knowledge, the thing that started this whole curse business really is this: bad decision-making.

H. Arnett
2/27/12

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Informed Choice

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Doc Arnett

It’s not at all unusual for a few of our students to go through culture shock when they come to Highland. In spite of our deliberate efforts with our Truth in Recruiting initiative, some of them still show up without an accurate idea of what the school setting is. If you’ve never lived in a town of a thousand people or less, it’s hard to absorb the concept just by listening or hearing. And, as we all continue to be reminded from time to time, hearing about a thing is not the same as living it.

Waking up day after day, looking out the dorm window and seeing nothing but miles of cornfields and fencerows is a pretty powerful reminder that you aren’t in Atlanta anymore. Walking past all of the ten businesses that completely comprise our commerce in a three-block streetfront is quite the shock if you’ve grown up in an urban area. Or a suburban one, either, for that matter. In addition to the smallness, there’s the isolation. It’s twenty-five miles to any place that comes close to even looking like a small city, and an hour to the nearest metro, Kansas City.

For people accustomed to having miles of concrete and asphalt extending in every direction, being surrounded by countless commercial venues and endless opportunities for entertainment, it must be quite the shock. For others of us, it just feels like home.

Of course, that is no comfort to those students who just can’t handle such drastic change. Most of them don’t return for a second semester; they opt for returning to a place that feels more familiar.

I think eternity is going to be slightly similar, except that the choice will have been made in advance of the opportunity.

I think that everyone in heaven is going to feel right at home, right away. And as for those folks who say they wouldn’t want to spend a day, much less eternity, with “a bunch of idiots who believe in something as ridiculous as resurrection and miracles,” well, I don’t believe they’ll have to.

H. Arnett
2/24/12

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