Road Break

Posted on July 14, 2017 by Doc Arnett

My friend and I are driving back from a meeting at Emporia on another hot summer day. We make our way south and west on I-35. Herds of cattle stretch out across the miles of pasture on either side of the highway. Thanks to a series of rains, a rich greenness still holds to the hills and slopes except for the sections where outcroppings of limestone and shale break through.

Desiring a longer view, we pull over at the overlook by the loading pens. The pavement ends at the gravel just past the northern ledge of the overpass and we park near the rusty railing.

A slight summer haze fades the farthest hills into shades of blue. Perhaps twenty miles away, the last visible ridge to the north has a darker shade. Between there and here, hill after hill, slope after slope, raise their deepening ripples of native grasses. This is the largest surviving stretch of tallgrass prairie left in North America, at least according to the bronze plaque fastened to the cut boulder in the parking area.

It is easy enough to believe when you can see this far in every direction and everything you see below the level of the sky is green. I climb up on the railing and sit for a few moments, like a farm kid on a fence. All I need now is a stalk of grass to chew on and a straw hat; I could almost believe that I am eight years old again. My friend grins at me, sharing without speaking the peace and beauty of this good place.

I close my eyes for a moment, feel the warmth of sun and the moving of wind against my skin. Very soon, we must be on our way to duty and obligation. But for now, we will absorb the peace of this moment and silently praise him who has made all good things, him who sends his rain upon the just and the unjust.

And who thereby feeds the cattle of a thousand hills.

H. Arnett
7/14/17

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Testing

Posted on July 13, 2017 by Doc Arnett

In these days of humid heat
when it seems the streets could cook eggs—
if not meat—
we need some sort of relief.

In these dogged nights of July
when it seems even a cloudless sky
feels full of choking steam
and the mornings dawn
with lawn-withering sultriness,
we need some sort of relief.

When every turn at work
brings about some new quirk
of yet one more thing
that seems to push us toward
want ads and “Helpful Hints for Building Your Resume”
and a long list grows longer
and strong grows stronger
against the lower rungs,
we need some sort of relief.

And then we leave,
heave a long loud sigh
across the parking lot,
and get into cars that feel like ovens
and we avoid touching anything metal
until the AC has been running
for at least fifteen minutes;
we need some sort of relief.

We need peace,
the sure touch of affirming love,
a greater strength in us
than what is in the world we live in,
a convicting reassurance
that we can do all things,
a power so great
that we can even pray
for those who despitefully use us.

H. Arnett
7/13/17

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After the Highs

Posted on July 11, 2017 by Doc Arnett

I amused myself Friday night by wallowing around in the self-instigated layer of mud I’d created in the crawl space under our house. It wasn’t necessarily for amusement’s sake, though; while running a new electric circuit, I’d accidentally drilled into the hot water line around ten o’clock. By eleven o’clock, I’d repaired the water line, finished the circuit and cleaned myself up for a good night’s sleep.

The sleep was so effective that I greeted Saturday’s early light with an extended attic excursion. Another electrical project.

The previous night’s effort was to provide a new, safer and properly grounded circuit for electrical outlets in the kitchen and in the living room on the walls shared by both rooms. Cartoon Day’s excursion was for the purpose of removing an old stove hood vent pipe and installing new “can lights” for the kitchen. This required some prime attic time.

Our attic is extremely well insulated and equally poorly designed for access. Four inches of old fiberglass insulation topped with eight-to-ten inches of blown –in insulation. Very effective for separating thermal zones. And very, very prone—when disturbed—to fill the air with millions of tiny fibers and a few decades of accumulated dust.

A maximum degree of disturbance is guaranteed by the access design.

Naïve folks like me would expect the builder to have installed an access panel in the ceiling of the hallway, which would be in the main area of the attic. That would offer easy access in close proximity to most of the house. Instead, the access panel is in the ceiling of the garage, at the far end of the north ell of the house. Our ranch style home has a low roof with relatively low slope. And, inside the attic, beneath the rafters of that low roof, the builder had used even lower collar beams to reinforce the low rafters.

This means that in order to access the attic over the kitchen, one has to climb up a step-ladder in the garage, open the access panel, lift oneself up into the ceiling and then belly-crawl through thirty feet of insulation just to get to the main part of the house. Then, there’s the fun of crawling across hidden joists and finding the hidden wires beneath the twelve-to-fourteen inches of insulation.

