Good Fruit Takes Time

Posted on August 23, 2023 by Doc Arnett

I reckon the only time I’ve ever sampled honeydew melon has been when I’ve had it in a fruit medley of some sort or another when I’ve eaten at a breakfast buffet. Usually at a hotel where I’m staying for a conference… At least, that’s the only memory I have. Cantaloupes or muskmelons is a different matter. I’ve had a few of those fresh and ripe from some West Kentucky farmer’s field or garden back in the day. Usually, they even knew about it! Wink, wink.

The flesh of those were sweet and soft and ripe and fragrant. Juicy, too. Unlike the chunks of honeydew in the breakfast buffet which were usually hard and green and basically flavorless. Randa’s experience having been pretty similar to mine, she wondered out loud why I’d brought home two honeydew melon plants to add to the corn, peppers, and tomatoes in the garden. “Because they didn’t have any cantaloupe,” I explained, which I guess isn’t really much of an explanation.

Regardless of reason, the vines grew like weeds and spread like online rumors. They’ve pretty much taken over the whole south end of the garden, stretching out underneath the horse trailer and tumbling over the railroad tie borders and meandering out into the driveway. After trying to edumacate myself on the internet in regard to perceived honeydew melon ripeness, I picked the first one about a month ago. In spite of my google mentor’s guidance, it was hard and green and basically flavorless.

The next one I picked two weeks after that was semi-hard, somewhat green, and yes, basically flavorless. In a small fit of angry disappointment, I considered ripping up all the vines and dragging them over to the gully. But then I remembered a couple of things: 1) maybe they just needed more time to ripen and 2) we don’t have a gully.

So, another two weeks goes by, and I get the nerve to try again. Well, whaddyaknow!! This one actually cut fairly easily, had a hint of flavor, and even tasted a bit sweet. We sliced it up and stored it in the fridge for several days. What a pleasant surprise when we tried a slice. It was wonderful. And, believe it or not, actually smelled like a melon!

I guess anybody who’s ever had a tree-ripened peach or a vine-ripened tomato knows well and keenly appreciates the difference between fruit picked for shipping and fruit picked for eating. Or for show. There’s just no way to rush the process and still get the full goodness that nature is willing to put in if we’ll just show a bit of patience.

I think there’s a bit of that, too, in our bearing the fruit of the Spirit. It takes time, maturing, and the natural process of power that is beyond us. We can draw up all the water and nutrients that we want, but it is yielding to God’s own hand that produces what he has intended within us. In view of that, perhaps we ought to be a bit more patient with ourselves… and with others.

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Farming, food, Gardening, Metaphysical Reflection, Nature, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Good Fruit Takes Time

Down and Dirty

Posted on August 17, 2023 by Doc Arnett

Down and Dirty

One of my favorite scriptures is this gem from the One Hundred-and-Third Psalm:

13 As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him;
14 for he knows how we are formed,
    he remembers that we are dust.

I can’t help but ponder that maybe that awareness and perception was honed a bit by Jesus’ thirty-three years of sharing this form of existence. As he walked the stony paths and dusty streets, did the dirt of the earth settle even more deeply into his consciousness? As he witnessed the walk of mortals in mortal form, did he sense even more strongly the deep longings and fatal flaws of the created beings? As he washed his own feet, did he think more deeply about how deeply the nature of this world is held within us?

Probably not. He’d been observing his children for several millennia and I’m pretty sure he was quite aware of every quirk, lack, mischief, and mistake. He had long witnessed our bent toward evil and our incalculably cruel capabilities. And yet… he remembered that we are dust. Fashioned from this earth and deeply drawn to its most basic substance. Goes with the territory, so to speak.

And so, in that deep perception of our fashioned nature, as the Christ walked upon the earth, he embraced sinners. He forgave them and healed them. He touched the untouchable, loved the unlovable. He sat at their tables, ate and drank with them. And, he confronted their sin and told them to “Go and sin no more.”

