A Single Shelter

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Doc Arnett

The long, gangly branches of the cottonwood hang bare, massive and twisting above the corral pen and the corner of the small pasture. After every hard wind, it strews some small sending of litter into the wake. Broken ends scatter in the sand inside the pen and in the fescue around the tree’s base. Along the tree line of the east pasture, more bare branches rise against the paleness of the sky above the ridge, naked as the tall maple in the corner of the field.

But here, right beside the long white gravel driveway, the Bradford Pear tree holds stubbornly to the last green of the season. Fringed with the dark red of autumn’s ending, its cluster of leaves holds thick enough that the horses still seek its shelter and hold to their spot as if tied there.

While the cold rain seeps down through the boughs and branches, the geldings stand together, heads lowered toward the southwest, their backs dark and shiny with what has filtered through the trees. The ground around them is wet, treacherous. Two months of dust has turned into a thin sheet of mud above the hard-packed ground. Hoof traces show the quick slides the pair made in its brief turnings before the tree.

They give little notice of me, holding to their place and pose as I walk in with the halters, squeeze between them and the fence. I hang the lead ropes around their necks to keep the ends out of the mess, pull up the nose loop and fasten the neckstraps. I lead them downhill at first and take the least-sloped route back up toward the gate. Looking back as I take down the last wire, I see two narrow lines of dry dirt beneath the pear tree, each about the length of a horse.

If in the course of our lives, we cannot keep the cold and rain from coming, we can at least stand for a while as a shelter of some sort for someone weaker or more worn by the storm. Deflecting what we can for as long as we can. And when we cannot be the shelter, we can share what space we have, side-to-side, heads bowed beneath the testing until we are led to a better resting.

H. Arnett

11/10/11

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A Strong Drawing

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Doc Arnett

An eighty-something couple from church invited us for a drive around the near section of Doniphan County yesterday. Within a mile or so, we’d left the last asphalt we would travel on for an hour. Autumn colors were barely past their peak as Dale and Betty drove us around and up and down the graveled hills and curves. A few miles along, Betty pointed down into the trees beside a creek and said, "That’s where the log house I was born in used to stand." A half-mile or so farther, we turned south near the old schoolhouse and headed toward the house where Dale used to live. Soon, the gravel turned to dirt.

The bare bank rose up high on both sides after we crossed the creek and started up the hill. "We’d take our old truck into town on Saturday evening and buy groceries. Us kids would ride in the back of the truck," Dale commented. "We’d get started up the hill and the truck wouldn’t be able to make it all the way. So, us kids would have to get out and walk the rest of the way so the truck could make it up the hill." Betty added, "Sometimes, the truck would get stuck and they’d have to carry the groceries, too."

At the top of the hill, Dale showed us the house off to the west, standing in what was now a field. "Some doctor in Kansas City bought the place," he explained. "Now, he just uses it for hunting." He paused for just a moment, looking at the house, then turned the minivan around and took us back down the hill.

As we continued on the tour, we passed the house where Betty’s father was born. Several times, she pointed out places where other houses used to stand. Coming down off the hills, we crossed the levee and passed into the Missouri River bottoms. They showed us the Burr Oak Baptist Church building. The dwindling church had long ago surrendered to the migration of its children away from Doniphan County, away from these hills of dust and gravel, these hills of oak and hickory, ash and elm with cottonwood lining the bottom of the bluff.

Dale and Betty stayed, the roots of land and timber, faith and family too deep for them to leave. They have stayed and continue to share the strength of those roots with those blessed enough for the acquaintance.

H. Arnett

10/31/11

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Hayloft-II

Posted on October 28, 2011 by Doc Arnett

Whether or not it was a part of Dad’s purpose in building the big dairy barn, the hayloft provided Paul and me with our one of our favorite winter recreation spots. By February, we’d fed out enough of the alfalfa bales to leave lots of space for our creativity. We’d manage the feeding to leave multiple levels in the stacked hay, creating a sort of obstacle course that we’d further complicate by building tunnels and forts.

When a couple of cousins came to visit on a weekend when I was in the sixth grade, we headed for the loft as soon as Saturday morning chores and breakfast were finished. Of course, it wasn’t long before a game of tag broke out.

With an older cousin in hot pursuit, I scrambled up the bale elevator, my feet finding the crossbars almost instinctively. With my advantage of home court, even his larger size didn’t let him keep up with me. Just before he could tag me, I turned and launched myself from the upper end of the elevator toward the stacked hay eight feet below me.

