Riding Toward the Far Ridge

Posted on August 3, 2022 by Doc Arnett 
Somewhere in between West Virginia and North Carolina,
Interstate-Seventy-Seven makes a long downhill slide
through a place that is not quite heaven
but definitely well this side of hell

and off to the east side through the gaps in the trees
you can occasionally see miles of Virginia valley and distant mountains,
and although it is not the Shenandoah,
it is mighty beautiful on a green summer day—

the way one shade layers behind another and another,
and in the far distance greens turn into blues and grays.

But I would have to say that seventy-miles-an-hour on a motorcycle
is not the best way to take in views like this;
but there are suppers I don’t want to miss
and I am too riveted on the road ahead

to be turning my head off to the side
in a place in the world where rocks sometimes slide
out into the paths that we have meant for other things,
and it takes less than a second

for life to bring something you hadn’t counted on,
didn’t see coming, and getting there safely 
takes more than a measure of luck
and a quickly murmured prayer with each passing truck.

Still, I wish I’d built in more time for the traveling

so that I could swing over onto the shoulder
in the thick shade of this chiseled bluff,
lean the bike over on the kickstand,
cross these two lanes

and stand in the shadows of tall hardwoods
looking out over these forested miles
until I could finally whisper “I have had enough—
at least for a while,”

then smile to myself and be ready again 
for riding further on this long road that I have chosen.


H. Arnett
8/3/22


First Published in Faith on Every Corner, March 2023 issue, p. 65.
Posted in Aging, Christian Devotions, Metaphysical Reflection, Motorcycle, Nature, Poetic Contemplations, Poetry, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Riding Toward the Far Ridge

Proof of Life

Posted on July 12, 2022 by Doc Arnett 
Looking back, it seems a bit easier to see
the things you didn’t see when they were happening,
easier to mark the miles that passed by.

You didn’t notice—at least not at first—
that even though you thought you were drinking,
you still felt that thirst at the back of your throat.

You’d hoped it would never happen to you,
this lingering loneliness,
the sapping of the spirit that wearies you now
clear to the bone.

You wondered for a while
how you could have both been moving
along in what seemed the same direction
and yet have ended up this far apart—
absent the affection you’d felt for so many years.

They ache and burn now,
these tears of realization,
an aching confirmation of the fears
and a numbing awareness of the indifference
that has grown like stone inside the parts of your heart
that used to beat so keenly you knew its rate
without touching your wrist.

You barely remember the last time you kissed
with anything more than perfunctory feeling,
the last time you touched one another
with any sense of passion or pleasure.

Perhaps it is the measure of your own unmentioned feelings,
or the reeling realization of not knowing for sure
whether or not the other is able—or even willing—
to move forward in a way that will someday find you
once again finding a deeper satisfaction
in being more together than you have ever been.

A hundred small choices landed you here
but just a few good ones could move you
toward a better shore
than the one you have been wandering.


H. Arnett
7/01/22
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Hard Work on a (Not So) Hot Day

Posted on July 7, 2022 by Doc Arnett

The forecast for yesterday was not the sort that brings a lot of joy for men with the prospect of building fence in the first full week of July: expected heat index of around a hundred-and-six degrees. But Neil and BJ had agreed to come and help and since they followed through, I felt sort of obligated to pitch in, too.

I had some bit of optimism that we could work in the shade if we started early enough in the day; there’s a line of trees along the eastern edge of the little pasture we were fencing. BJ and I had already set most of the posts and had braced the two forty-five-degree angle corners on the northeast edge. Its location allowed us to work in the shade until around one p.m. on a day of triple digit felt temperatures.

Neil’s first day on the project was predicted to be even hotter. But eight o’clock found overcast skies shielding us from the sun while we set the last two posts on the western run of the pasture. Just before we finished tamping in the dirt on the second post, I scanned the sky overhead and toward the west. “Looks like our cloud cover is just about gone,” I noted. “Yeah,” Neil agreed.

There were a few minutes when the sun sort of broke through the clouds while we began setting in the horizontal braces for the southeast corner. But then, more clouds moved in and kept the perceived temperature about twenty degrees lower than predicted.

“You just can’t count on the weatherman!” Neil commented facetiously. “Yeah,” I responded, “I guess some days their lack of proficiency isn’t as disturbing as it is on other days.”

