I will praise your name, O God. I will lift up your name in the presence of your people. I will exalt the name of the Lord Most High and glorify the God Who Is.
I will bow before you, O Lord. I will kneel in your presence in the congregation. I will lift my hands and praise you, Eternal God, my Savior and my Redeemer.
I will confess my sins to you, O Holy One. I will declare before you my sins and shortcomings. I will pour out my heart to you, Lord Jesus, and confess my hidden sin.
Unto you, O God, I acknowledge my stubborn pride. Unto you, O God, I confess my weaknesses. Unto you, O God, I admit my failures.
Heal me, Lord God, I pray. Strengthen me in my spirit, Lord God. Renew my heart in humble adoration, Lord God.
I pray, Lord Jesus, that you will mold me in your image. I plead, Lord Jesus, that you would refresh me with your love. I implore you, O Lord, that you would fill me with your Holy Spirit.
As the rain refreshes the earth, As the sun draws forth fruit from the soil, As the plants and trees renew the air that we breathe,
Even so, Lord God, I pray, Draw forth from me the fruit of your Spirit, Revive in me the joy of your salvation and the power of your presence.
Cleanse me of all sin, Make me pure and holy within, Let me live a life worthy of the calling you have given.
It’ll soon be time for picking blackberries back home in West Kentucky, I reckon. One of my favorite rituals when I was growing up on our Todd County farm back in the Fifties and Sixties was doing that with my mom.
Berry picking was the only time I ever saw her wear pants or britches. Whether to save scratches or itches, I don’t know. Maybe it was both. Like many Southern farm women of the Fifties, perhaps most especially those who were married to fundamentalist preachers as she was, Mom never wore slacks. Even after pant suits became popular in the Sixties, Mom never abased herself in such fashion. Nor in the Seventies, Eighties, or Nineties. Or in her seventies, eighties, or nineties. She thought it just wasn’t proper. But she did wear pants to go blackberry picking.
Before we’d head out in the days long before Off! and such luxuries became available to the good country folk of West Kentucky, clothing was our only protection. Chiggers, briars, ticks, and mosquitoes had open buffet on any exposed skin. Or, with chiggers and ticks, unexposed skin as well. In fact, for chiggers, the more hidden and private the areas, the more they seemed determined to take up lodging.
Our only defense was to wear long pants and long sleeves for the picking and then take a hot soapy bath as soon as we got back to the house. Thus, Mom slipping into the bedroom and pulling on a pair of Dad’s clean khaki workpants underneath her dress. She also put on a sun bonnet to keep her face from getting sunburned while we worked around the blackberry patches.
It was amazing to watch her work her way through the patch. She’d push or pull the vines away, parting something of a path. Then, she’d gather her dress tightly around her and ease her way through, using the metal bucket to ward off some of the vines. I was less than half her size and wore jeans and got tangled up more than she did. I reckon it just shows that even something as “simple” as picking blackberries can give wisdom a chance to show itself.
It was a rare thing for Mom to “ignore” the demands of church and culture in a time when “wearing men’s clothes” was strictly forbidden. But it was, I think, a grand lesson in recognizing that exposing herself to needless wounds a half-mile away from any neighbors and hidden in a blackberry thicket was needless devotion to traditional interpretations that ignored the welfare of those for whom the teachings were intended. If David could eat the shewbread in the temple, then she could surely protect herself from thorns and briars while gathering food for her family.
It was maybe the most visible and memorable demonstration I saw growing up that “The Sabbath was made for man; not man for the Sabbath.” It seems like people are still forgetting that. Or, maybe… just ignoring it whenever they’re more interested in judging others than in their own obedience.
Mom and Dad grew gladiolas and dahlias in the garden on our farm in Todd County. Mom planted the glads; Dad managed the dahlias. They are both beautiful flowers, delightful in shape and color. Even as a kid, I admired them. It didn’t seem possible that any other flower could match them. Then… I discovered irises.
It was the spring of 1972, toward the end of my freshman year at Freed-Hardeman College. I noticed the whole slope of the hill angling down from the parking lot by the administration building was covered with flowers. In response to my inquiry, “irises.”