By the time I’d finished my third trip back and forth and up and down, all the wires had been pulled to place, the holes for the lights were opened into the kitchen and everything was mostly ready for connecting. The old vent pipe had been pulled out of the kitchen ceiling and a panel had been installed to cover that hole. A half-bushel of insulation decorated various aspects of the kitchen and I was well-coated with sweat, dust, dirt and insulation. I looked very much as if I had just come home from a long day in a cellulose mine.

In spite of the bruises and scrapes, friction burns and aches gained from four hours of crawling around under the kitchen and over it, there were still facts for which to be grateful: thanks to an earlier rain and overcast morning, the attic had stayed at around eighty degrees for the entire project and there was plenty of warm water for my shower.

There’s usually some aspect of appreciation available to us if we choose to look for it. Which gives us something to do while we recuperate from the other parts…

H. Arnett
7/11/17

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Highs and Lows

Posted on July 10, 2017 by Doc Arnett

There’s a bit too much to this story to include everything so I’ll just hit the highs and lows of it. In fact, for this part, I’ll just stay with the lows.

Those started in the crawl space under the house Friday evening about eight-thirty. That’s when I started pulling wire, drilling holes through two-by-tens, pulling wire, drilling more holes, pulling more wire. Then, I had to crawl back out from under the house to feed more wire down from the closet where the breaker panel is located.

After poking another twenty feet of wire down below, I crawled back under the house, pulled that wire through the main support beam, started drilling more holes and pulling the wire through those holes. No part of the job was comfortable but I’ve been in worse spots, for sure. I could crawl on my hands and knees except for the places where drain lines, heat and air vents or other obstructions were placed below the bottoms of the joists. Which meant that about half the time, I was doing military-style crawling, using knees, toes and elbows. Still, it wasn’t too bad: no spider webs, no shedded snake skins, no critters of any kind that I could see. And besides that, most of the crawl space was “floored” with old tar paper. Except for the part right under the bathroom and even there the dirt was basically “clean” and dry.

Well, it was clean and dry until around ten o’clock. I was using too much pressure drilling a hole. The bit broke through just a bit before I expected it to. That pressure I was using to force the bit through the wood didn’t go to waste, though. No sir, it pushed it right on into the hot water supply line for the tub/shower. I had to crawl out from under the house and get all the way around the back of the house, around the garage and to the front of the house where the main water cutoff is located. I was able to do in a bit less time than most people might expect from a sixty-three-year-old man. As I was walking back to crawl back under the house, I was thinking of a line from Jimmy Buffet’s “Margaritaville.” Not the part about that frozen concoction, the part about whose fault it was.

Fortunately—even though unexpectedly—I had the parts I needed to replace the damaged water line. And it only took about ten minutes to do that. Finishing up the electrical wiring part of the project took another hour. At least the mud was warm…

By the time I drug myself out from under the house for the fourth and final time, my clothes and I were rather well plastered from stem to stern, top to bottom, front to back and most parts in between. I used the garden house to wash off as much as I could then draped my jeans and shirt across the railing on the small deck at the back of the house.

After an all-night soaking and two washes and two rinses, the clothes seemed clean and the washing machine needed a full cycle without any clothes in it to get it cleaned up.

Sometimes, the job is more complicated than we first expected. Sometimes, we manage to make it more complicated by our own mistakes. And, of course, when it comes to God’s work in us, it’s mostly our own mistakes that make the job take more time and effort than it would otherwise.

But, as long as we stay with him till it’s finished, things will work out. And we’ll get clean in the process.

H. Arnett
7/10/17

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Through Passing Darkness

Posted on July 7, 2017 by Doc Arnett

In the midst of those dark gray moments
when it seems that my spirit
has become twisted within me,
I long for clearer vision,
to remember that who I am
in the ways that matter most
is not defined by the hosts of things
that I must do
or have already done
or plan to someday do.

Remind me, O God,
that you have counted my footprints
in every path I have trod,
that you have chosen me
to be an heir of faith,
that I have been born again,
not of flesh and blood,
but of Spirit and Power
and that every hour
I have counted beneath a blazing sun

Will only matter
because I have chosen to hold on to faith,
that you are worthy of all trust
and will keep all that I have committed to your care,
and that everything done
for the least of your family
is more than all that can be done
in the name of this world
and its dark power in high places.