We were grateful for the lack of accuracy on the forecast and equally grateful when BJ showed up a few minutes later. I introduced the two guys and the team kicked into real action.

BJ and Neil looped in the heavy wire for diagonal bracing while I marked notches for the next horizontal beam brace and then cut stakes for twisting the heavy wire. In a very short while it began to look like this wasn’t the first time we’d built fence together. Marking and cutting the heavy 4×4’s, drilling pilot holes and fastening the beams into place, looping in, and twisting the heavy wire braces: everything moved more and more smoothly with each post. In a couple of hours, we’d finished bracing two corners and two end posts. And the cloud cover held, too.

It’s a mighty fine blessing to have cooler than expected weather for outdoor work in July in Kansas. And an even better one to have friends to help you with it.

H. Arnett

7/7/2022

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Hope For the Harm We Never Intended

Posted on July 6, 2022 by Doc Arnett 
Building fence in the last bit of shade
on a triple digit heat index day 
in northeastern Kansas,
I guide a load of poles
through the edges of a dense cedar
at the corner of the horse pasture.

Interlaced branches catch at the ends,
bend and twist in their resistance
then give way to the push of the tractor.

A few minutes later,
B.J. spots a baby bird on the ground.
Purple and blue and wretched,
the sparsest bit of early feathers
on mostly naked skin,
gangly and helpless.

A moment later he asks,
“Isn’t that a female cardinal?”
pointing through the tangle of limbs and branches.
It takes me a while, bending and leaning
to trace along the line of his arm extending beyond his finger.
I finally see the adult bird and respond,
“Well, that, or a cedar waxwing.”

We look briefly to find the nest
but see no trace of it in the thick lacing
of needles and branches.
I slide gloved hands as gently as I can
beneath the baby bird and move it
to what I hope is a safer place near the trunk of the tree.
I find pieces of a broken nest and take the best I can of that
and wedge them into the junction of two branches.
I lift the hatchling into that and hope for a better outcome than I expect.

B.J. and I move on to wrapping nine-gauge wire
in a double-loop diagonal to connect the corner post’s base
to the brace posts on each side,
ending with heavy twists that will help resist the pull
of high-tension wire in a more permanent fence.

A few hours later,
in the slightly lower heat of dusk,
I take a saw to reduce the outer husk of the cedar
so that we can pass through on horseback
without the scratching itch of cedar branches
roughing against rein hands and slapping us in the face.

Working my way into the cedar’s own thicket,
I see the baby bird has fallen again.
It stirs at the sound of my approach,
stretching its ridiculously skinny neck
and lifting gaping beak upward.

I trigger the saw and set it close 
against the junction of trunk and stem,
trimming a few of the lowest limbs
that extend out toward the near corner of the pasture.

Moving around the felled cluster,
I am dismayed to finally find the nest,
lodged in an inner junction of the longest limb,
stems and strands interwoven,
still hosting three siblings of the fallen bird.

I go back and tenderly lift once again the lonely one,
set it back into the nest with the others.
About two feet past the fork,
I cut the branch that holds the nest
then move the whole over to the trunk.

Carefully keeping the nest horizontal,
I push the largest end into the junction of other branches,
wedging it in as gently as I can and then twisting it once again
to make it as secure as I can.

It is as much as I can do
to undo the harm that I never intended.

A half-hour later, I watch a male cardinal
with a large grub in its beak
pause for a moment on an outer branch
then disappear into the midst of the cedar.

It feels something like absolution, 
and I will take my chances with hope.


H. Arnett
7/6/2022
Posted in Farming, Metaphysical Reflection, Nature, Poetic Contemplations, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Hope For the Harm We Never Intended

Something Like the Feel of Silence

Posted on June 30, 2022 by Doc Arnett 
There is a sweet stillness
in the morning air
of this last Wednesday in June.

The first streaks of sun
come from about as far to north
as they ever will in northeast Kansas,
just one week past the solstice.

Absent as much as a flinch or a flicker,
maple leaves droop toward earth
and locust branches hold long and slender
near the edges of the eave.
Even the five-thirty mourning dove
is taking a break on this day’s dawning.

Heavy dew shines the surface
of a hundred tiny webs
silvering the lawn
and the smooth river rocks on the patio.

I do not yet know
what waits in store on this good day
but I know Who Has Made It
and believe that he will see me through it.

I will sit for a while longer,
sipping steaming coffee
and grateful for the peace
of its beginning.


