A Blessing of Gray

Posted on September 8, 2011 by Doc Arnett

A few miles west of Troy, Highway 36 breaks out of the broad winding turns and low hills, opens into a big curve at the top of the ridge. You can see for miles there, a big sky holding over all those acres of corn and beans and patches of trees. There’s a long, winding line of willows and cottonwood running along the river where the Wolf makes its way toward the Missouri. Given enough time between rains, the river will turn clear enough to see into though never clear enough to tempt you to drink from it.

There’s a different sort of refreshing, though, in the sight of that valley as you come down the slope from either ridge. Those slopes stretch down about a mile from east or west and the flat of the bottoms adds another mile with the bridge pretty much in the middle.

On some autumn mornings, you can see the fog’s forming above the valley from a few miles away. Sometimes it’s just a general sort of mist, some vague gray melding into land and sky. Other days, it seems so well defined and definite that you wonder if it was cut from some higher source and laid in place. On such days as that, it forms a long smooth ribbon hanging above the river, holding between heaven and earth like an angel sent with some sweet message but cautious not to touch the dirt from which we are made.

We drive beneath it, grateful for its beauty beneath the vast blue sky and wishing we could walk upon it, no longer bound by this flesh, no longer rooted to the longings of the world.

Until that day of Change and Freedom, we give thanks for such blessings as this and remember that there is more than fog and sky above us.

H. Arnett

9/8/11

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The Long Summer

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Doc Arnett

A north wind came,

sending a welcome chill

into the ending of August.

We pulled lawn chairs

out of the shade and into the sun

on the first Sunday of September,

passed an hour

watching the horses

grazing in the thick grass

of what was once front yard.

I can’t remember

a change so sudden;

usually summer simmers on

into the middle of the month.

There hasn’t been much “usual”

in this summer:

heavy rains and high temperatures

and the river over its banks

ever since the first of June.

They say it’ll be down

by the end of the week

and that’ll be none too soon.

Prayer and stones

and a trainload of sandbags

have held the levee for this long

but eventually

even good people

can grow weary of their own petitions.

It is good

that God

is so much larger than us.

H. Arnett

9/7/11

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Beyond Doctrine

Posted on September 6, 2011 by Doc Arnett

Frank Morris was about ten years older than me and grew up just a few miles from where my family lived in Todd County, Kentucky. He and his folks attended church at a congregation my dad helped to establish in Pembroke. His dad, Roy, is one of my favorite men in the memory of my childhood years. He let me ride with him on his old “Poppin’ Johnny” tractor and offered me water from his glass jug on a sweltering day in August. I took him up on that offer only once; Mr. Roy’s water came from a sulfur well and the water tasted exactly like it smelled. He laughed as I turned away and spewed my mouthful out onto the fescue under the tree. Then he grinned, “Aw, Harold, it just takes a little gettin’ used to.”

It’s hard to get used to something you always avoid and actually returning good for evil is something most of us avoid. Frank Morris is a bit different from most of us.

Years after that Todd County farm, Frank had married. He and his wife had a son who was around twenty-two years old. He was killed by a drunk driver who was about the same age as their son.

Instead of responding with the anger and retaliation most people would display in those circumstances, Frank and his wife went in the opposite direction. They began to visit the other young man in jail. After his conviction, they continued visiting him. After his release, they welcomed him into their home. Baffled by their forgiveness and love, he found himself comforted by the very ones he expected to hate him.

In regard to others who were baffled by the Morris’ response, Frank said simply, “We already lost our son. Hating the person who killed him would not bring him back. This young man needed our love. We gave it to him and we have been blessed more than he has.”

I’m not suggesting that losing a child or any other loved one is something anyone can ever get used to. What I’m saying is that returning good for evil is something that we can do and that the more often we do it, the more natural it becomes to us.

Even if it seems a little bit like drinking sulfur water at first.

H. Arnett

9/5/11

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Emancipation Proclamation

Posted on September 2, 2011 by Doc Arnett

I remember thinking in my much younger years that the Carpenter’s teaching on forgiveness was just one more example of how he required more of us than was humanly reasonable. Forgiving someone seventy times? In a day? Yeah, right.

Adding on the notions of returning good for evil, blessing those who curse me and praying for those who despitefully use me seemed to equate to an ideology that was hopelessly lofty. And then, just to be sure no one could ever possibly hope to live up to his notion, he hefts on to the pile, “Love your enemies.”

