Swapping Places

Posted on September 16, 2009 by Doc Arnett

I suppose there is no divorce without pain. The prices of such agonizing choices are paid in a thousand different ways, sometimes spanning generations. In some cases, the healing balms of grace and forgiveness are welcomed. In others, resolutions of pain and vengeance hold sway. In some, there seems to be a mixed flowing, an uneven path of healing and restoration often flared by interruptions of anger and renewed hurts. It doesn’t take much experience of divorce, from any perspective, to see why God isn’t in favor of the practice.

I was raised in a time and place when divorce was unthinkable, a signature failure that separated a person from the mainstream of southern agrarian culture. Better to be an unwed mother than a divorced one. Not that either existence was pleasant, by the way. But it appeared to be easier to forgive and understand a momentary indiscretion than such a willful choice as divorce. When I graduated from high school in 1971, I had never even known a kid whose parents were divorced.

I continued the preaching of my father in my own ministry, condemning the practice and those who chose that option, never imagining that I would one day be one of them. In 1988, I found myself on the other side of that divide. Church members who had formerly welcomed me into their homes in western Kentucky refused to shake my hand when I visited their congregations. Some would not speak to me while a few were eager to speak to me, to tell me I was going to hell. Still others, though disappointed by my actions, continued to love me.

Dad was among those, though obviously pained by my decision. After I remarried, I visited him and Mom. After supper, while we sat around the table talking, Dad said to me, “Now, you’re my son and I love you and I always will. But you know how I feel about divorce.” He paused for a moment, looked down at the floor and then back at me, shook his head slowly and said softly, “I wouldn’t want to be standing in your shoes at Judgment, I’ll tell you that.”

I have long acknowledged my sins, including those that led to and including the divorce. Along with my former wife, my children, Randa and a host of others, I have long suffered the after-effects of it. In spite of all of those things, my children and I have rebuilt and repaired our relationships and enjoy one another. As to the second marriage, Randa and I just celebrated our twentieth anniversary.

Even from the midst of our messes, God heals and blesses. Though he may not spare us from the consequences of our choices, he still supplies grace and mercy. As to judgment, Someone Else has already stood in my shoes.

H. Arnett

9/16/09

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Quiet Drive

Posted on September 15, 2009 by Doc Arnett

I leave early this morning, needing the time to drop off a load of brush trimmed from the fringe of the yard, a pruning of growth indifferent to the needs around it and perhaps needing some pruning of my own. It is very easy in this life, in this place, in this age to be consumed with my own needs, my own plans, my own desires. It is easy now, yes, but it has been easy in every age. Whether in blessing or in affliction, the body human has always tended first to its own concerns.

I push away, at least from the forefront of my mind, a few of those concerns. Even under the low dullness of this early sky, I notice the lie and run of these gentle hills of northeastern Kansas. A light mist hangs above the layered hills, ripples of darker blue showing in the distance. Soybeans splotch the beginnings of autumn color, yellowing in the midst of lush greens. I imagine the hand of God, sweeping across the fields, feeling the gentle nap of corn and beans, taking measure and pleasure, like a father’s hand resting on the head of the child he loves.

 Just off 36, Highway 7 takes a sweeping turn and the pavement narrows. Sumac is already into its autumn sheens of orange and red. Tiny leaves of locust brown the tips of upper branches while native grasses edge into their own soft colors. Just east of Fanning, the road takes the slope down into the Wolf River bottoms. Beyond the flat of the river, it will slope upward again, but for now, I take this easy plain, these flat fields, this full view of quiet morning and thin mist forming above the river.

H. Arnett

9/15/09

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Caution

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Doc Arnett

I suppose that’s not much that a human can’t overdo. No matter what we’re drawn to, it seems so easy for that to be overdone, taken to excess, allowed to run unchecked. I guess even a good thing can become too much. No, I haven’t decided to become a diet counselor or a lifestyles coach for the barely rich and hardly famous. I’ve just been prompted to do a little soul-searching by something a friend of mine wrote yesterday. As I read what Tim had written about the greatness of servanthood, I got to thinking. That, my friends, always carries some danger. Nothing on the scale of Congress being in session, but danger nonetheless.