H. Arnett
6/29/2022
Posted in Christian Devotions, Metaphysical Reflection, Nature, Poetic Contemplations, Poetry, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Something Like the Feel of Silence

Digging Deep

Posted on June 30, 2022 by Doc Arnett

One of my more recent projects here at the happy little homestead we call “Haven Hill” took me to new depths of digging. Installing a new automatic watering device monikered “The Drinking Post” by its manufacturer required digging a hole five feet below the horses’ standing surface.

There’s a slight complication in our case: the post’s ground level is elevated behind a low terrace wall about fourteen inches above the corral base. That meant I had to dig the hole over six feet below the ground at the point of installation. Well, I guess I could have built an inclined drinking ramp for the horses but I declined that option. At least initially.

The only seemingly logical choice for location of the Drinking Post placed it in an eight-foot strip near the corner between the corral fence and our small barn. More precisely, it would be situated a foot away from the retaining wall, a foot away from the barn wall, and about six feet away from the adjacent corral fence panel.

Even with the smallest track-hoe or mini-excavator available from Rent-All, those close quarters made the digging real slow for a novice operator. Working within a few inches of the intersecting corner of the retaining wall and barn wall, I slowly dug down, one bucket of dirt at a time. As I pivoted the machine to dump each bucketful of dirt, the top of the cab on the backside came within a half-inch of the barn gutter. At the same time, I had to avoid hitting the fence with the bucket. Adding to the challenge and the frustration was the fact that I was digging in moist clay.

Frequently, I’d have to “bounce” the hydraulic arm to dislodge the sticky soil. Given the limited operating space and the very limited skill of the operator, I could only dig down about three feet deep. Still, that was a big advantage over doing the whole job by hand. Since we were replacing an old, leaking outdoor hydrant in the same general spot, I dug out a space about three feet wide and six feet long with the mini-excavator.

After that, it was all spade and shovel. The next two feet of depth wasn’t just moist; it was wringing wet. The water line had been fractured somewhere between eight months and eight years earlier. Closer to years than months, based on our water bills. Finding and repairing the leak was the actual impetus for the project; installing the Drinking Post was just a fringe benefit. Of sorts…

The clay was so sticky, I’d have to bang the shovel against a concrete block to dislodge each chunk. Sometimes, I’d have to scrape it off. Once I got below the soak line, it got a bit easier. Well, at least getting the dirt off the spade got easier. Getting it out of the intended hole for the post was another matter. By the time I got to the bottom, I was working in an egg-shaped hole about eighteen inches by twenty-four inches wide. Four feet deeper than the adjacent space for the new hydrant, over six feet deeper than the ground surface.

At one point, after a few hours of digging with extremely limited standing space, my back wedged against the vertical wall and trying to lift up a shovelful of sticky clay above my head, that inclined ramp idea started sounding a lot better. To me, at least. I was real sure that Randa would have a very different reaction. As would every subsequent visitor to the corral area. So, pardon the pun, I decided to stick with it.

I finished digging the hole, shoveled in the recommended twelve-inch base of gravel, and covered it with landscape fabric to keep the dirt and mud from sifting down into the gravel and ruining its water dispersal function. (The Drinking Post works like a freeze-proof hydrant. The actual valve sits well below the frost line and is triggered by pressing a plastic flap in the “bowl” at the top. As long as the flap is depressed, fresh water flows up the supply line to the bowl. After the flap is released, it gets cheerful again and the valve at the base shuts off the water flow. Leftover water drains down through the small holes in the bottom of the bowl and empties into the gravel area below the bottom of the post.)

As instructed by the manufacturer, I set a couple of bricks into the gravel to provide a firm level base and water drainage space for the Drinking Post. I connected the water line to the pipe and set the whole assembly into place. Then, I added a couple more inches of gravel and then started shoveling the wet clay back into the hole. Same shovel, different day. Same way of scraping each chunk off the spade and back where it came from. It’s not quick or easy but eventually the hole gets refilled.

A few days later, the whole area is levelled and covered with two inches of small gravel. Only two feet of the white plastic drinking post’s total seven-foot length is visible above the surface. It’s the part that delivers fresh, cool, clean drinking water year-round. No electricity required.

Quite often in our lives, the convenience of our existence depends upon the unseen work of others. And sometimes, too, upon our own acutely felt labors.