It would have been a heroic image, I think, farm kid launched into thin air, arms spread, knees slightly bent in anticipation of the landing, surprised cousin frozen in astonished admiration, eyes wide, mouth open, hand stretched toward the empty space where I’d just stood a split-second before. Yes, it would have been quite impressive…

If my foot hadn’t caught in the open frame of the elevator.

Instead of the paratrooper’s landing I’d had in mind, there was a loud sickening snap as the weight of my body caught in the twist of my left knee. Napalm exploded in the joint and I found myself hanging upside down, dangled above the bales, my foot still trapped. In the adrenaline of sudden agony, I pulled myself back up onto the elevator and freed my foot.

By the next morning, the knee was swollen and red. I did my chores on crutches for the next week or so, and eventually returned to my adventures in the hayloft.

It was not the last time, though, that some clever idea of mine left me limping for a while. In this world, whatever doesn’t kill you sometimes leaves quite the scar. In His grace, even scars heal.

H. Arnett
10/28/11

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Hayloft-Part I

Posted on October 27, 2011 by Doc Arnett

At the beginning of the winter season, the summer stacking of a few thousand fifty-pound bales of alfalfa nearly filled the space of the hayloft in the stock barn on our Todd County dairy farm. Toward the back of the barn, there would have been more than a dozen layers, tightly packed and stacked to hold the different rows together. The layers would gradually step down toward the front loft door, working around the tubular metal frame of a thirty-foot elevator that sloped up from the opening of the loft to the top of the stacked hay.

When the frosts and freezes of late autumn had stopped the growth of grass in the pasture, we’d start feeding the hay. Paul and I would break the bales open in the loft and kick down the heavy chunks through the openings that lined along wither side of the loft floor, working quickly so we could get back to heated space as soon as possible.

The cows would feed in the large space beneath us, jostling one another until all positions had been established. They stood and chewed heavy mouthfuls of cured alfalfa, giving no thought to us as we worked above them, feeding them the rich provision of our own labor.

Such indifference is a characteristic thoroughly understandable in livestock, somewhat less so in humans.

H. Arnett
10/27/11

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Autumn Geldings

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Doc Arnett

The maple in the pasture has turned to its full yellow-gold color and the scrub oaks have burnished their autumn copper. The Bradford pear standing by the lane still holds to its deep green. Fallen leaves and branches from the cottonwood litter the sand of the round pen by the stable. On the bluff across the creek bottom, ash and oak dapple their colors among the maples. The dust of a busy gravel road with no rain for a month covers everything low to the ground. Even the red of sumac barely shows through the thick tan coating.

Back on this side of the creek, Cisco and Jack stand at the hay, manes and tails rippled to the northeast by the stiff breeze that heralds the last summer day in October. We may hit eighty degrees by this afternoon, soon to be followed by a change in wind direction. Tomorrow night’s low will flirt with the freezing mark.

But for today, I will embrace the pleasantness, draw in the colors and savor the sight of the two geldings, standing side by side, drinking together in the water trough. They lift their heads at the same time, small streams of water draining from their lips, silver in the sunlight, diamonds rippling through the air toward earth, drawn back to their source.

In such blessing of harmony, I will try to speak and act today and do nothing to detract from the splendor that surrounds me.

H. Arnett
10/25/11

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One More Mile

Posted on October 21, 2011 by Doc Arnett

It was a cloudy but beautiful evening in the Smokies of North Carolina. Even though he’d fractured his right leg and torn up his left knee in an accident early in the summer, my brother-in-law, Olian, wanted us to take a walk. He had been wanting to try out a portion of the Mountain to Sea Trail that runs along the Blue Ridge Parkway near the cabin he and Freeda bought last year. I love hiking so I was easy to convince. With a preliminary dose of Ibuprofen and a promise of supper ready at seven, we headed out. At six.

With the crimson of sumac and the varied tones of sassafras coloring the low growth, we turned off the gravel road and into the woods. The path was barely worn at all and covered with leaves of the full palette of autumn in the mountains. But, there was the general shape of a hiking trail and the white circle markers on tree trunks every now and then.

We talked as we walked with Olian occasionally stopping and turning back to face me as he pursued some particularly important point. It was the conversation of two believers, tempered a bit by life and open to one another’s comments. We continued on the upward path as the sun settled toward the horizon beyond overcast skies. From time to time, the path came out of the woods by the Parkway. I kept watching for the trail or a shortcut off of it that would lead us back to the cabin by suppertime.

