Of Fog and Mud

Posted on January 25, 2024 by Doc Arnett

This fog did not come creeping in on little cat feet and pause by the harbor a while before moving on. No, sir, this one came waddling in like a morbidly obese English Bulldog, plopped down heavily and refused to move.

For days now, it has squatted over the hills and valleys of northeastern Kansas, insolently oblivious to the sodden squalor of its presence, the sullen soaking of every exposed surface, branch, twig, leaf, stem, cell, molecule.

In the mixing of the slumping snow and the still frozen just-below-the-surface, there is a slickening muck that seems to suck the slightest weight into the sinking crust. In both texture and appearance, there is an unpleasant sense of repulsive exposure. Fingers of only slightly thawed dead grass and fallen leaves stretch into the slumping drifts of heaving snow.

And yet… in the hazed images of tree trunks melding into the mist, in the silhouetted shapes against the softened glow of yard lights and the slightly muted night warmth of farmhouse windows, there is something of beauty. In the mist-quietened murmur of traffic and the silence of night’s stillness, there is a pleasant peace.

Even in the disgusting mix of mud and muck and ice and melting snow in the paddock, there is blessing below the surface, a slow saturation of moisture into the drought leached soil, a soothing that will bring forth seed and nourish the greening of spring in due time.

In the seasons of aggravation and affliction, there is yet grace that strengthens the spirit and soothes the soul. Even in our testings, there is nourishment for the coming season. Even our slogging bootprints speak of benefit and supply that reaches beyond this momentary enduring. Not even the dismal gray of a weeklong fog can hide the presence of God from the eye of faith and a deliberate seeking of good.

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Farming, Metaphysical Reflection, Nature, Poetic Contemplations, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Of Fog and Mud

The Bitter Storms

Posted on January 19, 2024 by Doc Arnett 
How lovely and lonely the poetry

Of pain and grief!

Broken bowls leaching light

Into a heartless night.



Silver tears tracing wordless fears

Into the formless shroud of a winter sky.

Aching love banked like seams of snow

In the high shadows of dark woods.



Across the frozen fields of the plains,

A piercing wind sends drifting serpents

Sifting over the barren stones, 

Swirling streams of hollowed fangs



Seek out the hidden pulse of feeling,

Piling deep drifts of numbing emptiness

Into the eddies that swirl around

Chiseled walls of memory and meaning.



Leaning, delicately curved swoops

Lie above the hidden depths of

Tender, aching, emptiness

Far beneath the chilling cut.



Kept in the shadows until winter has passed,

It takes until the Spirit's own revealing

That we may rise in the chill of our own choices,

And realize with fractured heart and tortured voice,



That we have chosen 

Something other than healing. 







H. Arnett

1/19/2024
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Fiddling toward Heaven

Posted on January 10, 2024 by Doc Arnett

In a small church in northeastern Kansas, Randa and I join other seekers for a Christmas Eve service. A forty-something violinist and his pianist mother are playing various carols as prelude. Will is a former colleague (Highland Community College). I knew he played in a band but didn’t realize he was a fiddler.

My grandfather Pap Bazzell and some of my favorite friends played fiddle: Bill Jolliff, who suffered and triumphed through grad school with me at Ohio State. Terry Brock, a former student at Missouri Western who joined Randa and me for a couple of years in our band, Desert Rain.

Pap passed away without me having any memories of him playing. Dad said he was really good, “He’d play ‘Listen to the Mockingbird’ and he’d make that fiddle sound just like a real mockingbird!” He also said that Pap played on stage with Roy Acuff at the annual picnic at Backusburg, Kentucky. Sure wish I could have seen that!

Randa and I did get to see—and hear—Elizabeth Pitcairn play The Red Stradivarius in a live performance at the Missouri Theater in Saint Joseph several years ago. It was ethereal! The beauty and power of that violin in the hands of someone like her are amazing. The way it projected sound without electric amplification did not seem possible. Her skill drew out its capacity, which is how it is with all instruments of beauty and power, including ourselves. Given the right arrangements…

Whether classical or whimsical, the fiddle to me was and still is the ultimate expression of folk music. With a soft, tender melody, its notes can turn my heart into putty and my eyes into wellsprings. And in a different vein, get me to tapping and clapping in time with its lively tunes. On certain bits, it can even get me up on my feet dancing a jig. (Or whatever you’d call whatever it is I’m trying to do!)

Speaking of age, Pap played the fiddle into his eighties. Terry has just hit sixty and is still playing. Tendonitis or arthritis took that pleasure away from Bill years ago and he mostly plays banjo now. I’m older than either of them but we are all still making music, still enjoying our offerings to others and to the Lord.

I don’t know that there will be any fiddles (or guitars) in heaven. But I do know that we will still be praising Him Who Died for Us!

