Conquering the Enemy

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Doc Arnett

The new drain for the new kitchen sink had slowed up considerably of late. Water no longer ran out after a load of dishes was done; it seeped. In addition to the speed issue, there was some concern about proper dispersion. After the first quart of so of water drained out from the one side, the rest would start backing up in the other side of the sink. According to my wife, it is not a desirable thing to have dirty dishwater flooding up around dishes that were just washed and rinsed.

 

Being the dutiful and responsive husband that I am, I suggested that she set the draining rack on the counter.

 

After the lump on the side of my head healed, I decided to check the trap and make sure it wasn’t clogged up. It was not. “Ahh,” I thought, “It’s because this drain is not vented.”

 

After storing the parts I needed to vent the drain for several months, I finally took the twenty minutes it takes to install them last night. I cleaned up the little mess I’d made while giving the PVC glue plenty of time to cure. “Lord,” I prayed silently, “Bless the work of my hands.” The next verse that popped into my head was “Do not let my enemy triumph over me.” If your experience with plumbing is similar to mine, you understand.

 

Filled with faith and tempted by optimism, I then eagerly filled the sink with cold water and pulled out the stopper.

 

The water immediately began draining out. After the first quart of so of water drained out from the one side, the rest started backing up in the other side. “Well, darn,” I thought, “That’s a bit disappointing.” (I may be understating my exact thoughts but I’m confident that you believe that I was disappointed.)

 

So, since the new vent didn’t fix the problem, I knew it was time for that special bottle of industrial grade, home owner dare not use, professional strength, wrap your entire body in twenty-mil polypropylene hazardous waste disposal unit protective gear first, then put on a OSHA-approved full-face shield, and pour Rooto Liquid Drain Opener. I poured in at least twice the recommended amount, waited the specified fifteen minutes and then began flushing with cold water.

 

After the first quart… well, by now, you can surely finish that sentence.

 

But then, after the water rose up a couple of inches on both sides, it began to drain back out of the side where the garbage disposal is. Then, it began to drain out of the other side. I continued running the water for another twelve minutes and then filled up the sink. When I pulled out the stopper, all of the water drained out as quickly as the first quart.

 

It often happens in life that things improve considerably when we address the actual problem, rather than doing all the other easier things that we only wish would fix it.

 

H. Arnett

8/24/11

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Summer Evening

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Doc Arnett

We got back from Saint Joe around the time the sun begins to look like it’s getting serious about closing out another day. I parked the truck near the house where the gravel slope crowns after its five-hundred-foot run up from the highway. I walked back to the trailer and started un-strapping the motorcycle while Randa went into the house. Pausing between the second and third strap, I looked over at the small horse pasture. 

The air seemed filled with dragonflies: swooping, dipping, darting, banking, turning, zipping and zooming from some invisible thing to the next. There were so many flying about that it seemed quite likely there must be a collision or two in the very near future. They flew across and around the yard, the driveway, and the field, sweeping up as high as the top of the old spruce tree and then diving in toward the ground. Bronze ones, black ones, blue ones and some a mixture of colors. I don’t know if they were different species or just different genders and maturity levels. It was not possible to count them but I’m confident there were a couple hundred or more.
 
I don’t know if some tremendous hatching of tiny bugs had just taken place and drawn the dragonflies here or if it was just a traditional rendezvous. Maybe our little place here is the Sturgis of the Anisoptera, a place where meadowhawks, pondhawks, skimmers and whatever else come together regardless of what they’re called. I didn’t know the particular name of any one of them; they’re all dragonflies to me.
 
What I did know was that I was experiencing a moment of rare spectacle and intensity, a moment most assuredly to be treasured. I stood for a little while, ignoring the needs of the day, the duties of evening. If the horses could wait a while longer for feed, the Nighthawk could surely wait a while for its moving into the garage.
It is a fine and deliberate skill, this cultivating of the awareness to know the things that can wait without fading and those that must be seized in that instant or be lost forever.
 