I could hardly accuse him of hypocrisy; he certainly adhered to his own teaching. After the flogging, beatings, and mockery, in the midst of his agonizing torture on the cross, he speaks, “Father, forgive them.” I saw his example and admired the expression. What I failed to see was the liberation.

I know from my own experience that there are few prisons that can match the total control and absolute wretchery of bitterness. A heart consumed with resentment lives in complete torture of itself. Those who hate are under the absolute rule of those they despise. When we think to overcome evil with evil, we enter a contest to see who can become the most evil. Instead of emulating our Savior, we pattern ourselves after our Enemy.

Those who seek vengeance, by whatever means, will never know the abundant life that Jesus offers. Joy and bitterness cannot dwell in the same heart. It is not vengeance that brings release from anger and hatred; it is forgiveness. Returning good for evil delivers us from the slavery of retaliation. Letting go of past hurts and wrongs endured is the only way that we can move on to the genuine pleasures that Christ intended for us: fellowship, release, freedom from the bonds of this world and its prince.

Forgiving those who ask for it is Christian duty. Forgiving those who don’t is the ultimate liberation. Individually and globally.

H. Arnett

9/2/11

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Winning the Trifecta

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Doc Arnett

It was twenty-two years ago today

that we began to make our way

through this world together.

The odds, some would say,

so stacked against us

that there was no way

we would last

more than a year or two together:

too newly divorced,

too many kids,

too many things already shaped

in favor of dissolution.

Of course,

they were right

about all their reasons

but did not understand

how deeply

how stubbornly

how exuberantly

we loved one another.

Who else

could have foreseen

such an ocean of forgiveness,

a mountain of determination,

a river of respect,

a gentle and peaceful wind

of renewing fondness for one another,

and a faith shared from the core of our being

that would grow up

between us,

around us,

within us

except for him

who formed this union?

H. Arnett

9/1/11

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Morning, Oblivious

Posted on August 31, 2011 by Doc Arnett

A small seam of fog hangs

above the pasture

at the base of the bluffs.

 

Black cows graze

in the dim light,

oblivious to fog and bluffs,

 

oblivious to all but grass

and the occasional

passing semi

 

Jake-braking

 

for the left-turning car

just after the curve

and before the bridge.

 

I’d like to sit here on the porch a while,

tiny streams of steam

drifting above the edge of the cup,

 

eating my toast

in the slow haze of rising

too early after too little sleep,

 

oblivious to all but fog and bluffs,

black cows grazing in the dim light

and Him who has made

 

this day.

 

 

H. Arnett

8/31/11

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Taking a Stand

Posted on August 30, 2011 by Doc Arnett

I had thought it was a completely rational idea to have the horses keep the grass “mowed” on the state right-of-way. It would save gas, give the horses extra grazing they needed and, in the long run, save me time. So I put up a temporary extension fence down by the highway. I attached it to the permanent electric fence with gap connectors that would allow easy access to the area for utility workers. I kept the posts at least twenty feet from the edge of the highway. As an extra measure, we would only turn the horses into that section when we were at home. That way, I figured, we could take the horses completely out of the way if needed. Besides, I thought, if it turns out that I have to take the fence back down, at least the horses will get in a month or two of extra nutrition.

Two days later I got a call from the area highway supervisor telling me I had to take the fence down right away. He also didn’t like that I had my tractor for sale that close to the road. I was pretty sure that it was not sitting on the state right-of-way. Just to be sure, I went out with a tape measure and checked. The tractor was several feet behind the line but I did have to move my sign… fifteen inches.

Randa and I took down the fence and pulled up the posts. Then we took to watching the grass grow. The tractor was inoperable and I wasn’t about to go out with a weed-eater and trim a quarter-acre of grass. Boy Howdy, did the grass grow! With all the rain we’ve had, perfectly spaced out, the Johnson Grass grew to over seven feet tall. Not only did the state not want me putting up a temporary fence or displaying merchandise on their right-of-way, apparently, they didn’t want to keep it mowed, either.

Well, at least I had the satisfaction of letting the drivers and passengers of forty thousand vehicles a day pass by and see what happens when the Kansas Department of Transportation messes with me, yessir! The neighbors to either side kept wasting their time and money, keeping their right-of-ways neatly mowed while mine turned into a strip of wild prairie. I sure showed that state guy a thing or two. Kind of like how we sure show God when we refuse to follow his teachings.