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Keeping Good Company

Posted on January 9, 2024 by Doc Arnett 
It had been a really long day of healings, exorcisms, easing disease, and such, (not to mention all the preaching) and Jesus must have been plum tuckered out. With his buddies rowing the boat and the bow turned toward Over There, he laid down in the stern, and zonked out. He must have been tireder than a rented mule ‘cause boy oh boy, he was absolutely out of it.



Well, as it turns out, one of those mean little squalls that turns the lake into froth in just a few minutes came along. The wind was blowing like Fury itself and the waves were pitching that boat around like it was inside a butter churn on triple speed. The boys were rowing like their lives depended on it and making no progress at all, unless you count getting blown backwards as progress of some sort.



Every now and then, after yet another huge, vicious wave rocked and twisted the boat so hard it seemed like it would splinter into three or eight or a hundred different pieces, they’d look back at the stern and see Jesus limp as a waterlogged biscuit, just bumping and thumping around… and still sleeping. “Man, how in thunderation can he be sleeping through this!”



Finally, when it looked like that boat was going to get flipped over backwards and send them all straight to Davy Jones’ Locker—or whatever version of it they keep at the bottom of the Sea of Galilee—one of ‘em finally says, “Wake him up!” I reckon it was pretty obvious who the “him” was in this case since everyone else was too terrified to breathe. “Surely, he can do something! If he ain’t gonna cast the demons out of this storm, he can at least help us row!”



Jesus seemed a bit grumpy about having his sleep disturbed. Something about having your cement mixer peace and quiet disturbed by a bunch of screaming fishermen, “Dude! We’re in real trouble here! Don’t you give a whit that we’re all about to drown here?!”



Well, first things first, of course, so right off the bat, he scolded them. “What are you so scared off? Why is your faith so tiny and small and weak?” 



Having set them in their proper place, he then turned and faced the storm. “Knock it off!” he says, and that storm knew better than to mess with a guy who can sleep like a baby when he’s in the back of a boat getting tossed around like when two hounds have both grabbed a hold of the same squirrel. Instantly, the wind remembered it needed to go somewhere else and the water smoothed out like two kids who really didn’t want their momma to stop that car.



Now, folks, I reckon maybe Jesus meant they had to know that boat wasn’t about to go down that night. “You know who I am, right? I kick demons out of people, heal lepers, make the deaf hear, the lame walk, and raise the dead. You think any boat I’m in is really gonna sink?!”



No matter how rough things get in life, our boat is not going down. Not if we’re in Jesus’ boat. We might get wet, but we are not going to drown.



It ain’t believing what you can do so much as it is remembering who you’re with.
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Storm in the Forecast

Posted on January 8, 2024 by Doc Arnett

Per the National Weather Service, our little corner of Paradise might get between five and twelve inches of snow between now and tomorrow evening. Yes, that is quite a range and we tend to get on the low end of the forecast, it seems. Not that we would be dreadfully disappointed, mind you. Sometimes, getting less than expected is a good thing. Fewer stripes than promised seldom causes the flogged pirate any great grief, I suppose.

Last year, we prepped for an onslaught of winter weather that was forecast to cause several days of power outage. I drove my little pickup over to the nearest fuel station and bought eleven gallons of K-1 kerosene. Figured we could at least fry breakfast each morning and keep one room in the house warm most of the time.

That’s what we did in the aftermath of the great Ice Storm back in December’06 when the whole region was covered with broken branches and fallen trees and the electricity was out for somewhere between three days and three weeks. We were fortunate; ours was only out for a few days.

Right there in our beautiful Tudor two-story on Douglas Street, we set an iron skillet on top of our brand-new kerosene heater and fried eggs, bacon and toast each morning. The house, though, got pretty dang cold and we sure were glad when the power came back on!

Last year’s dire warnings pretty much fizzled out. Much ado about very little, as the poet wrote. Maybe two inches of snow. Having quite the excess on hand and needing at least one of those fuel jugs for other varieties of flammable liquid, I used kerosene for charcoal lighting, backyard fire lighting, pasture burning, old hay igniting, and brush pile incineration. Heck, I even used some of it in the kerosene heater in the garage! Still have about six gallons left.

I reckon we’ll see what the day brings us. Randa did drive over to Saint Joseph yesterday afternoon and freshen up the grocery stock. We’ll pray for safe keeping, avoid any unnecessary jaunts out on the highway, and trust that no matter what happens, the Lord will be with us, and we will be with him. Do what you can, don’t be an idiot, and leave the rest of it up to God.

Whether you’re talking about winter storms, raising kids, or neo-apocalyptic disaster.