They were truly magnificent! Such variety of color, such depth of tone, such elaborate design, such fine texture and detail. Coinciding with their eruption of beauty in such close proximity to the small building where Bro. Robert Taylor taught art was a particular assignment in my painting class: “Wet on Wet Technique.”
Rather than allowing ample drying time between segments and colors, you lay on one wet layer over another. As you work, you have to decide whether to let the colors “bleed” into each other or keep laying on enough paint to completely cover what is beneath. I chose to do a bouquet of irises for my assignment. A small cluster of green stalks topped with vibrant blooms.
It actually turned out rather well. The technique produced intense colors and a rich texture. Maybe one of the best paintings I’d done in my two years at F-HC. Until I added the final flower. For some reason, I added a final iris, off slightly to the side. The colors were true and accurate, capturing the shape and tones. But it looked like it had just floated into the painting while the artist was busy cleaning out brushes or stretching another canvas. It didn’t completely ruin the painting but it so flawed the balance and composition that I was ashamed of it.
But that didn’t dampen my love of irises.
We have a fair variety of them here at our tiny place in northeast Kansas. Randa has a bed of dwarf irises near the back door. We have some clustered around the base of the locust tree and another small bed behind the garage. Two years ago, I planted a bunch of bulbs around the old crosstie frame of the compost bed by the barn. A few right by the barn and some in front of the concrete retaining wall.
They are thriving. Yellows, golds, lavender, purple, white, plum with several double-colored blooms. An eruption of rich colors against the faded weathering of the old railroad ties, the fresh white of the new siding on the barn, the flat gray of poured concrete. An accent for a season, a diversion from the composting horse manure, a pleasant contrast.
We have similar irises in our lives, don’t we?
Those afternoons of pleasant conversation with family, evenings of laughter with friends, tender moments of intimate memories with the one walking through this world most closely with us. The sounds and sights of small children or grandchildren, absorbed in uninhibited play. Moments of worship when souls and spirits weave together an uplifting of praise and devotion, times of private prayer that empty the heart and fill the voids, walks in a quiet forest or a boundless plain or in view of majestic mountains. The faces of friends from long ago and far away.
Though the beauty of flowers pales too soon and even the finer moments of life sometimes fade from memory, we will one day walk in glory that never passes and fulfill love that endures even after hope and faith have ceased. And live in a beauty that transcends all that we have known. Even irises.
Eighty-six years ago today, my oldest brother was born. And died.
He lived only a few hours, held but briefly. Mom and Dad’s firstborn passed without knowing any of this world’s joys or heartaches, never knew any of his six younger sisters and brothers. He was mourned only by our parents and a very few of their closest friends in Henderson, Tennessee, where Dad was attending Freed-Hardeman College in the preacher training program. The day after his birth and death, he was buried in Antioch Cemetery near Browns Grove, Kentucky, a hundred miles away, the area where generations of Arnett’s had lived and died. And some still live.
For nearly fifty years, he lay beneath the sod, un-named and barely mentioned. Only a small metal marker gave any indication of his place in the soil behind the church: “Arnett, Infant Son.”
Mom and Dad rarely spoke of him in the days of my growing up; I had only a vague notion, little more than a slight awareness. Dad’s own father had died just two weeks before he was born and Dad himself was a sickly baby.
“They called me a ‘blue baby,’” he related, “They weren’t sure if I was going to live or not.” The condition arises from a lack of circulation, often caused by some type of heart deformity but sometimes due to other causes, possibly including contaminated well water. Since he lived almost ninety-six years, it would appear that any heart issue was resolved without human intervention.
Mom’s doctor reportedly decided any human intervention was pointless for her own first child. He made no effort to save the baby’s life.
Dad preached at Antioch the next morning and made no mention of their loss. Not wanting to inconvenience others nor advertise his own loss, he and two friends waited until everyone else had left after the morning service and then buried the baby. A small hole, one brief prayer, a single tiny mound of light brown soil turned to light amidst spring’s fresh green.
And so, there he lay for nearly half a century, un-named and mostly un-mentioned.