Let’s be grateful for both. And to the God who gives us strength and our daily bread.

H. Arnett

6/30/22

Posted in Christian Devotions, Farming, Metaphysical Reflection, Remodeling/Construction, Spiritual Contemplation, Work | Tagged , , , , , | Comments Off on Digging Deep

The Straightening

Posted on June 22, 2022 by Doc Arnett 
Hard rain and strong winds
have a way of upending those things
that are not deeply rooted—
and sometimes even those that are.

Mornings after the summer storms
would cut a swath
through the fields and garden
of our Todd County farm
would find my father
walking along the rows of corn,
lifting the dark green stalks back toward vertical.

Holding the tassel toward heaven,
he’d press his heel down firmly,
first against the windward side—
and sometimes that was enough—
pushing a little extra of earth
to help hold the stalks in place
until the roots had gained a bit more strength,
deepening their grip into denser dirt.

That works right well
when the corn is only leaning a bit,
a suggestion of sorts as to which way
the wind was blowing.

But yesterday’s roughing
has laid these rows of sweet corn
nearly horizontal—
tassels almost touching the earth.
It will take more than a tug
and the push of a single shoe
to stand these shafts back toward the noonday sun.

Not all that is damaged is destroyed
and the joy of a vivid rainbow
misted against the green bluffs
less than a quarter-mile away
in the near dusk breaking of the clouds
is more than enough in fair trade
for clearing away a half-ton 
of broken branches from the Bradford Pear
and re-tightening a few strands of stretched electric wire.

Even in the taking
our Maker often gives as well.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord.


H. Arnett
6/22/22
Posted in Christian Devotions, Farming, Gardening, Metaphysical Reflection, Nature, Poetic Contemplations, Poetry, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Straightening

Mark Phillips & The Last Ride

Posted on June 12, 2022 by Doc Arnett

Mark Phillips, a long time Kansas community college track coach with an exceptional record, died at the age of 60 in April of 2022. Over the course of his forty-year career, he coached at Cloud County Community College, Kansas City Kansas Community College, Johnson County Community College and finally and probably most notably at Cowley County Community College. He himself had been part of a national championship squad as a runner at Northwest Missouri State University and competed in pole vaulting there as well. As coach, he eventually specialized in throwing, jumping, and sprints, but of course, helped with all events. He was noted as a meticulous planner–of family vacations as well as track meets.

His Facebook page now includes numerous testimonies from former student athletes, colleagues and competitors. They all noted his dedication, support and unflinching honesty and directness. Certainly the most often quoted maxim from Coach Phillips was, “If you’re early, you’re on time; if you’re on time, you’re late; if you’re late, you’re left behind.” Anyone wondering if he was serious only had to show up a minute after the designated departure time (like 6:46 or 7:07). The backside of the bus rolling away even if you were at the edge of the parking lot said, “Yep; he’s serious.”

On the flip side, student athletes also noted his encouragement (“He believed in me even when I didn’t believe in myself.”) and his uncanny ability to connect with challenging individuals (I thank God for people who are willing to help so many lost kids.”)

One of his former national champion athletes and also a current track coach, Courtney Gougler, provided this information: Coach Phillips won two national championships, 32 Jayhawk Conference titles, 11 regional titles, had 14 top five national finishers, 273 All-Americans, nine individual national champions, three national record holders, and one Olympic festival gold medalist. (Note: Courtney was unable to attend Coach Phillips’ Memorial service because she had qualified to compete in the World Championship Highland Games in Germany that same week.)

Coach Phillips died from ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig disease. It is a debilitating and humiliating disease. It gradually destroys the psychomotor center of the brain. The person gradually loses strength and the ability of voluntary muscle control. It can take the strongest, most vigorous athlete, and turn him or her into a helpless invalid.

Mark was first diagnosed with the disease in 2020. Like many victims, he succumbed gradually, increasingly finding himself unable to do things that he had done routinely before. Among those things that he lost the ability to do was something that he loved very much: riding motorcycles. Specifically, riding Harleys, which he had started doing ten years earlier, having gotten his first Harley when he was fifty years old. He and his wife of thirty-six years, Naomi, loved taking motorcycle trips.

In an effort to help him continue to do something that he loved to do, his sons bought him a Ural dirt bike with sidecar. Mark had assumed that he would drive from Ark City over to the bikers’ rally at Cassoday but instead found himself stashed into the sidecar. Those who know Mark, and maybe even those who don’t, can imagine how disappointing and even upsetting that would have been.