In my job, my career and my life, from time to time I find myself in positions and situations where some degree of leadership is involved, expected or required. As the southern deputy says in Oh, Brother, Where Art Thou?, I have nary the time nor the inclination here to explore all the subtle complexities of personality that come into play for me in those situations.

I know that there has to be some willingness to step up, to take account, to stand and deliver. We are expected by him who made us to use the capacities that we have been given and that have been developed by decades of opportunities. But we are also expected to use those with humility, sensitivity and understanding. We are given courage and character so that we can stand for what is good and right and loving, not so that we can bowl over those who get in our way. We are given fortitude and forthrightness so that we can live with integrity in an age of deceit, not so that we can smash our way through life.

To hold to the pattern that led Jesus to live in unflinching, uncompromising, unswerving devotion to purpose, plan and provision, we must not forget that he bore a cross, not a sword. We must remember that he, the very Son of God, walked amidst dirt and disease, endured insult and indignity, and sacrificed in order to bring life and chose death over disobedience. We must remember that the greatest leadership is shown in serving.

H. Arnett

9/11/09

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Fall Cleaning

Posted on September 14, 2009 by Doc Arnett

Fall Cleaning

My neighbor has one of those long-handled pruning tools that are so handy for reaching branches when you’re too old for climbing trees and the ground is too uneven for a ladder. He’s also been quite happy to loan that to me and I’m all about making my neighbors happy. So, on a gorgeous September Saturday, I borrowed his pruner and made myself happy cutting back the overhang that hid the hostas and shaded the coleus and other things that Randa has planted on the bank behind the house. That process generated so much serotonin that I became downright giddy. It had to be giddiness that led me to start using the twelve-foot-pruner to remove dead limbs and branches from the huge oak tree in the front yard.

 The combination of the ice storm in December of ’07 and the inclinations of oak trees to sacrifice frequently to the wind gods had left a lot more debris in the tree than I had ever noticed. By the time I finished pulling and prodding on everything I could reach, I had a sore neck and a yard covered with dead branches. By occasionally climbing up into the back of the truck and stomping around, I was able to pack all of it into one load.

 The ornamentals growing on the bank will now get more diffused sunshine and there should be an increased level of safety in passing by underneath the oak tree. Pruning out the undesired growth and getting rid of what is dead and decaying is always a good thing to do. Especially at prayer time.

 H. Arnett

9/15/09

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Good Workers

Posted on September 10, 2009 by Doc Arnett

Even with a few work-sized kids on a two hundred and sixty-five acre dairy and crop farm, Dad sometimes found it useful to hire extra help. He’d drive over to Pembroke and find one or four guys to help with hauling hay or cutting tobacco. William Cross was one that he always counted on and the one I liked the most. Even as a ten-year-old kid, I noticed a difference between William and some of the others.

In the hay field, William would always take two rows of bales. Some of the others would only pick up one, at least until Dad yelled for them to do two. Actually, Dad never yelled but managed to get the point across, anyway. Some of the men would figure out which way we were circling the field and always take the inner side so they wouldn’t have to walk as far. These were the same guys who wanted to stay on the outside of the hay barn and unload the wagon because it was cooler and easier.

I’ve seen the same scenarios play out no matter where I’ve worked. There are always people quite willing to shoulder more than their fair share of the work and always others more than willing to let them. There are those who always seem to know how to stand on the short side of the wagon, so to speak. Those who will let someone else pick up the extra bale, let someone else take the hottest spot in the loft, the longest row in the field.

Dad and William both noticed these same things. William would tilt his head down as he picked up a bale, lift those dark eyes up toward them, and grunt in a low voice, “Humph. Yep.” He’d look at me and nod and I knew that grunt was a whole paragraph. But William just went on, working as William worked. As for Dad, he’d tell them once to pick up the two rows. And, the next time he drove into town to get extra help, they’d still be in Pembroke when he got back to the farm.