Until a late night conversation in the mid-Eighties at the dining table in Mom and Dad’s log house near Coldwater, Kentucky. For nearly two hours after Dad had gone to bed, Mom and I sat at the dining table, talking in low voices. I was home for a brief visit from grad school in Ohio.
We’d spent the afternoon re-visiting some of the places where she and Dad had lived and had visited the Antioch cemetery where they had already placed the stone to mark their own future resting sites. Names and dates of birth already engraved; the other dates left blank. And still, next to their stone, that tiny metal marker.
“Did you have a name picked out?” I asked her there in the kitchen light of that night’s talking. “If you will pick out a name, I’ll see to it that he gets a marker.”
She paused only for a moment. “I always liked the name ‘Reuben,’” she answered quietly while a look of tender pain played in her eyes and brushed softly between stray strands of gray hair that played across the edges of her face.
“Reuben.” Firstborn of the sons of Jacob. Eldest brother. The one who knew when jealousy had gone too far and intervened to keep alive the despised baby brother. Having no idea that that twisted mercy would one day save all their lives. Without much thought to the grief they would bring to their own father.
It is hard to exaggerate the delightful expectancy of a loving couple’s deeply desired firstborn. Hard to overstate the pain and disappointment the death of one so anticipated, so longed for and loved even though unseen. The long, aching pain to feel the change of excitement and celebration twisting into grief and heartache. So hard then to bless the name of the God who gives and takes away.
Fifty years is a long time to trace life with so little acknowledgement of such deep hurt.
There was no further mention of the conversation between us.
But the next time I visited Antioch Cemetery, there was a brand new marker there. A name and date chiseled in marble, finally marking their grief, finally honoring the baby they’d lost, acknowledging their wounding, and declaring to passersby that even this child—who breathed only briefly the air of this world’s painful and precarious nature—deserved a name. That he had parents, and that though he lived only briefly, he, too, held a place in their lives.
And, although perhaps in ways so small as to be barely mentioned or measured, a place, too, in the lives of his sisters and brothers who never knew him. And yet, grew up in his shadow.
Photo courtesy of Daniel Walker Arnett, my thirdborn son, who lives in West Kentucky. Eight generations… and counting.
Utterly gone, The Light of the World. Utter darkness, The despair of crushed hope. Utterly alone, The devout scattered in hiding. Utter fear, The heart stripped of faith.
In the cold blackness Of another man's tomb, Bone and flesh kept from ruin. Anchored by ancient prophesies,
Yet none believed his own promises:
Destroy this temple And I will rebuild it in three days. As Jonah was in the belly of the whale Three days and three nights...
It is hard to trust faith above sight, To overcome the might of pierced side, Spilled blood and cold flesh, To breathe fresh the declarations That defy evidence, To believe what cannot be.
And so, in the utter aloneness Of shattered hope And the delusions of this world's harsh truths, They wept and wailed, Grieving as those without hope, Pulled below the raging depths, Not yet believing They would yet see their King Crowned in glory and standing At the right hand of the Eternal One.
And so they grieved In the aching, piercing darkness, Tears falling on stone, Tracing the path of aloneness Beyond expression.
We have three sons, three daughters-in-law, and eleven grandchildren living in or near Murray, Kentucky. “Near” means within a couple of miles. I have several cousins and numerous friends, former colleagues, and students, who live there as well. We were already concerned on Tuesday when the National Weather Service and several other meteorology sources issued severe weather watches for a huge swatch across Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Kentucky, and adjoining areas. Those forecasts included an unusual level of probability for tornadoes. Yesterday evening, the watches turned into warnings. And then got worse.
Our concern vaulted right across the bar into genuine worry after seeing numerous reports of a tornado on the ground and headed toward downtown Murray. Two of those sons live within several blocks of downtown.
Via my smartphone, I could see weather radar in almost real time and it didn’t look good. The various reports posted on Facebook didn’t lower my anxiety in the slightest. It was a tense few minutes between my phone messages and responses from Jeremiah and Ben. I was able to talk to Daniel and was relieved to find out he and his family and his mom were all okay. Like I told them, “My Papa Meter redlined when I saw those ‘tornado on the ground’ reports!”