So he and Naomi bought a Can-Am.

A Can-Am is very similar to a motorcycle and yet very different. It looks kind of like a motorized backwards tricycle. From behind the front axle going toward the back, it looks like a motorcycle. The driver operates the gears and the brakes and steers with a handlebar like a motorcycle. The passenger sits behind the driver just like on any motorcycle. But the front consists of two tires mounted on opposite sides of a wide axle that steer similar to the steering of a car.

When Naomi told me about their adventure on Labor Day of 2021, I felt compelled to compose and share at the memorial service my prose poem version of their experience. This is it.

The Last Ride

Any Harley Rider, and just about any other biker, will tell you, even if you don’t ask, that a Can-Am ain’t no Harley.

“Hell, man, it ain’t even a trike! Two wheels in the front and one in the back?! It’s like a little kid riding a bike with two other kids sitting on the handlebars.”

But, what it is, is balanced and you don’t have to worry about it falling over because nearly two years of this damn disease has made you so weak you can’t keep a hawg standing straight up at a stoplight anymore.

And it may not be a Harley (or even a Honda), but you can feel the open air blowing in your beard, and feel the cool of the shade as you pass by near a woods, and you can feel the wind brushing back the hair on your arms and how it still tingles five minutes after you finish your ride.

And it lets you ride with the love of your life when you know you’re already walking in the Valley of the Shadow of Death. And so, you and her plan a secret ride, “Hell no, we ain’t telling the kids! They’d come down here and put a stop to that in a hurry, you can bet on that!”

On the last Labor Day of your life, you back the Can-Am out of the garage and you head down toward Oklahoma. And you feel the wind and you hear the hum of the tires on asphalt. And you smell the end of summer, and even though she has to help hold you up in the crosswinds and there was that one time when the weakness of your grip let the Can-Am drift toward the shoulder, she had to lean up around you and grab the handlerbar and push it back towards center, and you both know now, if not before, this will be your last ride together.

And the years and miles of Harleys fade in memory’s rearview mirror. Yes, those miles and memories may fade, but they do not disappear.

And the mash-up of motorcycles in the garage, and the non-running 74 Nova in the driveway, and the tractor tire dirt bike on the back patio are all part of the shrine, the memorial. Every spot of grease and every drip of oil from the Honda, the Kawasaki, and the sight of the Ural dirt bike side car, and the Can-Am, are all part of who you were and who you still will be in memory.

And it might be that some of us will choose different memories, or just something in addition to, rather than focusing on our way of losing you. Choosing to remember, and celebrate in a hundred different ways, the way you lived even more than the way you died.

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Sowing the Seed

Posted on June 7, 2022 by Doc Arnett

I’ve done several lawn seeding projects over the years, varying from repairing a few patches of bare ground up to several hundred square feet of new seeding. There’s a fair amount of work involved in getting rid of unwanted grass and weeds, prepping the ground, spreading fertilizer, putting down seed, rolling or pressing to ensure good contact between seed and soil. Oftentimes, I’d add mulching, either with straw or peat moss. And then, of course, the watering.

A recent project took me into different territory. Instead of repairing a poor section of lawn or creating a croquet court, I needed to reseed a section of horse pasture. A small section to be honest but definitely larger in scale. When you go from a few hundred square feet to a few thousand, there are considerations. This wasn’t a garden tiller bed prep and it wasn’t going to be throwing a few handfuls of seed around.

My little Kubota tractor worked perfectly for disking up the horse paddock and spreading and working in a ton or so of dried horse manure. A newly acquired antique cultimulcher with its multiple steel rollers and toothed discs did a serviceable job of breaking up dirt clods, smoothing the surface and pressing seed into the dirt. There was one other new tool that I added for this project.

I’d used a small handheld spreader and a small rolling spreader for some of the past seeding jobs. “There’s no way I’m walking over this paddock and pushing that little spreader!” I declared to myself. Instead, I decided to go old school.

I’d recently seen at a local farm store a hand-cranked seeder. Immediately I thought of the old canvas, wood and metal contraption that hung in the garage when I was growing up on our Todd County, Kentucky farm. I also remembered watching Dad sow alfalfa and grass seed with that. In his tan khakis and short-sleeve white shirt, wearing an old brown fedora and workworn leather brogans, he filled up the bag and then shouldered the seeder.