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Everything That Breathes

Posted on January 4, 2024 by Doc Arnett

“Let everything that has breath praise the LORD. Praise the LORD.” (Psalm 150:6)

I’ve experienced, or at least witnessed, a fairly wide variety of worship expressed through music. It extends from the old time, four-part a Capella harmony of a small country church to the full rock band/worship team of a modern mega church and most of the increments in between. I have stood and bowed in reverent quiet, and I have felt the pulse of powerful bass guitar and drums. I have worshipped in singing to the leading of a solitary singer standing before the small group and rhythming the timing with a patterned beat of a farm-toughened hand. I have exulted in the loud expression of electric guitars and digital keyboards along with hundreds of other standing worshippers.

Some of my favorite moments were when riding with my dad in the summer darkness down the rolling, curving backroads of Muhlenberg, Logan, and Todd counties in West Kentucky. We’d take turns picking out some old hymn or gospel song. Once I’d reached adolescence, we’d take turns singing bass.

Other cherished moments include family singings on the farm (a Capella). Still others have been in the quiet of our own home, singing with my wife Randa, and flatpicking an old Gibson acoustic guitar. There have been times when I’ve sat alone in a dark room, pouring out my heart to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Sometimes I’ve worshipped in an heart-emptying, soul-scraping expression of intimate encounter and other times it’s been more like the unrestrained bashing of wooden spoons on kitchen pans of a completely uninhibited toddler.

It seems to me that there really is no end of means or reasons for worshipping God. If we have breath, we have both method and motivation to praise the Lord.

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Fire and Ice

Posted on December 21, 2023 by Doc Arnett 
How fine and peaceful 
The serenity of a frozen lake
On a gray morning
When thoughts of the day
Are slowly forming notions of what may come

And love lingers near the surface
Like the glow of a shrouded sun
Warming the motions of what must be done
And giving fire to the better desires
Of all that live within us.
Posted in Christian Devotions, Metaphysical Reflection, Nature, Poetic Contemplations, Poetry, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Fire and Ice

Hard Work, Great Benefits

Posted on December 13, 2023 by Doc Arnett

Well, folks, I have inadvertently developed a new exercise. It focuses primarily on the abdominal core muscles but also provides an intriguing bit of accentuating capacity for the back, triceps, forearms, and shoulders. In fact, it is pretty close to a total body workout.

The beginning part of this exercise is locating an appropriate crawl space underneath a house. Ideally, this space should be about 32 to 36 inches high. I cannot guarantee the effectiveness of said exercise if those dimensions are significantly altered.

In this crawl space, one should locate four spots to dig square holes. Approximately eighteen inches wide and from six to eight inches deep. These holes could become foundation piers for an additional support beam, should one’s floor be excessively sagging. I do not recommend a long handle shovel for this. I do recommend something a bit more technologically advanced then bare fingers. Using that approach might interfere with the latter aspects of the exercise.

The key part of the exercise is filling these holes with concrete, preferably concrete that is not already set and cured. In other words, you’re going to pour and mix fresh concrete in these holes. Yes, under the house.

As you may have already deducted, this will require getting concrete mix back to the holes in the crawl space. A more rigorous exercise experience can be gained by using eighty pound bags of concrete. At my age, and given my general lack of ambition, I settled for fifty pound bags.

I recommend initially setting the bags just inside the access opening of the foundation of the house. You might try tossing them ten or fifteen feet inside the space but that might have intended consequences for the bags as well as the person tossing said bags.

The subsequent relocation is the primary aspect of the activity. I suppose that one could lay the bag of concrete on his or her back and then do a low crawl underneath the floor joists. I must admit, though, I have not actually tried this approach.

What I did was to set the bag on a piece of triple folded cardboard approximately eighteen inches wide and three feet long. Then, my first experiment involved pushing the cardboard. Push the bag, crawl forward two notches, push the bag, crawl forward, repeat as needed.

After having semi-successfully used this approach to move the concrete bag to the first hole about thirty feet inside the crawl space, I decided to experiment with a different approach.

This one still involves the cardboard but using a crawdad approach. Back up, pull the cardboard toward you, hopefully having remembered to set the bag of concrete on the cardboard. Back up some more, pull the cardboard some more, continue repeating this until you have reached your destination. It might be fifty feet or more to your last hole, depending on spacing.

In addition to the initial benefits mentioned, it seems that this exercise (which I am confident will soon replace Pilates and surpass yoga in popularity) might also work on the hip muscles a bit, as well as the back muscles. Repeat the process an adequate number of times, and it begins to be fairly simple to determine which muscles are particularly involved.

Then of course, there is the additional benefit in regard to your self-imposed physical therapy which comes from the actual pouring and mixing the concrete in the holes. I recommend the fast setting concrete for this. But of course, that has very little bearing on the ultimate muscular benefit.

For even more rigorous activity and more rewarding exercise, I recommend forgiving people you don’t like, being kind to people who have been unkind to you, and returning good for evil. (I must admit, this concept is not original to me, but I do find it more challenging and of even greater benefit.)