“We heard it go by and could hear the low pressure trying to pull the doors open. That was a little freaky, but, no, we’re all good.” He also told me that Ben’s family were over at Jeremiah’s and they were all in the basement. That brought some relief but it wasn’t until I got text messages back from Ben and Jeremiah that I really felt at ease.
So far as I know, there were no casualties in or around Murray. Cousins all okay. I checked on a high school buddy and my Ag teacher to be sure they are okay, too. Cousin John Bray posted a screenshot from a meteorologist, Noah Bergren, who had this to say: “When I say God answered someone’s prayer, I mean it. That was probably an EF2 going right at MSU [Murray State University] and lifted less than a mile before being a historic event in Murray city history.”
Trust me, folks, you don’t want to be part of a “historic event” during a tornado outbreak! There were lots of people’s prayers answered last night.
My theology cannot to my own satisfaction explain why some are spared when others aren’t. Just the harsh nature of this world so far as I can tell. But that does not keep me from expressing genuine gratitude to the God of the Flower and the Storm for what did not happen last night in Murray, Kentucky. And for all those who rejoiced with me.
Even if William Munny (Unforgiven) was right that “’Deserve’s’ got nothing to do with it.” Yeah, I can live with that.
Once when I was out exploring our tiny woods pond on the farm in Todd County by myself, I saw a tiny turtle swimming awkwardly and in slow-motion. It was close enough to the bank that I caught it without even having to wade out in the water. Found out years later it was a red-eared slider but we just called them “painted turtles” because of their bright colors. That one was about two-and-a-half inches in diameter.
Its body, head and legs were mostly green-and-white stripes but it did have that namesake swipe of red/orange right behind its eyes. The bottom of the lower shell and the underneath fringe of the upper shell was yellow with dark splotches of olive.
It didn’t take much inspection to figure out why this one had such an awkward swimming motion; its back feet were missing. Short nubs stuck out the back of the shell. I suppose it’s possible that was due to a birth defect but I figured maybe a big snapping turtle bit off its back legs. Could have been a coon, I guess. Whatever had happened to it hind parts, its front legs were perfectly normal: a couple of inches long with little feet and tiny claws at the end.
Whatever the cause, I thought it made it hard for the poor critter to fend for itself.
It could swim, after a fashion, but it seemed to flutter through the water. It sure wasn’t going to catch anything by overwhelming speed! Without the offsetting action of the hind limbs, the back end swung widely from side to side with each stroke. Its little rounded nubs flailed uselessly in the water. I was so amazed and felt so sorry for it that I took it to the house and kept it in a big bowl of water so it could suffer a slow death under my caring (but uninformed) hands rather than the indignity of some sudden calamity in the wild.
I later found out that I likely caused its demise by my failure to provide a drying perch. Turtles can’t stay in the water forever; it causes damage to the shell and leaves them susceptible to viral infection. It doesn’t matter how many worms you try to feed them.
I didn’t know that back then and my good intentions—if they were good—did not compensate for my ignorance. I wanted to think that a little crippled turtle would be better off under my care. I didn’t bother to contemplate that if he’d made it that long in his natural world, maybe that was where he belonged. And maybe the reason he ended up dying in my bowl was that I just wanted to show off what a cool thing I’d found in the little pond.
Motives are tricky, aren’t they? Whether we’re messing with nature or with our neighbors, it seems mighty easy for us to convince ourselves that we’re trying to make things better. Might be that we’re just trying to make them the way we want them. Sometimes, leaving something alone is the best thing we can do.
Humility often helps wisdom find a better path than the one that led us to the lesson.
I’ve been writing for at least a few hours almost every day for the past five or six weeks, mainly about my days of growing up in West Kentucky. Our family worked hard, played when we could, and lived well if being fed, clothed, housed and healthy is the standard. Went to church at least three times a week and milked cows twice a day. We lived in a section of a border state that seemed much more Southern than neutral.