Across the freshly tilled field, he walked briskly, cranking steadily. The seed was held in the upper part of the gadget in a canvas bag that was glued and stapled along its lower edge to a wooden bottom. The seed dropped out through a metering slidegate inserted into the wooden piece. The wider you set the opening, the faster the seed poured out. Match up the size of the opening with the speed of the crank and how fast you walk to determine how thickly the seed was sown.

As Dad cranked, a thin, segmented metal wheel spun around, slinging the seed outward in a wide arc. At full tilt, it spread a swath of seed nearly twenty feet wide. At a good pace, a man could cover a lot of ground with that hand seeder in a day. Or even in an hour. Using the brand new old timey hand seeder that I’d just bought at TSC, it took me less than ten minutes to reseed about ten thousand square feet of paddock.

During the whole time of that project, from hooking up the disk, breaking up the ground and mangling the small patch of tall fescue, spreading the manure and disking some more, through the seeding and the final packing with the cultimulcher, I constantly thought about Dad and the farm back in Todd County. I thought about all the different things I do and have done over the years that I first saw him doing.

I thought about the construction, carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, roofing, concrete forming and finishing, laying concrete blocks and brick. Forming wood, building things, refinishing furniture. I thought about fishing and whistling, sending the border collie into the field to bring up the cows and milking. I thought about plowing, disking, harrowing, cultipacking, and drilling corn. I thought about cutting, raking, baling, and hauling hay, and the smell of fresh cut alfalfa. I thought about reading the Bible, preaching, and teaching Bible classes. I thought about singing old hymns in the car and in the milk barn, listening to the Friday Night Opry Warm-up show on the old radio in the milkshed. Croquet on the yard under the old maple trees. So much of who I am and what I do.

I can’t honestly say that any of those things are things that I deliberately learned so I could be like Dad. Some were things that I didn’t really have any choice about; the farm work had to be done. Some things I did because Dad or someone else needed the help. I think mostly it was because I’ve inherited his nature and therefore many of the things that appealed to him appeal to me.

I take so much pleasure these days in seeing the ways so many of the things that I liked and even admired in my Dad have become part of me. I can’t help wishing that I’d thought of one more thing last Saturday morning. I wish that when I’d strapped on that hand-cranked seeder, I’d have thought to put on my old felt fedora, too.

When it comes to imitating the Father Who Loves Us, details matter.

H. Arnett

6/7/2022

Posted in Christian Devotions, Christian Living, Family, Farming, Gardening, Relationships, Spiritual Contemplation | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Sowing the Seed

The Glory of a Garden

Posted on June 3, 2022 by Doc Arnett

Some of my earliest memories are working in the garden with Mom: helping set up sassafras stick tepee frames for the vining green beans; dropping corn and bean seeds into long rows; forming up hills for planting squash, cucumber, or watermelon. I loved and still love the smell of freshly worked dirt, the feel of my fingers in loose soil.

But the magic, ah, yes, the real magic was in seeing the sprouting.

What else is like the coming forth of new plants? What else matches the exuberant majesty of green seedlings with their flourishing through bare earth? Such wonder, such joy, such promise. Even to this day, some sixty years later, I still elate at the emergence.

Even when I know it’s ridiculously too soon for seed to have sprouted, I still go to my small garden to check and see whether any new eruptions have made their way through the renewing cycle of moisture and warmth that wakes the transforming life within the seed and launches its growing. The reaching up of sprout and vine and the stretching down of root and fiber. Miracle, indeed, springing forth from the seed.

I wonder, and actually rather imagine with some conviction, that God also watches us with similar expectation. Knowing that faith has been sown within us, that Spirit cultivates his good work within us, that the Tendsman exercises diligent care and careful pruning.

Watchful for weeds and wary of the things that devour and destroy, I believe that our Creator moves in our midst to see the growing that testifies of our calling and the purpose of our creation. Sending forth the sun of the soul and the rain that refreshes heart and spirit, richly supplying all that is needed for our provision, so that we may mature and ripen, bearing the fruit of the Spirit and bringing forth seed after our own kind.

I hope that the Lord’s evening walks in the gardens of our lives brings him such satisfaction as I see in the blooms along the rows of this tiny patch of dirt in northeastern Kansas.

H. Arnett

6/3/2022

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