I do not, however, recommend waiting until you are seventy to start doing either of these sets of exercise. Good luck and good to you!

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Exercise, Humor, Remodeling/Construction, Spiritual Contemplation, Work | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hard Work, Great Benefits

The Labors of Love

Posted on December 12, 2023 by Doc Arnett 
I sit, alone but not lonely,
In the early morning dark of an empty house.
I listen to the sound of coffee dripping
Into the small  pot in the cheap coffee maker
That sits on an old, heavily stained formica counter.

There is much in this house that needs work:
Slightly rotted floor in the old bathroom,
Two broken joists beneath the floor of the entryway,
Windows stubborn in their tracks, 
And old wiring that didn't meet standards 
Even when it was first installed. 
And old wires are not like wine and violins. 

This is the second week 
My son and I have worked on this place together, 
But much of the work he will do alone.
It is the same way that his father worked
And his grandfather before them both.

There are times in life 
When we share the blessing of work 
With someone else helping to lighten the load
And times when we bear that work alone.

But it is always good whenever we do good work,
And there is not much work that is better
Then getting a home ready for living.

Whether twisting beneath the floor joists
To lift up and put in insulation in the crawl space,
Or flattened out in the attic
Underneath the low slope of the roof,
Wiring in the ventilation fan,

Preparing a place for those we love
Is not completely unlike the labors of heaven.

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Family, Poetic Contemplations, Poetry, Relationships, Remodeling/Construction, Spiritual Contemplation, Work | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Labors of Love

Old Friends and Old Hymns

Posted on December 11, 2023 by Doc Arnett

My best old friend from high school had been closer than a brother back in the day. We’d even been brothers-in-law for a few years but both ended up divorced from the sisters we’d married. Over the years, Mark and I had drifted apart. In fact, for many years we had not even communicated. But recently we had reconnected and were planning to get together and sing a special at his church near Mayfield, Kentucky.

Mark and I spent a bit of time talking about what song we might sing at his church yesterday morning. Between the two of us, we’d come up with a half dozen or so songs. Being as how it was only two weeks before Christmas, we considered a couple of Christmas songs. Specifically, “What Child Is This?” and “O, Holy Night.” Both fine songs.

Mark had suggested that we try out the different songs, consider which one we seemed to sound best on, and make our selection during our practice. Seemed like a good plan.

But when we met Saturday morning to rehearse, his voice was not in real good shape. We were afraid that if we spent an hour or so practicing different songs that it might be counterproductive. Not much point in perfecting a song if you’re not able to sing it the next morning.

So, when we met, we had mutually arrived at the conclusion that we should just pick out the song we wanted and then practice it. I knew in my heart which one I wanted to do. Apparently, Mark also knew. We looked at each other, grinned, and said, “Let’s do ‘It Is Well With My Soul.'”

And so, we practiced that old hymn, doing it three or four times. Each time, we further refined how we wanted to do it. Deciding who would sing lead, on what verse, and so on. I made part of that easy when I tried to sing harmony on the second verse while Mark sang the lead. We agreed that was not the way to go!

Mark is much better at singing harmony than I am. But I had practiced the harmony “echo” part on the chorus over the years and had it close enough that Mark felt like that would be fine.

We had both been praying for Mark’s voice. Years of leading congregational singing and also singing with his dad’s vocal group had taken their toll. But the biggest impact came from two surgeries he had in which the surgeon had to push his larynx to the side in order to get to the spinal vertebrae in his neck. Immediately after the second surgery. In particular, Mark’s voice had taken a real hit. But we kept praying and practicing and hoped for the best.

Sunday morning’s service began with the congregation singing “Victory in Jesus.” From the first note, there was such a clear and palpable presence of the Spirit. The whole church just seemed immersed in the presence of God and delighted in giving him praise. After the worship team sang a couple more songs, it was our turn to share the music we had prepared.

For the first time in over forty years, Mark Hardison and I were about to sing together in public. Mark gave a brief introduction, describing our friendship and its gap of many years with a recent, deliberate restoration that was spurred by his daughter Bethany contacting me last year and urging me to reach out to him. I was already glad I had done that and I was about to get even gladder. Then we started singing.

It was so wonderful to hear how much stronger his voice was than when we had practiced just twenty-four hours earlier. God had answered our prayers!

I thought about the hours and hours that Mark and I had spent singing together in our younger years. I remembered when we won second place at a talent contest in Fulton, Kentucky, back in 1988. (We lost to an 8-year-old piano prodigy. Really tough to compete with that!)

Mark and I had been praying that we might be a blessing to his church. I think, based on people’s expressions during the song and comments to us later, that we did. I know for certain that the greater blessing was the one we received from being a part of that worship experience and sharing our gift and love for singing once again.

I’ve noticed that it’s not really that unusual that when we put good effort into being a blessing to others, we often receive an even greater blessing than the one we give.

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