Confession

Posted on August 9, 2011 by Doc Arnett

I’ve had a bit of a series of undesired events lately. It started when the engine in my compact tractor that I just bought last fall suddenly started knocking like a drug addict at the front door of a pawn shop that closed ten minutes ago and hemorrhaging oil like a grounded oil tanker. The feeling I got then was probably akin to what folks with significant stock holdings have felt like the last few days, especially the ones whose stock value dropped by eighty percent in two minutes.

Then, a week later, we returned an eighteen-hundred-dollar horse that didn’t quite pass a thirty-day money-back trial period.  The trial ended six weeks ago but the judge, a.k.a., previous owner, hasn’t returned our money yet. Sort of the coup de etat in this persnickety little series of misfortunate events came exactly four weeks ago yesterday when I fell off another horse that was on its second day of a thirty-day money-back trial period. We did at least get a check from these people (although I don’t know yet if it has cleared their bank) and my ribs and back have healed enough that I can roll over onto one side with only slight pain now. At this rate of improvement, I figure to be back in the saddle in just another three or eight years.

Then, just to top things off, I decided to follow through with a vow I made in April to sell my motorcycle and donate the money to our favorite charity, Smile Train. Put an ad in the paper and on Craigslist and then figured I better start the Nighthawk up and make sure it’s in good running condition. Now, it’s in the shop and I found out that the title has a one-digit mistake in the VIN, so there’s that on top now.

So, like I said, there’s been a string of Things Not Going the Way I Want Them to Go. But what’s really humiliating is the way I’ve let that stuff get to me. I haven’t missed a meal or a payment, I don’t need a cane or a walker and my wife doesn’t have cancer. We have so many blessings that any dozen or two families in many places in the world would gladly make do with what we have. And yet, in spite of that knowledge, I’ve let my usually sunny disposition sour into something more resembling a stale dishrag or a bag of potatoes that got forgotten in the back of the cabinet.

So, I’m repenting of that and remembering the past couple of sermons I’ve heard about faith and perspective on the things of this world. What’s doubly embarrassing about the whole deal is that I’m the one that preached those sermons.

So, I’m hereby making my confession and asking that you pray for my forgiveness and strengthening. And, if by chance you just happen to ask the Lord to send me a couple of buyers with cash in hand and to touch the heart of a certain horse trader in Oak Grove, Missouri, why that’d be OK with me.

But the prayer that I most need is for me to be able to live the way that I preach.

H. Arnett

8/9/11

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In Step with the Spirit

Posted on August 8, 2011 by Doc Arnett
Faith in the face of adversity
Hope in the midst of despair
Love in response to hostility
Peace that surpasses understanding
Gentleness that exceeds all demanding
Forgiveness beyond all wounding
Patience that abounds above all trials
Compassion that flows from a pure heart, a pure mind, and a pure life
Wisdom that seeks the good of others
Knowledge that escapes every aspect of pride
Righteousness that seeks the very face of God
Purity that avoids every appearance of evil
Holiness that spurns every notion of pride
Humility that is never feigned
Contentment in all things
Mercy that never yields to vengeance
Devotion that is unwavering:
May you be so filled with Christ
that every aspect of your nature
reflects your unity with him.
H. Arnett
8/8/11
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Burn Pile

Posted on August 5, 2011 by Doc Arnett


The bark long ago fell to earth,
leaving the stripped trunk of this old elm
to sand smooth in the finishing raw of wind and rain.
 
Softened by the spalting,
it yields quickly to the savage chain.
I move the tractor to the downhill side
and push the bucket against the section
no longer held by the wad of root and clay.
 
Brett helps me chain it in place
and we move it down to the burn pile.
 
The lower part will not lift;
its ton of wood and dirt
swings the opposite end of the tractor into air
as hydraulics over-sways gravity.
 
We wrap the chain beneath the fork
and drag the whole mass through the edge of the field,
root stubs plowing deep tills through the brome and weeds.
 
We soak the pile with diesel
and light newspaper and cardboard.
The flame spreads slowly, finally begins to eat through
the dry stems of dead weeds and small branches.
 
During the night, the fire works underneath,
holding to the core in spite of the two inches of rain.
Five days later, the stump is still burning,
a slow smoldering of substance
still enough like wood to hold fire.
 
Eventually, all that is formed from soil,
will be surrendered to its patient toil.
Yet,
we will one day rise from dust and ashes
and take the form of our Maker
rather than that of which we were made.
 
H. Arnett
8/5/11
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Taking Down the Old Elm

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Doc Arnett

With a borrowed tractor

and a front loader,

I lift the bucket high into the air,

tilted just right until both heel and lip

touch against the trunk,

easing out the clutch

and inching forward.

Twenty feet of dead gray

eases its way to a slow slant

a quarter-turn away

from the neighbor’s tin shed.

I back off,

shift to a lower gear

and re-position the bucket.

Coming in a little lower,

catching the lip below the burl

I push again,

sending the tree toward earth.