Understanding has never been an excuse for sin, but rather a means of moderating judgment and empowering mercy toward the sinner. Mercy greater than all our sin, judgment substituting his righteousness for our guilt. And calling us to a life of holiness… but not holier than thou-ness.

Attending to the creosoted post jutting out from our own orbital socket, we do not attempt to extract the fleck of dust from our neighbor’s eye. We refuse to call evil “good” but speak truth in humble and sincere love. Keenly aware of our own sins, flaws, and failures, we do not treat others harshly but rather close the door of our own closet, fall to the floor, and plead, “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

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Ambitions for a Summer Day

Posted on August 15, 2023 by Doc Arnett 
I love these August mornings,
such peaceful, gentle formings:
the way the sun slants through the tall trees
lining the edge of the pasture,
the way the dew shines my boots
as I walk through the fescue toward the barn
to feed the horses.

I love the stirring of slight breezes in their coursings,
rippling the leaves of the cottonwood,
the shimmerings of light glistening off their angles
and the thousands of tiny bangles from the beads
of last night’s cooling caught in the low blades of grass
reflecting on my passing along the driveway
in the early parts of this day’s duties.

I love the feel of cool air
against the boundaries of my face,
its tracings along the edges of my arms,
the smell of the night’s lingering shadows
seeping from the edges of the woods,
the muffled sounds of my steps
across the damp sand of the round pen.

Whatever testings may come
in the heat of the noonday’s sun,
whatever trials might pass
in the crescending rise of work and heat,
I will give thanks for the food I eat,
forgive whatever wrongs might pass this way,
and be grateful for this day that the Lord has made.


H. Arnett
8/15/23
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Song for My Dad

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Doc Arnett

My dad passed away fourteen years ago. Hardly a week goes by that I don’t catch myself thinking, “Wish I could call Dad and ask him about this…”

Here’s a song I wrote for/about him…

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Migraines, Your Grains, and Our Gains

Posted on August 9, 2023 by Doc Arnett

Even though it was fifty-six years ago, to the month, if not to the week and the day, I have a pretty clear memory of the very first migraine headache I ever had. School was about to start, and I wanted to play basketball as a new freshman at Sturgis Junior High (Kentucky, not South Dakota). So, I ran several laps around our house as a preliminary physical conditioning warmup.

By the time I finished, I had the worst headache of my life. I went inside, lay down on the couch. Mom, noting that I never came in and lay down on the couch in the middle of the day, asked me what was wrong. I told her and she got me a glass of water and a couple of aspirin. Good intentions notwithstanding, the aspirin had zero impact.

Over the years, I’d have random hits, nearly always beginning with some sort of visual aura. Sometimes, there were blank spots in my vision. Sometimes, it was like looking out over a gas tank or a bare field on a hot day when you see ripples in the air. “Vapor vision,” I called it. Then, more as I got older, there would be these stunning geometric shapes with incredibly brilliant colors that would pulse and shimmer and move across my field of vision. It didn’t matter if my eyes were open or shut; the aura continued. The images always moved from left to right.

Sometimes, about fifteen to thirty minutes after the aura, I’d get a nearly debilitating headache. Sometimes, it would only be painful. Sometimes, especially in the past decade or so, the pain level would only be annoying. I frequently found that making myself go ahead and be physically active was more therapeutic than vegetating on the couch. Probably a combination of increased circulation and the mental distraction of whatever I was doing.

Even though I’ve kept that clear memory of the first headache ever since August of 1967, it was only a couple of weeks ago that I realized what probably triggered it.

Nearly everything that I’ve ever taken to fight allergy symptoms has been an antihistamine of some sort. Nearly all of them trigger migraines. Just Sunday afternoon, I snorted a dose of Nasonex because I was weary of the constant sniffling and blowing my nose every fifteen minutes. Sure enough, a day later I got another migraine.