In our age of unions, tenure and eager litigation, it’s not always that simple. Even in those simpler days of bygone years and eras, an old tentmaker urged believers to “work heartily, as for the Lord.” He knew that it was easy to become discouraged when we feel unappreciated, when our efforts seem to go unnoticed and things are not always fair. But he also knew that those who continue to lift the extra weight, walk the extra steps, or take the extra duty have a satisfaction that the others will never know. And then, they will have the Lord’s reward on top of that.

So, let’s keep totin’ those bales and remember who it is that we really work for. And, just for the practice, let’s slap each other on the back every now and then and say, “Good job!”

H. Arnett
9/10/09

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The Orphan Goes Berry Pickin’

Posted on September 9, 2009 by Doc Arnett

Somewhere along one of those gravel backgrounds of my memory, blackberries are growing thick and heavy in the fencerows. The ground gravel dust crunched from the tires of passing cars drifts up on a hot summer day and settles onto the vines. Grasshoppers scramble over the leaves, jump and fly away in their crazy jags and swoops, tumbling to what seems like a purely coincidental landing. Tassel flies and sweat bees hover, occasionally settling onto my arms, neck, face, then begin their itching explorations. Corn grows thick and tall in the field while clumps of fescue cover the ditch bank, hiding the small trough that runs beneath, alongside the road. I feel for it with my feet, find its edge then take a long step across.

Somehow, I have stepped into another place, another time. A place and time that have always been and yet have never been before. The dust is gone, the bugs are gone. The leaves shimmer and the berries gleam, huge and sweet. A woman who looks like a much younger version of my Grandma Bazzell is picking berries. Most of them go into a small tin bucket. Every now and then, she hands one to the young cotton-haired kid beside her. “Here, Charlie,” she smiles, “you can have another now,” and hands him one the size of her thumb. He reaches out with purple-stained fingers and grins at her. “Thank you, Mama,” he says.

I watch them for a while, afraid the wind of my breathing could rip through the fabric of this vision. Something makes me turn. I look up the road and see a man about her age, tall and strong, walking up the road. He yells to them, lifts up a stringer of bass. She waves, gathers up her pail and takes the kid by the hand. “Come on, Charlie,” she says, “time for you to meet your Daddy.” He grins again and her face is beaming like hope on a morning you thought you’d never live to see.

“Well, Cletus,” she laughs, “looks like you found some fish.”

H. Arnett
9-09-09

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Labor Day

Posted on September 8, 2009 by Doc Arnett

We sit on the porch in the slow quiet of this morning’s fog, eating strawberries and cereal. In the close grayness of a holiday morning, there are few of the usual sounds. Cars roll by intermittently on Ashland; a neighbor’s early rising grandchildren play in the alley. An orange monarch works the blue blooms of the butterfly bush while a bumblebee lumbers around in its chore of feeding. After our breakfast is over, a green-backed hummingbird whizzes around the feeder, settles for a long drink.

 I take my bowl to the sink and rinse it, walk out the back door.

 A slight breeze ripples the leaves and I hear the sounds of fog falling through the branches. Drops patter against lower leaves, against the spindly branches, onto the ornamental shade plants. I stand and listen for a while, study the spent blooms of hostas, gone from lavender to white and now to a yellowish tinge, fringed with tan. They hang, limp and dewy, sagging toward earth. Red basil stands above the coleus and ferns, backdropped by the trunks of trees and the low green of underbrush.

I contemplate the jumble of hounding thoughts, an agony of tensions, painful decisions with long-term implications, situations that cannot be easily resolved, a recession personalized by Randa’s loss of job, deadlines, frustrations, aggravations.

 Looking back at the bank, toward the neighbor’s house, I see the fog-defined pattern of every web. Microscopic droplets illuminate every fiber. They blanket the wintergreen low on the ground, each strand obvious, the emphatic funnel hole in the center. Patterns hang from low branches, from leaves, flowers. In this quiet hour of surrounding gray, there are things seen more clearly than in the full glare of a clear day.

 I pray for wisdom.