The trunk slips to the ground,

tearing up roots less rotted

than I believed

and a massed cup of dirt

six feet across and two feet thick.

Even dead roots

can hold a thing in place

long past its growing,

but they cannot

make it green again.

How like a man

anchored to his opinions

but long past feeling faith

is an old

dead

tree.

H. Arnett

8/4/11

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Summer Solace

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Doc Arnett

It has been a bit of a frustrating couple of months for a few different reasons but in particular relating to my attempts to email my daily reflections. We haven’t had more than two days in a row during that time without service interruption with our internet connection. I haven’t tried to count how many times I’ve followed CenturyLink’s directions on re-booting or re-setting our modem. “Disconnect the power, wait ten seconds, re-connect the power. Wait.”

That worked enough times that I kept trying it long after it didn’t work anymore. Then, by chance of call routing to the next available technical support humanoid, the directions changed. “Find the reset button on the back of the modem, insert a toothpick or paperclip and hold the button down for forty-five seconds. Wait.” That worked once or twice and reminded me that few things short of physical torture can make forty-five seconds seem as long as does pushing in a button with a toothpick. In my hurry to comply with the tech rep’s directive, I hadn’t taken time to find a toothpick with a comfortable handle on it.
 
Apparently, this haste to find a fix is a trait I share with C-Link’s service repairmen. The first guy put a new connector on the in-ground wire and said that should fix the problem. It seemed to, for at least several hours. The next guy said our modem wasn’t working and replaced it. “That should fix the problem,” he reassured us. It did, for at least several hours.
 
When I called tech support again Sunday night, after being without service since last Thursday, he diligently diagnosed a few possibilities. Then, there was an extended silence on the line. Then, there was a revelation. “Wow,” he exclaimed, “your modem has connected and disconnected over 6000 times.” That, it seemed to me, indicated there is a problem here.
 
The service man who came yesterday agreed. After a couple of hours of troubleshooting, testing, phone calls and a return to headquarters to bring out another guy with a bucket lift, he believed he’d found the problem. Hot weather.
According to him, the elevated heat we’ve been having for, oh, say about two months now, drastically lowers the ability of the line to deliver a strong signal. So, they’d had to up the signal speed back at the source enough that it would still be serviceable by the time it made it all the way out to Blair, Kansas. “If you lived another two hundred feet west of here, we wouldn’t be able to provide DSL service at all,” he smiled.
 
I was glad that they’d strengthened the signal instead of suggesting that we drag our house a couple of miles to the east. Naturally, at the time they signed us up for our two-year contract, C-Link never mentioned the likelihood of poor service reliability in the summer. Nor has anyone offered to explain why they didn’t just pump up the speed as soon as the weather started warming up.
 
Maybe it’s for the same reasons that I often wait until some situation has achieved crisis stage before I begin praying in earnest.
 
H. Arnett
8/3/11
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Small Honor

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Doc Arnett

We sit out on the concrete patio in the slight cool of morning, cherishing the slight breeze and eating our cereal. There is a hint of slate in the clouds to the north that suggests there could be a chance of rain today. These past few weeks have seen much of the country caught in the grip of killing heat and it is good to have some time of escape.

In these few moments of calmness, we sit, look out across the fields and hills, watch the cat chasing flies and playing in the grass. Taken by such thoughts and whims as take large kittens, Ginger races off across the gravel drive toward the garage, then whirls suddenly and pounces on a rock.

Today, I would love to stay here for a few hours, sitting in the shade, talking quietly and resting. I would like to spend some time talking about my father who died two years ago on this day, remembering fishing trips and working on houses with him. That is what I would like to do.

But, today, I will do the work I am hired to do, fulfill duty. Today, then, I will spend but a few minutes here and then move on the demands around which I have arranged my life.

But I will take these few moments and I will cherish them. I will drink in the peace and blessing of this place and this time. I will eat this portion of my daily bread, welcome the feel of this slight stirring of morning air and be grateful for this place and this day that the Lord is making.

I may not control much of what happens this day, but this part, this part I have chosen. I will give thanks and pray for wisdom to walk in the way of peace and goodness. I will pray to become part of the blessing that this day will bring. And in that way, I hope to honor my father.

And my Father.

H. Arnett

7/28/11

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Scattered Showers

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Doc Arnett

We sat for an hour last night, watching the lightning flash off to the north and west. Sometimes we saw the brilliant strobe of the main spike, brilliant, vibrating between earth and sky. Other times, we saw reflections carried through the layers of clouds, pulsing in the trees and shining clear to the east.

For a while the wind stirred the dance of branches, a swishing and swaying of muted greens seen through the screen of the second story window. It seemed we would surely have rain but none came. The storm slid further to the north and east and we found not the least traces of darkened earth or gravel, not even a gathering on the windshields of the car and truck parked outside.
 
Folks over at Highland and Denton and Severance said they got a good rain, an inch or more. It came at a good time, too, coming in just as the ears of corn are filling out, loading up the stalks with heavy ears, a full kernel for every silk, every space filled.
 