My very first experience with antihistamine was Polaramine (dexchlorpheniramine), the little red pills a doctor prescribed to a young teenager in West Kentucky to relieve allergy symptoms. Guess when? Yep, summer of 1967.

Why in the world it took me so long to make that connection is beyond me. Seems pretty darn obvious since I’ve known for thirty or forty years antihistamine is one of my most consistent migraine triggers. But then, my species is pretty darn adept at missing the obvious, overlooking the reasonable and rational, and continually searching for alternative explanations that fit better with our prejudices and preferred inclinations.

I suppose that’s why we keep trying to blame our sins, character defects, and bad choices on someone else. There is something oddly and perhaps perversely reassuring about that. “It’s not really me, right?”

Whether it’s personal allergies or societal failures, our awareness of and admission of the true causes does not alter reality. But, Boy Howdy, our awareness of reality surely does unlock the potential for effective intervention, doesn’t it?!

“Whoa, you’re right; it’s always been me, hasn’t it?”

H. Arnett

8/9/2023

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Extraordinary Lives

Posted on August 3, 2023 by Doc Arnett

She was born in 1925 and died in 2023, just a few months shy of ninety-eight years. Over the span of her years, she divorced once, was widowed twice, and lived the last eight years of her life alone. So far as the world’s accounting goes, I suppose she never achieved any lofty goals: no remarkable athletic achievements, no outstanding political accomplishments, no impressive financial coups. And yet, I would hold that Marjy Cottle lived an extraordinary life. Remarkable most especially to me for the way she refused to relinquish her faith or her happiness.

Marjy initiated her divorce in 1963, in Oklahoma, after seventeen years of marriage. Divorce is nearly always painful but, in that era, in that place, it would have been a really tough experience. Lots of stigma, regardless of circumstances. She married again nine years later and was widowed when leukemia took Bob after twenty-five years. Subsequently, she renewed acquaintance with a high school classmate, moved back to Kansas from Texas, and married Freddie when she was seventy-five. Fourteen years later, he passed, and she found herself alone again.

In addition to those losses, she’d endured the agony of miscarriages, including one that was within a month of full term. She was never able to carry a child to birth. Nonetheless, she poured love into her community and family, including siblings and numerous nieces and nephews.

Through all that she endured, Marjy continued to choose faith, joy, and happiness. I would imagine that no one would have failed to understand if she’d grown bitter and resentful, and shut herself off from the world and its pains. Even into her nineties, she continued to attend the church she’d first joined when she was fourteen years old. She’d pretty well retained her mental capacities right up unto the end.

As part of the honoring of her life, her family created a slide show of snapshots taken over the decades. While taking pictures showing on the TV monitor at the funeral home during visitation, I accidentally created a “double exposure” that I believe actually revealed Marjy’s secret. The intended picture is one of her at around ten years old, standing in the yard of an old farmhouse, waving at someone off screen. Since the slideshow advanced to the next image at that instant, there’s also a ghost image of her uncle holding her as an infant with her aunt also in the shot.

Looking at the serendipitous image, I wondered, “Is Marjy waving goodbye or hello?” As I further studied and contemplated, I thought, “What a great lesson!”

You see, in order to hold onto both sanity and happiness, Marjy had to say goodbye to all the pains of her past. Let go of the former happiness now turned to sorrow in order to embrace the next of her life and welcome tomorrow. Let go of the regrets and the painful decisions and turn instead, in faith, to the future. She waved “hello” to whatever came next in life and moved forward.

When we choose faith instead of fear, acceptance instead of regret, and grace instead of bitterness, we, too, can live extraordinary lives.

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Obstacle Course

Posted on August 2, 2023 by Doc Arnett

A notice popped up on my Facebook page last week about a “Family Fun Run” scheduled for Sunday morning at Bonner Springs, Kansas. My second-oldest son, Sam, and I ran that obstacle challenge course back in September of 2015. Terrific course, terrific setting, terrific obstacles! Hilly terrain, tons of trees, and even a “hold yourself on” zip line. Over water.