H. Arnett

9/08/09

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Together

Posted on September 3, 2009 by Doc Arnett

From time to time in his walk with men, the Carpenter would spend some time in solitude. Away from the crowds, away, even, from his closest friends. In the wilds of Israel, amidst the stone and brush, he would lay down the rush of life. For a while, he would leave the knife-edged press of duty and desire, rekindle the fire of meaning, restore the closeness he needed with Father and Spirit.

We sometimes walk too fast, feet not quite touching earth, face not quite touching wind, fingers kept just short of touching others. We move along so crowded we cannot extend our arms yet with such distance that we avoid all contact. We are sometimes lonely in this shell that keeps us safe and sometimes the loneliness is the danger.

Some of us are meant to be torches, shining in the night, yielding light along the path. Others are meant to be coals, glowing as one, yielding warmth and comfort. None of us were meant to be alone even when our walk calls us to serve without company.

H. Arnett
9/03/09

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Anniversary

Posted on September 1, 2009 by Doc Arnett

In the space of two decades, we have buried a daughter, two fathers, a grandmother and others: friends that we loved, brethren that we cherished, church members we met only in their dying. We have sung for funerals and weddings, held the hands of the sick and weary, visited in kitchens.

We have sat and talked for hours, driven hundreds of thousands of miles. We have helped in the raisings of nine children and share now a dozen grandchildren with yet another due in November. We have remodeled four houses and continue the work of improving the fifth. We have stacked tons of stone, carried out old and put in new. We have turned ideas into cabinets, rooms, houses and yards.

We have traveled hour upon hour to watch ballgames, felt the heat of candles and adventured many storms. We have studied the etchings of lightning, felt the pounding of rain and thunder, and swam in the dark waters of summer nights in Kentucky.

We built a six-foot tall snow bunny after an April snowstorm and we saw flood waters miles wide beyond the channel of a small river. We parasailed over the bay of South Padre Island and snorkeled off Oahu, went scuba diving in the stone arches of Kona’s volcanic flow, marveled at graves in Mexico and grooved to Led Zeppelin tunes on the waterfront in Baltimore.

We have wept and laughed, felt ourselves torn in half by heartache and sometimes caused the same to others. We have made the bed in the quick rush of mornings and sipped warm glasses of red wine in the slow twilight. We have held our children close, laughed on the lawn and wondered if we would ever know peace again. We have held each other in fierce love, stubborn and unyielding against all that tried to tear us apart. We have found a closeness that I did not believe could exist, much less endure.

By grace even when not graceful, we have faced all things, believed in One Name and have loved each other above all others made of flesh. It is this that we treasure, this that we celebrate. It is this for which we give thanks, this that has been done by strength beyond our own.

H. Arnett
9/1/09

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Slow Conversation

Posted on August 26, 2009 by Doc Arnett

After the last hummingbird had left the feeder on the window, after the guitar and singing but before being ready for bed, we went out on the screened-in porch last night. We sat there for over an hour, talking in the warmth and darkness. The air, a bit heavy and humid, lay against us like a blanket almost too thin to kick off on an almost cool night. An occasional passing car provided momentary counterpoint to the droning of cicadas. I couldn’t identify the soloist, maybe a cicada with its own ideas or a tree frog, but something’s “kurr-kurr-karumph” came from the area of the locust trees behind the house.

We talked about Randa’s job search, the Crosby, Stills and Nash concert coming up this weekend and whatever else seemed to come to mind. Neither of us minded the occasional silences, if there is such a thing on a summer night in town when you live surrounded by trees and streets. Some people seem threatened by the absence of conversation, as if thinking without speaking were a bad thing or if their partner is somehow obligated to share each and every thought. In a good relationship, what is held private is respected as much as what is put into words.

What we really need to fear are the things put into words before the thinking has taken place. I’ve offered a number of apologies in my life; most were accepted. Very rarely have I ever needed to apologize for something I didn’t say. This is not fresh insight, by the way.

One of the ancient writers said we should be quick to listen and slow to speak. Maybe he knew what it was like to spend the early hours of a summer night treasuring time spent with one he loved.

H. Arnett
8/26/09

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