The Real Test

Posted on January 31, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Last night, I had a conversation with a young man I’ve known for quite a while. As he was speaking about a situation in his new career, I picked up on a theme that has run through the ten years or so of his employment history. Rather than lending the typical sympathetic ear that comes so easily to such exchanges, I instead took a different tact.

I pointed out to him that in virtually all of the jobs he’d held, he complained about the ineptitude of his supervisors. It seemed like in every case, he’d ended up quitting his job over the unfairness that he perceived in the situation. Instead of joining in with his latest bit of self-pity, I challenged him to lay aside the blaming and complaining and instead take the circumstances and demonstrate his ability to function well and truly be a leader.

“Someone is watching you right now,” I asserted, “and they’re going to notice whether you criticize or rise up. It could be a test,” I continued, “and if you show them that even when you’re not in a great situation you still do a great job, they will be impressed.”

I knew that I was taking a risk in the relationship, but we seldom make a key difference by taking the easy way out or the safest route. “You have a chance here,” I concluded, “to make a powerful change in the way you respond to these situations, a change that could have a profound effect on your whole career, even the rest of your life. Move from the blaming and complaining of being a victim to the habit of finding opportunity even in the unfair situations.”

When he thanked me for “being real with him,” I responded, “You have tremendous intellect and ability; I want to help you maximize it.”

I found myself thinking, way into the night, about the talk and the things I’d said to him. I surprised myself with the degree of honesty in my confrontation.

In fact, as I continued my reflection on the serendipitous exchange we’d had, I got so carried away with what I said, I’m even thinking about using it myself. That’s the real test of the advice we give to others.

H. Arnett
1/31/12

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A Different Road

Posted on January 30, 2012 by Doc Arnett

From time to time,
hoping for something sublime,
I check the rear-view mirror
as I’m driving to work,
thinking maybe to see
that first blazing edge of the sun
rising through the ridge of the eastern sky,
its glorious red rim
setting fire to the whole of what gathers
above the earth.

I pause occasionally,
check the road ahead of me
just to be sure I don’t run over someone
or catch the front end of some semi
railing the white line
on its way toward Saint Louis.

Every now and then,
I’ll see the softer view
of gentle hues
and quiet tones,
the slightest touch of pink
on the feathered edges of light clouds,
calm and quiet
above the edge of the earth toward the west.

It is good from time to time
to turn away from our search for the spectacular
and take in the humble beauty
that spreads around us,
to adore the meek and quiet spirit
that truly shows us the nearness of Christ.

H. Arnett
1/30/12

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Getting Along

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Every now and then, I do something strange. Pick up a hitchhiker, speak to someone I don’t know, stuff like that. In fact, I’ve been doing weird stuff for so long now, it’s about to get to where strange is normal.

Some days, it’s something as simple as putting peanuts in my Pepsi or crumbling up some cornbread in a glass of milk. Of course, I’d been doing that for a long time before I found out it was strange. Learned I have to be more selective about the audience. In fact, living out here so near the open range, I’ve just about become downright secretive about some of my strangeness.

The latest episode, however, was done in full view of others.

I took my class of eleven students over to our Wellness Center yesterday and had them do an activity that clearly none of them had done before. It’s quite simple really; all they had to do was move a big exercise ball from the starting line to the finish line, a distance that looked to be darn near fifty yards. There were a couple of catches; they couldn’t touch the ball with their hands or move forward when they were touching the ball. Oh, and the ball couldn’t touch the floor.

Well, they thought and they talked and they worked together and they figured it out. Then, they got it done.

It’s just downright fun to watch a group of strangers getting over being strangers, seeing them communicate and cooperate, witnessing their working together and mastering a challenge. Unless I remarkably misread the whole scene, it seemed that every single one of them enjoyed pitching in, each doing his part so that the whole group could be successful.

It’s really fun when a church does something strange like that.