Since this was advertised as a “take your time, have fun” kind of a deal, I thought it was a great opportunity to end my four-year hiatus from doing mud runs. Also, it was described as a two-mile course instead of the usual three-point-two miles (5K). “Perfect,” I thought, “that’ll be a good transition.” The transition being from nothing to a good hike with multiple physical challenges thrown in.

So… I signed up for the 8:30 wave, dug out my mud run togs, filled a medium-sized picnic cooler with warm water and headed to Bonner Springs at six-thirty Sunday morning. It was every bit as much fun as I hoped!

Granted, I did get stung on my hand by a wasp in the first obstacle but, hey, it’s nature, right? There were a few other less than assuring incidents but they were not unexpected. I have not done any training whatsoever over the past three years: no running, no jogging, no lifting, no stretching, no planks, no pushups, no pullups. Nada.

So, even though it was a bit disappointing, it was not surprising that I couldn’t do the vertical wall climb, the rope climb or the overhead rings. Several bricks short of the wheelbarrow load of upper body strength needed. But I was able to do the other twenty obstacles, including the zip line over water. I even managed a vague imitation of jogging… on the downhill portions. But I did find myself wishing, “Man, to be sixty again!”

About twenty minutes in, I jogged past the One Mile marker. “Woohoo!” I thought, “halfway done!” Several more obstacles, a few mud pits, and twenty-five minutes later, I slogged by the Two Mile marker. “That’s odd,” I mused to myself, “I don’t hear the music or the crowd back at the Start/Finish area.

Another fifteen minutes later, I could hear the music. Pretty soon the trail headed down the hill. The music was getting louder and I could hear people talking. Still a few hundred yards short of the finish area, I trudged past a Three Mile Marker.

As it turned out, I’d apparently taken on a 5K, without any training. Yet, I survived. Sore, fore shore! But survived. And… had a ton of fun in the process. It’s kind of fascinating how mud runs make me feel like a kid and an old man at the same time!

Sometimes in this obstacle course called “Life,” we’re going to discover our limitations. We’re going to tackle some things that maybe we just don’t have the strength, skill, or stamina to finish. Or maybe we finish them eventually but not as quickly or as well as we hoped. That’s okay. God’s strength is perfected in our weakness.

We may find out, too, that the race lasts longer than we expected or prepared for. Just keep putting one foot in front of the other, don’t wear yourself out or beat yourself up over the things you can’t do, and keep going.

Trust in the strength that God provides, wait on his timing, and take time to look around you, even in the midst of your testing. The trees really are quite beautiful.

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Next Year’s Peaches

Posted on July 31, 2023 by Doc Arnett

I don’t know if trees can feel pain or not. If they can, windstorms like the ones we had Saturday and Sunday must be downright agonizing. All that swishing and swaying and bending and the breaking. Aw, man, the breaking! That must be an ache all the way to the roots!

Compared to the jagged edges and long splintering rips of limbs being torn away, pruning must surely be less painful. Probably still not fun, though. Snip, snip, cut, cut.

You know how it goes in our own lives, right? The stress and tension of new dimensions of trials and testings? The tearing away or rooting out of attitudes, habits, and inclinations that run counter to our bearing the fruit of the Spirit? The Lord’s pruning removing what isn’t productive and the Spirit nudging us in better direction?

Those things are not usually pleasant or fun, agreed, but they do produce new growth. So, when you’re feeling a bit frustrated, remember who’s working on you, in you, through you, and for you. And keep in mind, too, that it’s this year’s growth that produces next year’s peaches.

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Summer in the Flint Hills

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Doc Arnett

Every time I drive I-35 through the Flint Hills of Kansas, I am mesmerized by the vastness of these upland, rolling plains. Such a contradiction to the stereotype images of the state, the miles of grassland are punctuated by trees, ditches, outcroppings of limestone and occasional creeks and small bluffs. Lots of hills.