I remember feeling very much like this on a Wednesday evening in a small church in southern Kentucky some forty-six years ago. Halfway through the first a cappella verse, just before the chorus, I knew it was time. I yielded to the tugging inside me and put my left foot out into the aisle. Heart pounding, stomach fluttering and head spinning, I walked quickly and deliberately toward the preacher.
 
Ten minutes later, I was being baptized.
 
And in these long years since then, that moment when I rose up from the waters, pure and cleansed, every sin purged from God’s great memory, there has not been another moment even remotely like that one. Everything that I was, could be and am becoming, exploded and compressed within me in the same pulse.
In that instant, I knew that I had become one with God Almighty.
 
H. Arnett
8/23/11
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Gutter Check

Posted on August 22, 2011 by Doc Arnett

We built a new planter around the northwest corner of the house last month, laid in gray blocks keeping the row more or less straight and fairly parallel to the foundation. Where north and west intersect, we made a rounded corner to match the other planters and then filled the bed with dirt. At the lower end, next to the back door, it took sixteen inches of dirt to raise the level in the bed to where we wanted it. At its highest end, a half-foot of fill was sufficient.

All of that made for a long afternoon and we finished none too soon. With skies darkening and the forecast calling for thunderstorms, I made sure that the flexible extension tube was connected to the elbow at the bottom of the downspout. “Ready for rain now,” I thought, as I laid a flat stone slab underneath the tube to raise it enough so that water would drain readily over the top layer of landscape block.

Our preparations were not without cause. The eighty-percent chance turned into a downpour that brought us two inches of rain in less than an hour. Cause, yes. Desired effect, no.

Water overflowed the gutter from two stories above the planter. It cut a quick run to the lowest corner and washed through the blocks and pooled by the back door. In the aftermath of mud, we could see at least two places where the draining action had made deep cuts clear to the bottom of the piled dirt.

All of which confirmed a little bit of suspicion I’d had and suppressed while we were building the bed. I was pretty sure that a starling had built a nest in the gutter. When I climbed up the twenty-four-foot extension ladder and took out the horizontal section connecting the gutter to the downspout, I was not at all surprised to find it packed solid. I pitched the two pieces down to Randa and she cleaned them out, handed them back to me. I put them back in pretty much the way they were but ten pounds lighter.

During the next storm, just two days later, the gutter, downspout and extension tubes all did what they were supposed to do and the dirt in the planter pretty much stayed where we wanted it.

There’s not much in life that won’t have to stand testing or some sort or another. Every now and then, it’s better to check the gutter before the storm.

 

H. Arnett

8/22/11

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Gettin’ Better

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Doc Arnett

The ribs have healed enough that I can sneeze without agony and I can lie on my side for a little while without feeling like I’m abusing myself. They are still sore, sensitive enough that I can’t find a position that is actually comfortable. But after two or three weeks of not being able to take a single breath without hurting, I maintain that in my sixth week of recovery, I am considerably improved.

 

I find myself, once again, in one of life’s bends. Looking too far back up the river, I remember when I was half this age, young, strong and undaunted. Looking back to only five weeks ago, I remember that even the slightest twist or change brought fresh pangs. Looking ahead, I’m optimistic that in a few more weeks, I will be feeling much better.

 

Sometimes in our self-examinations, we may look too far in the wrong direction. If all I see is where I should be spiritually, I may become too discouraged. If I look back to the beginning of my walk with a wrong perspective, I may become too ashamed. What I try to do, and at which I am occasionally successful, is to view these matters with two basic ideas.

 

One, as I look back to my starting point, I am grateful for all that the Lord has accomplished with me, in me. I am not prideful of what I have done, because there has been much over those years that I do regret. Yet, I can see that I have grown in faith, hope, and love. I can see the fruit of the Spirit in my life and I am grateful for his work in me.

 

As I look forward to the time when his work will be finished in me, I am moved with humility because I can see how much more work needs to be done. But I am also encouraged, because I know that the Lord will not quit on the good work he has begun in me.

 

And, from what I’ve seen, he does pretty good work.