I will seek your face, O God,
until I shall behold it with my own eyes
and I will count as nothing
every aggravation of this brooding planet,
groaning in its own travails,
until it, too, is born again.

I will rejoice today
in the day that you have made.
And I will be grateful.

H. Arnett
7/7/17

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Born in the USA

Posted on July 6, 2017 by Doc Arnett

Among many interesting points raised in his writings, the apostle John makes one that has poked and prodded both conscience and consciousness: people who claim to love God but hate their fellow human are liars. “How can you claim to love God—whom you have not seen—” he asks, “yet do not love your brother—whom you have seen?”

From time to time I have suspected that my purported love for God might more accurately be called a love of truth or a love of goodness. I have wondered sometimes if what I’m really in love with is more the concept of “God” as a representation of many things, things that are lofty and noble and worthy. “Is it really a love of God?” I have questioned myself, “Or more a love of the notion itself?”

In response and to provide what is a valid, honest and meaningful resolution, I turn back to the apostle’s Socratic dialogue. My reasoning becomes this, “If I can honestly say that I truly do love others—according to John’s logic—isn’t that proof that I do love God?”

Apart from the healthy self-examination, there’s another derived notion that sometimes unsettles my casual confidence and self-righteousness.

I was reminded Tuesday evening that I am not one of those citizens who apparently believe that spending a thousand dollars on fireworks proves one’s patriotism. I do not believe that setting off concussion shells that rattle windows and shake small houses demonstrates one’s love for country, much less one’s courtesy toward neighbors. In at least one respect, though, I find myself to be deeply and devoutly American: I am fiercely democratic.

Whether by deliberate or incidental parental example or absorption of culture and sub-culture, I find that I truly despise the notions of privilege by birth and power by wealth. I am resentful to my core of those who exploit their position at the expense of others. I believe that one woman’s vote should count just as much as anyone else’s vote and that wisdom deserves higher praise than accumulated wealth. I do not believe that the peasant—or anyone else—should have to grovel in front of the king. I refuse to bow the knee to anyone, save God Himself. Independence even to the point of rebellion, yes sir, as American as America itself.

And so, when I find myself feeling resentful toward those who have authority over me, there’s this bit of aggravation that comes at me from those ancient writings. And, aye, here’s the rub from the venerable saint who once leaned against the bosom of Christ Himself: if I do not submit to the authority of those I can see, can I honestly claim that I have submitted to God?

H. Arnett
7/6/17

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Indentured Servants-Part I

Posted on June 29, 2017 by Doc Arnett

I remember wondering as a kid in history class what it would be like to be an “indentured servant.”

Back then, I wasn’t sure exactly what the term meant. “Indentured” kind of tripped me up; I wondered why they made the servants wear false teeth and how they’d come to lose their natural teeth. I imagined it was not by some pleasant or voluntary means. But, by the time the teacher finished her third attempt to explain it, I was pretty sure it was an awful lot like belonging to someone else without any real choice in the matter.

Even back then, I didn’t figure it mattered much whether you’d be rented out for a while, sold on an installment plan or kidnapped and carted off to Kalamazoo. Sometimes in my gloomy moments, like when I was shoveling fresh manure out of the milking shed, I’d think that growing up on a dairy farm had its similarities, though of course I now know that was quite the exaggeration. Well, at least in many respects… Whatever the details, other people had made a decision that could be seen as fairly well slamming the door shut on any person interests, goals or aspirations.

Proponents of the plan, I guess, would argue that the family would gain some financial advantage, the youngster or other worker would learn a trade and commerce of the region would be improved. (In reflection just now, that sounds more like “apprenticeship.” Maybe I’m still confused.) In my days of wondering about the benefit analysis, there were some particular Bible verses that seemed to speak to the situation. Things about obedience, working hard even when the boss wasn’t around and doing your work as unto the Lord, rather than unto men.

I’m still working on those and sometimes not doing very well at it, I’m afraid. I have certainly found that there are times when preaching the Scriptures seems to be quite a bit easier than living them. I am suspicious, though, that it’s the humility and faithfulness of living them that rather makes the difference. In this world and the next.

H. Arnett
6/29/17

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Of Sprouting and Growing

Posted on June 26, 2017 by Doc Arnett

While walking the grounds of Bon Secours,
I found a tiny maple
sprouted in the low split of an eighty-foot oak.