H. Arnett

1/27/12

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Witness of Weakness

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Lifting the bale of hay, I find myself thinking of my younger days when I could still throw such a bale up on top of the fifth layer on the back of the truck. Now, on a good day, I can push it up on top of the second layer. It’s not just the aging, it’s also the fact that I don’t lift as many bales now as I did back then.

Except for the man rarely blessed, as was Moses, whose strength and vision stayed with him into his old age, it is customary that strength and stamina fade with the passing years. Passing through our middle years, we are still occasionally surprised not to see that younger memory of ourselves when we look in the mirror. Instead, we see that stubborn stranger who has taken over that finer body and has no apparent intention of giving it back.

We should be grateful, actually. In the paradox of Christianity, it is in our weakness that God’s strength is made perfect. Acutely aware of our imperfections, we sometimes fail to note the better changes that his Spirit has worked within us over the years. Though our bodies age and our skin wrinkles, we have grown in him and through him. Our faith, our hope and our love, tempered by the years, have responded to the testing with greater growth. We see more joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness and self-control. A greater confidence that we can do all things through him who strengthens us.

As this body grows closer to its time of planting in the soil, its testimony to us is that it is less needed, less suitable, and less desirable, as we are being made, day by day, more ready for our rest. More ready for the springing forth of our immortality, for the receiving of a greater likeness to his own.

H. Arnett

1/24/12

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The Ancient of Days

Posted on January 20, 2012 by Doc Arnett

The low light of a slight crescent moon

barely shows through the thin clouds

of this January morning.

The cold crust of the earth lies below

in the darkness of a day

not yet fully formed.

The chores that cannot wait for brighter moments

are done in the dimness:

hay, water and feed.

The needs of the horses met,

Randa walks back toward the house

and its sheltering from the harsh of wind.

Beyond the bluffs and the bare-branched ridge,

in the thin cut between the over-hanging shroud

and the blackness of frozen ground,

a thawing sun sends its warming orange,

a glowing promise of what endures,

a comforting reminder of pure love

that holds our lives

beyond the cold and darkness,

beyond the cloud and storm:

he who has formed us

is always near

to those whose hearts yearn for him.

H. Arnett

1/20/12

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The Way of Things

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Last night’s mesmerizing sunset brought a splashing of reds and pinks onto the bellies of scattering clouds stretched out in fan pattern from the west. Beneath that beauty, though, the cold rolled edge of a slate blue front laid a distinct boundary of something else. Before midnight, the rain came, and behind it, a bit of sleet and snow. Not quite enough to cover the driveway, but enough to know that this is January.

In the more than slight bite of this morning’s wind, I used a steel bar to break loose the frozen latch that holds the gate closed, so I could carry hay to the slatted rack for the horses. While they ate mixed beet pulp and sweet feed, I pitched the packed flakes of brome into the feeder.

Turning then to their water, I picked up the open end of the short hose, held it over the heated tub and tried to lift the handle of the hydrant. It, too, was frozen in place. A harder jerk managed to move it and water began to flow from the hose. After the tub was filled, I moved the handle back down into the "off" position, loosened the hose fitting enough to let air pull through and drained the hose. Otherwise, the least bit of water left in would freeze and block the hose.

It’s a certainty in this weather, no way around it. Water left out in this kind of cold will freeze. Which is similar to why righteous thinking is so important to righteous living; evil left in the heart eventually makes its way into the life.

H. Arnett

1/17/12

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Cutting Edge

Posted on January 12, 2012 by Doc Arnett

With the wind chill at minus four and a scattering of snow on the ground, I believe that I can say that January has finally found us here in the near corner of Kansas. I suppose it safe to speculate that no fruit trees will be budding out today and that any that were about to will probably hold off on that little project for a while.

Other than holding a bit closer to the barn than usual, taking to the leeward side of thirty-miles-an-hour wind, the horses go about their usual business of the day, meaning mostly that they finished their feed and are now eating their hay and doing other horse-like things. Jack, the black Tennessee Walker, is sporting a white jacket about his back and withers, evidence that horses do not always take advantage of the shelter offered them.

Another trait they share with their owners, neighbors and other occupants of the world.

