Faith and Fury

Posted on May 19, 2010 by Doc Arnett

I was using the gas-powered trimmer late last evening to try and beat back the fescue that is growing so profusely around the stones of the patio area. As the engine whirred and whined and the string shredded stems and blades, I made quite the mess on the rocks. Still, it seemed better than yielding the area to the grass. After a few minutes of work, I caught sight of motion in my peripheral vision and turned for a better look.

A robin had flown in low and landed on the stones less than ten feet away from me. She stood, tilting her head, looking first at me and than at the litter of scattered grass and then back at me. She was gaunt from the cares of parenting, apparently, and perhaps eager for food. Even as I continued to run the trimmer, she showed no signs of apprehension regarding the noise or motion as I swung the head of the trimmer back and forth around the rocks, hopping even closer to me as I continued.

I have no idea if there was some primal urging in the sound of the whirling string striking the rocks or the grass or whether she was simply so hungry that she wasn’t passing up anything that seemed to offer any chance of stirring up a worm or a bug or whatever. I do know that I’ve never had a robin fly up that close to me even when I didn’t have a two-cycle motor revving in my hands. Like others driven by deep and aching hungers, she had decided to brave whatever fury might come as she sought the fulfillment of her needs.

Whether it was by faith or desperation, I cannot say; that pair can often pass for twins. And though I favor faith in most matters, I will say that each can have its reward whenever they lead us to do what is good and loving and needed.

H. Arnett

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Good Morning and Good Blessings

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Doc Arnett

What is there more welcome than sunshine after a long stretch of gloomy weather? After several consecutive days of rain, fog, or overcast skies, the sight of sunrise is like healing in the bones. Shafts of light catching on the stone retaining wall, reflecting off the dew-drenched grass or streaming through the blinds of east windows bring a restoring brightness into our spirits, suggesting that today, things not only will be better; they already are.

On a morning like this, it seems easier to smile, easier to take things in stride, easier to expect good. There’s a freshness around us as if the rains have brought a cleansing, not only of the streets and driveways, but somehow even within us.

It’s a pretty wonderful thing to see the world conspiring to bring us hope. Even better to know that he who sends both sunshine and rain makes his face to shine upon us.

Regardless of the weather.

H. Arnett
5/18/10

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A Slow Planting

Posted on May 17, 2010 by Doc Arnett

I don’t think there is a greater dread for most farmers than the fear of a slow death. I think most of them, if preference had anything to do with it, would rather die just after they stepped down off the tractor after a long day’s work.

Their lives are made of work; for them, to live is to work. Take that away and they are lost. Most, if not everything by which they have identified themselves is gone, stripped away. Even those other things, being husband, father, grandfather, are bound up in their capacity to do things. Make such a man weak and helpless and you destroy him.

In just a few hours, Lord willing, Randa and I will be conducting the funeral for such a man.

Doyle was ninety years old and worn thin and weak. He died last week, just the next night after Randa and I last visited him while he was watching the Royals lose yet another game in this season of losses. He didn’t talk much but was alert and coherent. I was surprised but not shocked when his son, Brian, called me Friday morning to let me know his Dad had passed away on Thursday night.

Doyle’s wife was nearly as worn down as he was from the constant work and worry of caring for him. That burden has been lifted and now the challenge of loneliness and survival faces her. To have shared life for sixty-eight years together leaves a large hole when this passing comes and one must go before the other.

Yet, neither Pauline nor the children or grandchildren would call him back into this body of decay, this prison of anguish and pain. This body is not the substance of our immortality but is rather its seed. And no seed can bear its fruit until it has been planted. While there is always some sadness in this planting, even in times of such welcomed release, we know that we sow in hope of the indescribable joy of harvest.

H. Arnett
5/17/10

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Easing Over

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Doc Arnett

Wendell and I have been friends and colleagues since I started working at Highland over six years ago. He’s better looking and more intelligent than me but he handles that burden with a certain grace that puts us inferior types at ease. We aren’t the kind of buddies who hang out together every day or see each other every other weekend. We are the kind who enjoy one another’s company and who find that whatever time we spend together is time well spent. We’ve shared stories of growing up and of growing older, shared philosophy and music and several cups of coffee. We are the kind of friends who see eye-to-eye, even when we disagree.

Even if we were strangers, I would have been sorry to hear of his mother’s passing yesterday. A woman of great and determined faith, she was ninety and had been in declining health for some time. Even though we may see that time coming, it still seems to catch us by surprise a bit when it does happen. She may well have been the person least surprised.