Some seed had made its way,
guided by wind and gravity
and perhaps the levity of God,

to land in the lap of this old tree.
It sprouted in the furrowed water and humus,
managed to lift a slender stem toward the sun.

Eventually, I suppose, if something like this
really can grow,
its two dozen leaves on half that many stems,

will one day lift its own limbs,
large and heavy
to form its own canopy here amidst the others

If it can sink its own roots
down through the heart
of this ancient tree.

Or it may discover
that though it may find enough here
for its own small beginning

there is not enough of water and soil
caught in the crotch of this old oak
and it may in fact shrivel and die

in this lonely place that was never intended
to be the beginning of something
meant to be as large as another tree.

It is not an easy thing
to find that one may have been planted
in a place not meant for one’s growing.

Sometimes what was taken for sowing
was nothing more than circumstance and chance,
the whims of the wind and a brief fluttering

of falling seed.

But then again,
even a tree
can sometimes be moved

to a place of better growing.

H. Arnett
6/26/17

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Stevie Nicks & The Old Rugged Cross

Posted on June 21, 2017 by Doc Arnett

We are gathered here—friends and family—in this small chapel of the Veterans’ Cemetery in Winfield, Kansas. Limestone walls and vaulted cedar ceiling lend themselves well to a feeling of dignified calm. It is a glorious summer morning. Within this shade and with all doors open, a gentle breeze moves through the space. A long low ridge sheens its green in the sun and wind. Family members fill the chairs across the front while those of us who came either from knowing Del or caring about those who did sit in small clusters along the back rows.

Six flags held by six veterans and flanked by one other on each end are held at sharp angle. From just outside the chapel come the discordant sounds of rifles fired in salute. The reports echo from the walls and ridge and fade away. The long slow notes of a single bugle conclude the military salute. The honor guard officers remove the folded flag from the small table at the front of the chapel and present it to the wheel-chaired widow.

They file away in a single line exiting north and the preacher comes and speaks of faith and comfort. “Blessed Assurance” plays through the speakers. Pastor Steve reads the obituary and we listen to “The Old Rugged Cross.” He speaks of loss and the love of family, of quiet faith and the knowing of scripture. He also mentions orneriness and hobbies. As he talks about devotion and care, the widow nods. “Landslide” plays, a final song in tribute and comfort.

Most of those who knew Del or the family know of the long years of sickness and the agony of his last months. Some of us did not know of the stubborn devotion that kept him attending to Linda in between his own visits for dialysis. At least a few knew of the care that Chris and Jamie have shown, keeping his dad in their own home in between the multiple hospitalizations of his last year upon this earth.

Along the stacked rows of remembrance, Del’s ashes are committed to the vault and we walk back slowly, feeling the intense warmth of the sun. Back inside the shade of the chapel, each in turn offers those final words of sympathy and caring, hopes that God’s peace and presence will be with each.

I think that I would have liked to have better known someone whose funeral selection included a blend of fine old gospel songs and Stevie Nicks. I hope, too, that when my own children have grown old, they will gather round and share some good stories, alternate between tears and laughter. It is hard to imagine a finer legacy than love and devotion mingled with a quiet faith.

We must be the blessing we long to see in the lives of those we love.

H. Arnett
6/21/17

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An Odd Thing

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Doc Arnett

It is hard to explain
how this tiny cactus
has gained its place
among this base of rotting leaves
and the mass of things
that green the floor of this forest
crowning the bluffs along Elk City Lake.

It seems entirely out of place,
especially on this day of mud and clay
following heavy rains
that have washed new cuts
and deepened the old ones
running along the roots
of oak and elm, hickory and ash
and the heavy-knurled bark of hackberry.

On those other days
when south Kansas summers
send hot winds that wilt trees,
this tiny cactus might seem more at home.
Something this small and alone
will have to hold on
to what it can find of dry and hot
if it is to survive this spot.

Although I have heard
that we were meant to thrive,
sometimes simply staying alive
through one more day
seems like enough of a challenge
and I believe it is possible
to occasionally find ourselves
in a place where we were not meant to be
for the rest of our days.

And though I have sometimes
found myself an odd thing
and have lived now
in nearly thirty different places,
I have yet to find one
where I could not seek the face of God
or lack a\some way in which to serve Him.

H. Arnett
6/19/17

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