 

 

H. Arnett

8/18/11

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Good Works

Posted on August 17, 2011 by Doc Arnett
An oblong moon
shines through the thin clouds
seeping southward across the sky.
Not one leaf
moves among the dark silhouettes
of oak, locust and birch
between the barn and garage.
A single star, Mars perhaps,
or the mirage of one shaped by satellite,
shines through the thin linen of pre-dawn sky
above the dim glow of Saint Joe toward the east.
We sit for a while on metal seats,
rest ceramic mugs on the pallet of landscape blocks
that the heat of Kansas summer
and my busted ribs
kept us from working into the shape
of plans we’d made in cooler days.
Work waits in many forms
on this first day of fall classes,
and if time passes a while longer
and a flowerbed is still unfinished
when cold weather comes,
it will be of little effect, really.
There are such moments as this
when hot coffee
and the quiet beauty of God’s still morning
shared in the refreshing softness
of a moon’s pale circle fringed with orange
is our purpose.
H. Arnett
8/17/11
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Of Giving and Receiving

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Doc Arnett

Sometimes, it is the slightest sign

of some good thing that brings

the notion of a better change:

the pale stem of a rainbow

cast against the clouds of the storm,

stroked in the softest notion of color,

 

the forming of dew on a foggy morning,

caught in the mist of webs

close against the ground-creeping wintergreen,

sparkling like hope in first light,

 

or maybe the particular way that the sun

catches on a sycamore

stark and gleaming

against the bruising sky.

 

Sometimes, it is the softest hello

spoken in a voice of caring

and the way your eyes carry

the unspoken greeting of deeper concern,

 

the way a hand lies but briefly

on your shoulder in that quiet moment

in the kitchen

between dawn and duty,

 

or a simple note

written in that instant of gratitude

for some small thing done

for no reason

 

other than the wanting to.

 

In such moments and such things,

we are blessed in both the giving

and the receiving.

 

 

H. Arnett

8/16/11

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Pnuema

Posted on August 15, 2011 by Doc Arnett

Some time late in the previous century,

or maybe not so late as it might seem,

a previous owner (or his hired hand) cut down the tree

that stood at the northwest corner of the property.

Perhaps to avoid the harder cut

just above the ground

or perhaps because he knew something

a bit more obvious at that time than now

he left a stump eighteen inches tall

and about that wide across.

Years of gray and decay

stripped off the bark

and continued the hollowing of the inside

clear down into each large root.

I scooped out the loose as well as I could,

poured in kerosene to soak.

I made a fuse of sorts

out of newspaper,

stuffed it into the hollow

and set it on fire.

It burned for a few minutes,

but not the overnight I’d expected.

Not only had the stump failed to catch,

half of the newspaper lay un-scorched.

I realized that the way I’d stuffed it in

had blocked off all of the air.

I lifted it back out

and set it so that half the hole

was still open into the bottom of the stump.

Re-lit, the whole thing surged into burning.

Without the wind of the Spirit,

the fuel of faith-intended within us

to fire the works of love-

will never fan into flame.

We should not end this walk

in this world

only slightly charred

at the easy edges of unspent devotion

but rather so thoroughly given

and so thoroughly used

that at our leaving

all has changed to ash.

H. Arnett

8/15/11

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Divine Intervention

Posted on August 12, 2011 by Doc Arnett

The other day, I confessed that I had of late been struggling once again with that gray-fanged demon of depression. At the conclusion, I asked for prayers and, apparently, more than one or two of you have responded. I began feeling better that day and have managed to keep my lower lip from getting tangled up with my belly button since then. And, there have been positive changes in addition to the ones in my attitude.

Yesterday morning, a guy I know called to say he wanted to buy my motorcycle. Yesterday afternoon, a guy I didn’t know but had talked to a few times showed up with a trailer and cash to buy the tractor. By early evening, I was feeling so much better I decided to tackle a plumbing project.

Now folks, doing a hundred sit-ups the day after hernia repair is not proper therapy. Running several wind sprints isn’t the best way to treat a pulled hamstring. Soaking in a hundred-and-ten degree hot tub isn’t the greatest idea for someone who has sunburned eighty percent of his or her skin surface. While seeming far-fetched, admittedly, those examples may not be such preposterous comparisons as you might think; a depressed handyman crawling under a sink is courting trouble as surely as a kitten in a horse pen.