A very close family friend was visiting her yesterday morning, both of them enjoying the visit. She talked with him for a while, completely lucid. When he got ready to leave, he leaned over her reclining bed and kissed her goodbye. She raised herself up from the pillow and told him, “I’m going to a celebration.” Then, she lay back on her pillow and took her last breath. Went on to that celebration that welcomes those who embrace it as she did just as confidently as if she been cooking breakfast.

Wendell has now lost both of his parents; his father died just two or three years ago. It is never easy to let go, to know that the last conversation upon this earth has been had. But his mother left him an extraordinary example for when that time of leaving comes to him. An example of which he is fully worthy.

H. Arnett
5/14/10

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Witness in the Storm

Posted on May 13, 2010 by Doc Arnett

We left Highland last night in the last light of dusk. The day’s collection of gray hung only a few hundred feet above the ground, letting only a bit of light through the edges. Darker skies toward the west blocked out the closing light, leaving the sky to north of fainter hue. We drove east, toward Saint Joe.

Somewhere in the storm, lightning flashed, again and again and again, sending great surges of diffuse light, muffled and muted by the layers of rain and cloud. However brilliant and stark the strobing might be beyond, it showed only as broad strokes of subdued pastel. As we continued driving toward the storm, the forms became brighter, less diffused.

Randa saw the first full flash, crisp and intense, hammering through the clouds clearly, as if drilling a core of fire into the earth. In brief span, another and another and another. The sprinkle turned into drizzle and then into rain. And yet the lightning flashed, again and again and again.

We went to sleep with the storm flashing through the blinds, washing the room with light. Later, I woke to the sound of hail against the roof, gutters and awning. Not heavy like the sound of fury, but hail, nonetheless.

We will one day have passed through the last storm of life and see the clouds rolled away like parchment. We will then see him who has made us, even as the lightning is seen from the east to the west.

H. Arnett
5/13/10

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Hard Times

Posted on May 12, 2010 by Doc Arnett

He is ninety now and worn thin, flesh little more than the skin that covers him. His voice is as weak as his body, though he finds times of alertness and subtle hints of humor. Pneumonia brought him to the hospital this time but it is not the only sign of the age that he bears.

For three years now, or longer, he has taken what little nourishment he can stand through a feeding tube. His wife is nearly as worn down as he is from the constant work and worry of caring for him but believes it is her duty and devotion to do so. In this, too, they shoulder the burden and beliefs of their generation.

I study him as he lies in his bed, eyes closed, breath occasionally loud and rasping. His hair is thin and gray and yesterday’s stubble roughs his face. Wrinkles frame his eyes, define his neck. The skin is pale, fragile looking, stark across his ribs. Only his hands bear testimony of the man who has lived in this body. Though soft now, they still show the character of work, of years of farming.

Decades ago, he rode the train down to Dearborn and courted a schoolteacher. After they married, each day after working in Saint Joe, he’d stop by the lumberyard. He brought home boards and studs one small load at a time lashed on top of the car and built his house at the pace of a man working alone. Those heavy-boned hands helped raise the kids and tended the farm. The son does the farming now but up until just a few years ago, he helped with planting and harvest, with all the things that are a part of that life. It is life, too, that has stripped him of all that. Too weak to walk, he aches for the freedom from this body.

I look at him and see other old men that I loved. Men with hard hands and soft voices, men gentled by memory. Men who lived in hard work and died slow and helpless, bodies made into prisons. Men whose families stood torn between their own loss and the costs paid by the men they loved. Families that finally breathed, “Lord, please, take him home,” and felt the pain of each release.

And yet, were comforted.

H. Arnett
5/12/10

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Prayer for a Gray Morning

Posted on May 11, 2010 by Doc Arnett

On a day such as this, O Lord,
be near to me, I pray;
Keep its darkness far from my spirit.

Let me rather rejoice, my God,
in the nearness of your Spirit
and in the joy of my salvation.

Let me fall down before you,
in genuine adoration
and praise the Name by which I am saved.

Let me rise up
to walk humbly in the path
you have laid out before me.

Let me live as you lived:
in compassion, courage,
grace and integrity.

Help me, O Lord,
to comfort the afflicted,
to encourage the downhearted.

Forgive those who have wounded me
and forgive me for my woundings
and for the failures of my obedience.

On a day such as this, O Lord,
be near to me
that I may be close to you.