Maybe folks from the Rockies are not impressed. I guess if you grew up gazing at the mountains and the seemingly infinite distances of open territory, the Flint Hills just aren’t that impressive. But having grown up in West Kentucky where you can rarely see more than half-mile of road up ahead of you, this is really something. Occasionally, you’ll see a bit of the road rising up on the next ridge, five miles or more away from where you are at that instant.

One of my favorite spots is where a rock-bedded creek passes beneath the road. Trees line the banks as the stream emerges from the low bluffs and flows into a small bend and disappears. Someday—I keep telling myself—I’m going to take time to stop. Maybe hop over the fence and follow the water for a bit. If there aren’t any bulls around…

Back up out of the valley, the grazing territory stretches out—literally—from horizon to horizon. On a breezy day, which is just about every day in this part of the state, tall grass, native wildflowers, and low brush join together in weaving, rhythmic motion, pulsing and swaying, flinching, and bowing in the wind.

Cows munch their way across the land, resting in the shade in the heat of the day or else finding their way into one of the ponds. They’ll stand there, bellies cooling in the water, chewing their cud, and looking as content as turtles on a log. Long, meandering trails of bare dirt mark their travel habits.

These miles of hills that stretch from Oklahoma up to Nebraska do not rival the Appalachians or the Rockies for grandeur, scale, or scope. But they do show the handiwork of God and in their own way bring a bit of awe. And a welcome bit of beauty to refresh my traveling.

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Forge Work

Posted on July 27, 2023 by Doc Arnett

Neighbors and passers-by might well have wondered why in the world I built a fire on the hottest day of summer. Fairly simple, really: I needed to reshape a piece of heavy steel rod.

This particular rod is the control lever for the front loader on my Kubota tractor and its previous shape significantly interfered with dismounting from said tractor. Grip knob stuck up too high and the whole thing stuck out too far into the access space.

Cutting off six inches on the length was relatively quick and simple using my DeWalt angle grinder. Changing the angle of a couple of the bends on it was a different matter.

I tried heating it with a propane torch. Didn’t work. I remembered how Alvie Farris used to heat up and reshape metal using his old forge in Browns Grove, Kentucky. He was thin as a plank and tough as a pine knot. Even thick metal yielded to his hammer swings once it glowed red in the fire. Remembering that, I decided to build a fire.

After a half-hour or so of warmup, so to speak, I added a few pieces of kiln-dried wood to the pile of burning elm. Oak, maple, and mulberry. After that got going pretty well, I stuck the steel rod into the heart of the fire. About ten minutes later, I brought over the air hose. The addition of forced oxygen notched things up considerably! It went from “pretty good campfire” status to a pleasant little roar. Increased the temperature a few hundred degrees, I reckon. After several minutes of that, I tugged on my old leather welding gloves, grabbed the least heated end, and moved the project to the anvil.

With just a few hard licks of a three-pound shop hammer, that angle was tightened up considerably. Checking the fit led to some bending back in the other direction. Then, I heated the other end and reshaped one more bend. Preliminary testing indicates the control handle will still work fine and yet allow for less restricted access. In other words, I’ll be able to get off the tractor on either side without bruising my leg or hip and without snagging a pocket on my jeans.

Sometimes, God patiently reshapes us over the years with some sustained gentle pressure and direction. Sometimes, he uses a hammer. Sometimes, he brings up the heat and then uses the hammer. And sometimes, he uses even more heat. And a bigger hammer. Whatever it takes… as long as we seek the shape of being perfectly formed to his will and purpose.

I happily admit that I rather prefer the gentle shaping. But also acknowledge the effectiveness of the more dramatic encounters. Sometimes, we bear the marks of the forge and hammer. And in all cases, are reminded that he who has begun a good work in us will continue it until its completion. I am confident the final outcome will be well worth the pounding.

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