I think of our small pastures, blades nipped to the edge of the dirt. The horses drift around the paddock, searching for some small clump they may have missed before.
 
We would have liked to have some rain.
 
And yet, there is still hay in the barn and the grass is still green. I suspect, too, that there have been many times when others looked in our direction and wished they had a bit of the rain that had fallen on our lives.
 
H. Arnett
7/26/11
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Summer Snow

Posted on July 25, 2011 by Doc Arnett

These almost-lighter-than-air seeds of the cottonwood tree drift away, showing no sign of breeze. For four days or longer, there has been no stirring of the air, no fluttering of leaves. The seeds slide slowly to the earth in the oppressive heat, catch against an edge of turf, old posts or planks, whatever disrupts the smooth edge of the earth.

They catch, pile in winding drifts like some grim irony of snow. In between the barn and the garage, there are places where they have gathered three inches deep. In the dim light of a fading moon and before the brightening of dawn, I walk past the pen and into the feed room. I scoop out a measure for the new gelding, then take a bucket to divide between the other two in the pasture across the driveway. The dew is heavy, quickly soaking my shoes and sponging a quick mat of cottonwood seeds into the treads.

Shiloh whinnies and he and the palomino both trot toward the fence. I turn off the charger and slide their buckets into place, twenty feet away from each other. I flip the switch back on and walk back across to the barn. Even in the thinness of this light, I can see my path’s dark winding through the cottonwood drifts.

I think of the thousands upon thousands of seed puffs this tree has already launched and marvel that the entire countryside is not covered with cottonwood trees. “What are the odds that any of that blanket of seeds will sprout?” I wonder to myself. “A million to one?”

Such odds seem rather overwhelming, yet the cottonwood continues to send out its seed upon the earth. I sometimes grow weary of planting and watering in places that seem to smother rather than nourish. But the God Who Gives the Increase has told me to sow and water.

He will tend to the harvest later.

H. Arnett

7/20/11

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Fair Warning

Posted on July 21, 2011 by Doc Arnett

The anesthesiologist calls the family into the room and lays out the situation. He is not here to pump them up, give them false hope or make them think the situation is something that it is not. At eighty-seven and with her natural reserves depleted by this current illness, she is not a good candidate for surgery.

He alerts the daughter and the four sons to the fact that when their mom returns from the operation, if she returns, she will have a breathing tube that will be in for at least a few days. “This will give her some rest, having the machine do her breathing for her.” They expect to keep her in a near coma for a couple of days, gradually wean her back to being awake and breathing on her own again.

Looking at her thin face and wasted body, it is not hard to imagine that she could be near death’s door. We pray, they wheel her away and we wait. Randa and I visit with Mark for over an hour, then leave him and the rest of the family, each to their own mode of waiting.

I text him the next morning to see how his mother is doing.

He replies that the breathing tube is out and they expect to have her up walking later that day.

Take a God like ours, a few good doctors and nurses and a bunch of people praying. Then add a woman who survived raising the four boys that she raised. Then… well, then, just don’t be too surprised at anything.

H. Arnett

7/21/11

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A Peaceful Joining

Posted on July 20, 2011 by Doc Arnett

The family is gathered in a hospital room on a day when the heat makes stepping outside feel like being pulled into a steaming sponge. Randa and I are here as pastors and friends, joining the brothers and sister, granddaughter and other relatives of an eighty-seven-year-old woman.

Her husband is attended to at their home thirty miles away. His dementia keeps him from any awareness of this that could last more than a few moments but the rest of the family is keenly cognizant of the situation. Her age, her history of colon problems and her recent episode of sickness have made her too weak for surgery. But her condition has worsened to the point that surgery is a lesser risk than the other. Such situations force families into decisions that twist head and heart around each other, leaving neither at ease.

Randa and I wait in the corridor, talking with one of the sons while the anesthesiologist finishes examining her charts and medical history. The surgeon has already advised the family that their mother has only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving the procedure. The odds of surviving without it are zero, though, and they have given the go-ahead for the intervention.

Just before she is wheeled out for surgery, the family asks us to pray and we step into the room. I move beside the bed and one of the sons introduces me to their mother. His sister steps beside me and we all join hands.

There is an intimacy in this, a drawing together that transcends the visits and conversations, goes beyond the talks and jokes, quips and teasing. It is a humbling thing to be asked into this circle of love and life. It is an honor that I do not deserve but an opportunity that I willingly accept.

I pray for the doctors, the nurses, the attendants, for everyone who works together for her good. I pray for peace and trust.

Having seen the gauntness of her face and the thin trace of skin over her wrists, I cannot help remembering Hansford Doron and Gene Prescher, Scotty Burleson and Doyle Ussary and a number of other men that I watched waste away in slow agony, whose families endured their pain faithfully with them. In honor of them and in love for this family, I add another element to this prayer; I also pray for mercy and compassion.

And in all these things, ask that we yield to a greater wisdom than we can fathom, a greater love than we can imagine.

H. Arnett

7/20/11

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