Some days, we seem to have no choice but to walk into the wind, take its harsh sendings, and bear up as best we can. Other times, it seems like nothing more than sheer foolishness that guides the choices that take us into the most bitter realms of this world’s darkest pains.

May the wisdom that is from above, that is pure and peaceable and seeks the good that endures, guide you in those choices today.

H. Arnett
1/12/12

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Reflections on the Prairie

Posted on January 11, 2012 by Doc Arnett

I had the opportunity yesterday to do a couple of presentations on continuous quality improvement at one of the other community colleges in Kansas. It was their opening in-service of the new semester. Near the start of the session, their president spoke. As soon as he’d welcomed the hundred-and-fifty or so employees, the very next thing that he said was, "If I have somehow hurt or offended any of you, in any way, I’m asking you to please forgive me."

I thought about that several times during my five-hour drive back home last evening. I don’t know the man at all, but I was struck by what seemed to me to be genuine sincerity. I was still thinking about it as I drove through the Flint Hills section between Wichita and Emporia.

Kansas suddenly seems vast and enormous as you drive from one ridge toward another. Rolling prairie stretches out for miles in every direction. In many places you can look in every direction and see no houses, barns or much of anything else except the lines of scrub oak and cottonwood along the ditches and creeks. The sky wraps around you, boundless, as a swollen moon rises in the dusk, above endless acres of grazing range.

In such a place as that, one can feel as small as a blade of grass, insignificant in all the universe, except for the fact that we have been chosen for love by the God who made both sky and prairie.

Driving through that vastness, I thought that we should never feel too large to ask for forgiveness. Nor too small to grant it to others.

H. Arnett

1/11/12

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A Deliberate Caution

Posted on January 9, 2012 by Doc Arnett

A full moon

in the cold clear

of a January morning

traces the shapes of bare branches

on bare earth

as we move between

house and pasture.

Randa puts feed into the heavy buckets

as I pack water to the heated trough;

The hose is frozen again.

It seems hard to think

it can be that cold

after this run

of shirt-sleeve weather

in what is often

the harshest time of year.

It’s the nights that do it,

this dropping into the twenties

after climbing into the forties,

and the smallest bit of water

left where the hose bends

ever so slightly

back up the slope.

It is good to practice

a very deliberate caution

that does not allow

the seem of circumstance

to overwhelm the reality of truth.

H. Arnett

1/9/12

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Unseasonable

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Doc Arnett

Unseasonable

For the second time in a week, we reached sixty degrees yesterday. At the time of year when our normal high temperatures are in the teens, we’re looking at another week of the forties. The day started out with ominous omens.

I discovered Randa wielding a fly swatter in the kitchen before breakfast. “It’s been so warm the darn flies are hatching out,” she remarked, whacking at one that kept bumping against the window and then taking cover in a corner. Eventually, the fly blundered and we then turned our attention to breakfast.

Toast finished and bowl rinsed, I headed out to the garage and made yet another discovery of untimely development. There on the concrete floor, flat on its back and completely immobile, lay a freshly hatched stinkbug. It was as green as a lime. I picked it up and carried it into the house. “Look at this,” I invited, holding the specimen out for Randa’s inspection, which didn’t take long. “Stinkbug hatched out and then froze last night.” I dropped the critter into the wastebasket under the sink and returned to my garage project.

A couple hours later, I came back into the house. The stinkbug was crawling across the kitchen floor. I picked it up on a piece of paper this time; figured if it was mobile it was also capable of living up to its name. I took it outside and thumped it about fifteen feet out into the grass. I’m fifty-eight years old and I’ve never seen a freshly hatched stinkbug in January. What I’m more worried about, though, is that I’m soon going to be seeing my little fruit trees budding out right before the month returns to its traditional habits.

I’m a bit ashamed to be apprehensive about such remarkably pleasant weather but I have seen whole orchards ruined. I’ve also seen lives ruined when people forget that every season has its purpose and that even enjoyable things can happen at the wrong time.

H. Arnett
1/6/12

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