By six-forty-five, it was clear we wouldn’t be back to the house by seven. I tried to call and text Freeda to let her know. No answer and no response. By the time we reached the Mount Jefferson Overlook, we tried again, this time, including an indication of our willingness to accept a ride back home. No response.

The shorter version of this is that we ended up hiking somewhere between two and three miles, emerging from the woods onto the opposite end of the gravel road around seven-thirty and with the last bit of daylight having faded into the hills around us. As we walked along the almost self-illuminated gravel, I could see that Olian was in real pain. "Do you want to sit down and rest here while I trot on home and get the car?" I offered. "No, I’ll make it, just not at a very fast pace." I repeated the offer every five minutes or so and he held to his original position. I was afraid that he would not be able to even stand on the leg the next day.

Another three-quarters of a mile up the road, we saw the glow of headlights. My messages had finally made it through on America’s Most Reliable Service.

What a welcome sight it is to see our relief when we are weary. How much more welcome when we have suffered what seems like as much pain as we can stand. And yet, we often find, if by nothing more than our own intense determination, we are able to keep going until our deliverance is at hand.

It is often in the refusal to give up that we reach our destination. And whenever it is that we cannot take one more step, He carries us one more mile.

H. Arnett

10/21/11

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Live and Learn

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Doc Arnett

After my sister, Freeda, and I returned to their North Carolina cabin in the mountains, I helped my brother-in-law finish putting together a porch swing unit he’d been working on. When we’d finished tightening bolts and adjusting chain lengths, Olian and I hoisted the bench seat onto the A-frame mounts. With the bottom of the seat hanging at waist height, we thought we might adjust the chains again. That brought it down to mid-thigh so we adjusted again. After a couple more quick sessions of fastening, un-fastening and re-fastening, we had it pretty much where we thought we wanted it.

So then, just to be sure, we had Freeda come try it out. After another quick session of fastening, un-fastening and re-fastening, we had it right on the money. After that, Olian and I installed the smaller swing seat on the smaller A-frame out in the yard and closer to the top of the hill. Having gained from our experience with the other project, we got this one the way we wanted it with fewer adjustments of chain length.

It strikes me that we seem to learn pretty quickly from some experiences, such as adjusting chain length on a porch swing. Then, from others, we can be as dense as a doorstop. A man hits his finger with a sledgehammer and almost immediately resolves to avoid doing that sort of thing again. The same man can insult his boss and get fired. Three or eight jobs later, he still hasn’t learned a thing.

Or maybe it’s that he’s struggling with some problem that goes a lot deeper than the pain from a busted finger. And, maybe, just maybe, he never learned that sometimes a few slight taps with a rubber mallet would serve him better than a full roundhouse swing with a sixteen-pound hammer.

I think that if we really paid attention to the multiple effects of our actions, we might find the truth in the old proverb that a few words of wisdom softly spoken will yield more fruit than a whole bushel of harsh words yelled in anger.

H. Arnett
10-20-11

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Finding the Falls

Posted on October 19, 2011 by Doc Arnett

I was a day late but not a dollar short. Fall colors were at their peak (pun not intended but acknowledged) when I visited my sister and her husband in the mountains of western North Carolina two weeks ago. Sunday was beautifully bright and sunny but my schedule brought me there on Monday.

Even though muted by the gray of an overcast day, there was still plenty of glory in the mix of maples, oaks, ash, poplar and plenty of other deciduous species. The occasional brilliance of crimson wrapped the trunks of trees host to the tall climbing vines of poison oak. Lower to the ground, sumac and sassafras showed their colors. Warm and expressive in closer view, the hues faded among hills stretched as far as the eye could see.

While Olian kept the Chihuahua company at the cabin, Freeda chauffeured me around the area, stopping at a couple of overlooks. We made our way down Calloway Gap on a winding gravel road that made us grateful we met no one headed up during our descent. At West Jefferson, we checked out some limb trimmers at Lowe’s and then stopped at Wal-Mart where I bought a few quasi-ripened plums.

On the alternate route back home, we pulled over along the ridge at the Ruby’s Rock Falls overlook. Ruby was nowhere to be found and there was no other spectator to help us locate the falls. It seemed clear that we were not standing near them as there was no noise of tumbling mountain stream. We looked at the sign, looked toward the opposite mountain a mile or more away but without success.