I grew up in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis, presidents of both sides of that bloody conflict that sometimes pitted brother against brother, father against son, and often pitted Christian against Christian. Both presidents were born in Kentucky, within 125 miles of each other. From our farm in Todd County, we could see the Jeff Davis Memorial in Fairview. I didn’t read much about Jeff Davis but read about everything I could find on Honest Abe.
I admired him and Gen. Robert E. Lee. I loved being from the South but couldn’t deny the ugliness of slavery and racism. I loved growing up in Kentucky but have to admit there are lingering traces of darkness. As there are everywhere, not just in this country or on this continent.
I remember when Todd County schools first integrated. Hopkinsville still had “White Only” signs posted on some businesses and segregated drinking fountains. The list of prejudices I witnessed and was raised with would include racism, sexism, regionalism, religious bias, and my own perception that Ford built the best tractors and the worst cars, that Coca-Cola was better than Pepsi, and that Chevrolet made the best cars. Oh, and that Jerseys were way better than Holsteins.
Now, we drive a Ford car and have a Kubota tractor. I drink Diet Pepsi and A&W Root Beer, although I prefer the flavor of Barq’s. I am quite grateful that I don’t live on a dairy farm, have made peace with most Yankees, and am a non-denominational follower of Jesus. I use clear enunciation in most formal speaking situations, sometimes even going so far as to pronounce “g’s” at the end of words!
In my writing, and in fifty-plus years of introspective examination, I’ve achieved some semblance of balance in my perceptions. Still holding to the foundations of faith and fairness, I’ve learned to sort through my own history and various legacies with respect and careful judgment. To hold fast to the best and let go of the rest, as well as I can.
I believe that we should show ourselves and our places the same grace and patience that—at least in our best moments—we show to others. To be able to embrace our own heritage without insulting the heritage of others. To admit the imperfections of the people and places that we love and yet still cherish them. To deeply appreciate the contributions of our culture and sub-culture without cultivating arrogance, condescension, or hostility toward others. To look at all monuments—both near and distant—without feeling the need to bow down nor to spit on what others cherish.
To believe and demonstrate that loyalty to such things as truth, justice, and mercy should transcend borders, accents, political association, skin color, and all other decorations of the human spirit. To remember that we all—God bless us, every one—are made in the image of our Creator.
And that our love for Him is demonstrated by how we treat them.
Apparently, a scammer hacked a FB friend’s account and posted several items they were selling for a sister-in-law who was being moved into a care facility. Items included vehicles, trailers, tractor, and household appliances. Vehicle prices were extremely low. (First Red Flag.)
Scammer stated they would be out of town helping with the move and deposits would be required to hold the items. (Second Red Flag.) Deposits would be refunded, though, if buyers opted not to follow through with the purchase.
Since I have two sons living in the town where my friend lives and both of them need a tractor for their properties, I decided to reserve the tractor pending inspection.
I contacted scammer and offered a deposit of $250. They doubled that amount. (Third Red Flag.) Then, after I foolishly paid that via PayPal, they said their SIL told them the deposit would be $1000. (Fourth Red Flag.)
Fortunately, PayPal blocked my stupidity because of fraud suspicion. (Fifth Red Flag.)
Then, the scammer requested Venmo. Fortunately, the account provided by the scammer wouldn’t work. (Sixth Red Flag.)
Then, they requested Bank Wire Transfer. (Seventh Red Flag.) When I noticed their bank info was in Oregon, I finally got suspicious enough to quit being stupid.
So… I lost $500 because of my eagerness to buy something with a price that was too good to be true. I filed an FBI complaint and complaints with Kansas and Oregon consumer protection agencies/state attorney general’s office.
All of this was because I knew the person I was dealing with at first. A Facebook friend that I’ve been acquainted with for a few years and whose mother I’ve known for over forty years. It didn’t occur to me until it was too late that someone might have hacked his account.
I know it’s an old, old adage—but, hey, I’m an old guy! “If it seems too good to be true…” Yep.
You can probably figure out the cautions you should take from this. If you can’t, me making them more plain won’t do you any good. Any time you fly by that many red flags, you’re either going to be in jail or at the bottom of a ravine underneath a collapsed bridge.
Reflections by Doc Arnett 