I do have to say that I have installed new garbage disposals in as little as thirty minutes. I thought this one would take an hour so I estimated it at two hours. I started at six-forty-five. Whoever had installed the plumbing involving the one I replaced had not used the slip-joint trap and connections that are typical. They used Schedule 40 PVC and had glued every joint. You couldn’t even take the trap loose to clean it out. I had to cut the pipe just to take out the old disposer. And, of course, the new one was a completely different type that required a different sink fitting and new drain connections. On top of that, with at least nine different cuts required, I’d left my DeWalt reciprocating saw at home, fifteen miles away. The folks I was helping out did manage to find an old hacksaw.

Two trips to Menards and three-and-a-half hours later, the completely new drain, trap and disposer were installed and passed the first two drip tests. Now, here’s the acid test that let me know that solicitations had been offered and answered: I made it through the entire project without cussing one time.

Thank you for your prayers, folks, and keep ’em comin’!

H. Arnett

8/12/11

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The Creek Spring

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Doc Arnett

A half-mile from the house, a tiny creek ran east underneath the small bridge on the gravel road. The creek was so small that Paul and I could jump across it at some spots. Hickory trees, along with several other types, grew along its banks, keeping most of the little branch in the shade for most of the day. Where we drove the tractors through it to get to the hayfield, the bank was bare and cut with ruts made when we had to move from one side to the other too soon after the rains.

Just below that crossing point, was an old spring surrounded by a stone frame that angled out from the bank into the stream.

According to local lore, perhaps legend and yet more likely than most such stories, the stone retaining walls had been built by slaves. It was not some rough-hewn thing, thrown together of whatever had been at hand. The stones were cut and shaped, carefully mortared together with smooth, dressed seams. On the back and left, the walls stood about four feet tall. There was an opening on the southeast side much like a doorway but the whole thing was open at the top.

A stone threshold framed the bottom of that opening, its top surface lying just above the normal level of the creek. Together with the laid walls and natural bank, the enclosure formed a pool that overflowed the threshold, sending the spring’s clear water into the tinged flow of the creek. Paul and I did not pass that spring in the heat of summer without taking time to get a drink and wash the dirt and dust of the fields off our faces.

Were it not for the work of unknown men, the spring would have simply bubbled into the creek essentially unnoticed, its pure water immediately mixed and immediately worthless in the flow of the stream.

We need such reservoirs, held for a while in some separating container, yet still flowing into the world. We need places where we can go, people that we know who yield the work of God in their hearts and in their lives. We need to keep the walls of holiness and purity built up around the source, yet keep its flow open. Without the walls, the love and grace that God intended for healing and blessing become too quickly polluted by the streams of the world. But without the openings, there is no flow and it is the flow that keeps us cleansed and pure and brings God’s blessing into the world.

Love held too long inside, like water stored too long in an old barrel, becomes something other than what was given. Something not to be shared. We are meant to be springs, not cisterns.

H. Arnett

8/11/11

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Passing in the Night

Posted on August 10, 2011 by Doc Arnett
The sound of a semi out on the highway
echoes off the trees behind the house,
surrounds me in its muted waxing and waning,
the whine of tires fading
into the noise of the next vehicle.
 
In brief lulls of traffic,
I hear the cascading cadence of locusts
still stirring in the cottonwood down by the barn
and in the catalpas in the front yard.
 
I have risen from bed, sleepless
for no particular reason
except the caffeine
I drank without thinking
too late in the evening.
 
In this not-quite-quietness of night,
I rub my feet against the carpet’s reassuring softness,
letting the ebbs and flows of light and sound
and texture wrap around me
 
while I remember the blessings of this good day:
an answering of prayers sent my way
and the sweet release of surrendering
to what God has allowed.
 
Sometimes,
it is something other than worry
that keeps me from my sleep
and moves me toward
 
this subtle peace.
 
H. Arnett
8/10/11


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