H. Arnett
5/11/10

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Heavy Soil

Posted on May 10, 2010 by Doc Arnett

Randa and I spent a good part of the day Saturday working on the landscaping at the rental property. Actually, she spent more time on the landscaping than I did; I was doing the finishing on a closet addition inside one of the apartments and helped her in between coats of drywall compound and paint. She pulled weeds, trimmed bushes and gnawed off a four-inch thick walnut limb with a very dull pruning saw.

By late afternoon, I was through with the last coat of paint and she was ready to plant hostas. The work of excavating for post footers and a sidewalk had left a pile of heavy clay dirt against the foundation under the deck and that needed to be moved before we planted anything right there. Most of the dirt shoveled like dirt should shovel but there were clumps that seemed much more like ceramic castings.

Hard and heavy, whatever had been taken up in its wet dense state two months ago had stayed in that same shape. Even if I’d tried to break up the clumps with a maul, all that would have accomplished would be to create some smaller dense clods. Given a good soaking rain and then waiting until just the right stage and they would have fallen apart easily. Even bits of earth are subject to their moods and moments.

There are times, too, when words have no effect whatsoever, no matter how impassioned the plea or how tender the entreaty. But when the Spirit of God has opened the heart, the seed of the Word may take root and flourish. Even in the heart of a sinner such as me.

H. Arnett
5/10/10

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Ol Roy Turns Over a New Leaf

Posted on May 7, 2010 by Doc Arnett

Last night, I talked with a friend of mine that I haven’t seen in a while. After the usual quick catch-up questions and answers, he chuckled and said, “Well, Doc, your ole buddy is getting old.” Knowing there was a story behind this comment, I smiled and said, “Go on.” So, he went on.

“My church announced a little community project a while back. Now, I don’t usually get involved in those; I’ve got so much other stuff going on.” He paused, looked off to the side for a few seconds, then resumed. “But this time, I thought maybe I’d just surprise everybody and show up.”

“Anyone collapse from shock?” I asked, smirking a bit.

“Well, that’s the thing,” he commented, “I was the only one who showed up. I don’t know if I had the wrong date, the wrong time or the wrong place, or what it was but whatever it was I was the only one there.”

Knowing Roy, I knew that any of the above were certainly possibilities. “Maybe,” I suggested wryly, “they called it off and knew there wasn’t any need to let you know.”

He laughed, “You could be right,” shook his head and admitted, “They sure wouldn’t think there was any need to call me. But, again, given the way my forgetter works, it could be that, too. Maybe I just had the wrong night.”

“So, what’d you do? Go on back home and watch TV?”

“No,” he shrugged, “I just went ahead and worked anyway.”

Turned out, he worked for an hour-and-a-half, raking and bagging leaves, picking up trash and scraping up the winter’s matted debris from along the curb. “What’d you do with all of that?” I asked and he answered, “Bagged it all up, threw it in the back of the truck and hauled it off to my dumpster.”

“Anybody else every show up to help?”

“Nope. I just went ahead and worked by myself. Knew I wouldn’t get it all done but figured whatever I did get done would be that much done.”

We talked a while longer and then said our goodbyes but I couldn’t quit thinking about Roy and how out of character it seemed. And I thought, too, how good it would be if all of us just went ahead and did something good for our community, even if no one else showed up and no one else saw what we were doing.

H. Arnett
5/7/10

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Beyond the Bloom

Posted on May 6, 2010 by Doc Arnett

Stepping out our back door lately has given us a bit of an olfactory treat; the locust trees are in full bloom. Especially when the breeze lays off a bit, a sweet but not overpowering scent fills the air. I stand still for a moment, close my eyes and draw in that light perfume. It seems to collect in the middle of my brain, suspending thought and filling me with calm.

It is a season that passes quickly, this time of locust bloom. Right now, there’s not a stretch of road between Saint Joe and Highland but what you can see the tall lines of white blooms showing along the fringe of the woods. In another week or so, the blooms will have fallen and the green of leaves blend in once again with oak and ash as the flush moves past its prime.

It is not a flush that leaves us in anticipation of the harvest, though. Unlike the bloom of cherry and pear, apple or berry, there is no promise of savory yield to come later. Just those long, leathery pods that drop into woods or yard. Perhaps there are other creatures that feed upon the fruit of the locust.

Even without that benefit, the locust tree still provides its shade. Its roots hold earth while its branches shield the dirt below from the eroding force of falling rain and wind. Its leaves and husks become part of the humus of the woods and forest, feeding other plants and a host of unseen organisms.

It is not always the most pleasant gift that is the greatest gift and in every gift the thing made gives glory to he who has made it.

H. Arnett
5/6/10

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