So… yesterday I borrowed a tractor and a big slashing rotary mower. And this morning, our strip along US 36 looks nearly as good as the neighbors’. Sometimes repentance is a bit more obvious than others. But whether it is obvious or not, it is always liberating.

H. Arnett

8/30/11

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Storm Surge

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Doc Arnett

The storm that came through the area just over a week ago laid down some destruction over at Maryville, Missouri. Straight-line winds and hail blew down trees and blew out windows, ripped up some roofs and left streets and lawns strewn with limbs and leaves. Closer to home, some sections of Saint Joe had streets closed for a while because of downed trees and power lines. The wind even toppled the communications tower at the highway patrol headquarters. Driving over in that direction through the river bottoms between Wathena and the Pony Express city, we saw other damage.

 

Hundreds of acres have been covered with water for three months now. Even though the Lord has kept the levees from breaching, rainwater and leaching has filled up the lower areas. Along the fencerows and in the woods, trees have stood now in that saturated fill all through the summer months. Even though they have stayed green and seem to show no ill effects yet, their vulnerability to other expressions of nature became quite visible the morning after the storm.

 

Along the bends and runs of Highway 36, dozens of cottonwood and elm trees lie across the ditches, limbs on the leeward side sunk into the mix of mire and water. Out across the fields, at the edges of the woods, even from the road you can see the handprints of the wind. Even though the roots were strong and solid, they had no chance against that eighty-mile-an-hour surge of the storm.

 

When the faith that anchors us has become too much mixed with the views of the world, when we dilute the teachings of Christ with the carnal concessions of the Church and we end up with this great eclectic that excuses disobedience and gives the opinions of human equal footing with the declarations of divinity, we destroy the foundation of life. Having substituted the swampy sands of life’s fickle currents for the sure standards of the Solid Rock, we ought not to be overly surprised to find ourselves face down in the muck of the ditch, unable to endure the storm nor to stand before him who has made us.

 

Unlike the trees that have no choice about where they face the forces that come against them, we do. We can move to higher ground.

 

H. Arnett

8/29/11

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August Morning

Posted on August 26, 2011 by Doc Arnett

Such dews as this

seem to come only in the heat of summer,

covering everything

that spends the night uncovered.

 

The cars seem to have been rained on

and the brome so soaked

that you couldn’t take a dozen steps

before your shoes are wet clear through;

even leather taking its full measure

of night air turned liquid

by the cooling.

 

Horses eating this grass

pass the whole morning

without turning back up toward the house

and the water trough.

 

There are some things

that bring us more than the one thing

it seems that we are doing:

work that refreshes and blesses

the laborer,

prayer that praises

more than it asks,

love that fills us

even as it is poured out

and forgiving

that cleanses both the sinner

and the one sinned against.

 

 

H. Arnett

8/26/11

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Bad Seed

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Doc Arnett

It is a natural quality that there are certain behaviors within a family that are kept from the outside world. My father, Charlie Arnett, was widely and deeply respected by literally hundreds, if not thousands of people. In short reflection, considering that he preached for over seventy years in Kentucky, Tennessee, Illinois, Ohio and North Carolina, I’m sure that “thousands” would not be an exaggeration. He was rightly known as a man of principle and integrity, a lifelong scholar of the Bible and faithful preacher of the Gospel of Christ.

 

Yet, there were things that others didn’t know, private glimpses by some of the family and a few close friends, that showed other aspects of his character. He was not a hypocrite or a “Jekyll and Hyde” character; he was simply human. There are things that we all do in the closed circle of siblings or spouse or children that we keep hidden from the world. At least, we hope that they remain hidden. This curtain of secrecy is a part of the intimacy of family. It is always natural and often desirable.

 

But the darker side is that we sometimes use that curtain as excuse for bad behavior. We sometimes fail to show the same courtesy and decency toward family that we demand of ourselves in our interactions with the outside world. In the closed circuit world of family, we quit following the teachings of The Carpenter; instead of returning good for evil and blessings for cursing, we lash back in the ways of the world. At the least, we should keep in mind the proverb, “Where there is no fuel, the fire burns out.”

 

We ought to remember that whatever seed we plant will yield the harvest of its nature. No matter which side of the whitewashed walls of genetic reputation we may be standing on when we do our sowing, the seed of the briar will produce thorns that will ultimately form the bed on which we lie.

 

H. Arnett

8/25/11

 

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