Then, as we stepped over a bit, I looked through the fork of a poplar tree. On that opposite mountain, about halfway up its side (or down, if you’re an optimist), I noticed a long dark stripe with a thin white strip down its middle. As I watched, the strip seemed to pulse, change shape ever so slightly. I realized I was watching a long stream of water tumbling down a rock face. From that distance, I couldn’t tell for sure whether it was spilling over a series of vertical drops or running along a steep angle of bare stone. Accounting for distance, it seemed to be an exposed run of two-to-three hundred feet.

Without close investigation, judging from my limited perspective, using what evidence I had at hand, I am pretty sure that we “found” Ruby’s Rock Falls. Sometimes, even without the rushing and roaring, the thunder and spray of standing at the brink of Niagara’s legendary drop, we know with varying degrees of certainty that we have located some particular place or purpose.

There are similar experiences in our searching for the things that are unseen.

H. Arnett
10/19/11

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Autumn Blessing II

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Doc Arnett

Walk gently
in the midst of this day’s madness,
contribute nothing
to the sadness that is already in the world.
Stand ready to forgive
the rudeness that waits,
the spewing out of some heart
wrenched by the hurts of this life.

Seek out those
who seem less likable
and place some undeserved kindness
in the day that they face
with the same fears
as the rest of us.

Root out from your own heart
the stifling stalk of bitterness,
letting go of the last withering leaf
that seeks to keep you
from noticing
the flaming red of morning sky
blazing behind the stand of trees
stretching toward heaven
in the fenceline.

Let not the slightest mote
keep you from the clear vision
that God is at work
in all things,
bringing each of us
closer to his likeness.

H. Arnett
10/18/11

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Snoozing

Posted on October 17, 2011 by Doc Arnett

I have to confess that I love the snooze button. I love those extra minutes of sleep, that extra time of comfort in warm covers. Especially on these chilly autumn mornings, that brief time of extra forming my thoughts for the coming day while still held in the warm cocoon of rest brings me genuine pleasure. Perhaps, there’s some sense of stealing a bit of “me time” while the world cannot yet find me.

The first alarm will usually spawn a few more minutes of rest, perhaps even a quick dream. The second, though, transitions me. I usually spend most of that time praying for wisdom for the day, for peace and for insight into whatever issue is weighing upon my mind at the time.

It is the alarm that ends this session that is most critical. It is at this point that I either quickly swing my feet out of bed with plenty of time for morning duties and rituals or I hit the snooze button one time too many. It is that third hit that sends a signal of reluctance to face this day, a choosing to withdraw and retreat, a baseless hoping that if I hide a while longer, the call of responsibility will then leave me alone. It is this one that determines whether or not I will be late leaving for work or else leave undone some simple duty of the morning.

We ought to be careful with our snoozing. Choosing a bit more rest so that we may be more ready, more prepared, more energized is a good thing. Using a bit more time in prayer so that we may more fully follow the teaching of Jesus is an excellent thing. Hitting snooze one more time rather than engaging our challenges and opportunities is something else entirely.

H. Arnett
10/17/11Especially on these chilly autumn mornings, that brief time of extra forming my thoughts for the coming day while still held in the warm cocoon of rest brings me genuine pleasure. Perhaps, there’s some sense of stealing a bit of “me time” while the world cannot yet find me.

The first alarm will usually spawn a few more minutes of rest, perhaps even a quick dream. The second, though, transitions me. I usually spend most of that time praying for wisdom for the day, for peace and for insight into whatever issue is weighing upon my mind at the time.

It is the alarm that ends this session that is most critical. It is at this point that I either quickly swing my feet out of bed with plenty of time for morning duties and rituals or I hit the snooze button one time too many. It is that third hit that sends a signal of reluctance to face this day, a choosing to withdraw and retreat, a baseless hoping that if I hide a while longer, the call of responsibility will then leave me alone. It is this one that determines whether or not I will be late leaving for work or else leave undone some simple duty of the morning.

We ought to be careful with our snoozing. Choosing a bit more rest so that we may be more ready, more prepared, more energized is a good thing. Using a bit more time in prayer so that we may more fully follow the teaching of Jesus is an excellent thing. Hitting snooze one more time rather than engaging our challenges and opportunities is something else entirely.

H. Arnett
10/17/11

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