Morning Worship

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Doc Arnett

On a beautiful autumn morning, Sam and I roll into the Cowley State Fishing Lake camping area. Having done our camping on comfortable mattresses, we feel quite rested and ready for the day. A solitary camper stirring the ashes looks as if he spent the night on the ground.

Sam lets down the tailgate of the truck and our mostly French Brittany Spaniel, Layla, jumps down. She is so excited about being outside she can barely stand still long enough for Sam to clip on her leash. We walk over toward the trail, passing the camper.

“Beautiful morning, eh?” I say and he answers in a quiet but enthusiastic voice, “Yes, it is. I love this place.”

“First time here?”

“No, I was here about three years ago.”

Turns out he lives at Kansas City, about five hours away. After brief conversation, we bid him safe travels and head over to the overlook. We take in the view of the curving lip, the exposed bank of dirt below the limestone overhang, the jumble of boulders and rocks surrounding the small pool at the base of the falls. I go back to the truck for my walking stick. Then, we head down the trail into the small ravine.

This is Layla’s third trip here in two weeks and it is evident that she is gaining confidence. She hesitates slightly at the first jump down and then moves on smoothly. We walk carefully over and around rocks, having been alerted by locals to the possibility of copperheads. We soon find a way up the opposite bank and work our way around a small lip that leads us into the chiseled channel of the overflow.

Stone bluffs rise up on either side, topped by trees and weeds and bushes that all show signs of the passing season. Except for the center of the channel, the wide flat limestone bed is covered with swatches of thick grass. Sam leads as we walk the quarter-mile to the edge of the lake. A strong breeze raises waves across the water. We see remnants of dead grass and sticks caught in the low limbs of willows bordering the bank. They testify of the high water mark, high enough to show that the overflow has reached as much as three feet deep. I try to imagine what the waterfall would look like with that much water rushing downstream. It would be impressive, for sure.

Seeking a shortcut for my sore knee, I suggest we make our way up the opposite bank, closest to the parking area. The first step up requires negotiating a series of fairly smooth outcroppings of rock with the edges steeply pitched. I wonder whether or not we will have to lift Layla up over that part. My wondering is answered by a black blur moving past me going up the bank. Nope, I guess Layla won’t need any help.

A few minutes later, the three of us stand on a bare-faced bluff, looking back at the lake. The sun reflected on the waves sparkles like thousands of polished diamonds. Beyond the lake, dunes of prairie grass dip and sway in the wind, rising up the hill to the rounded ridge a half-mile away. Their colors shimmer. I stand next to Sam, pat him on the chest and murmur, “I am glad that you are here.”

I am glad that we all are.

In this vast cathedral of the Flint Hills, I bow my heart and give thanks, worship Him has given us all good things.

H. Arnett
10/20/15

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Tiger Pride

Posted on October 19, 2015 by Doc Arnett

As I walk into the entrance of Galle-Johnson, only the night lights are on in the hallways. The south corridor stretches down to the steps leading to the lower level. Even in this low light, the floors gleam, showing long reflections of the stairway lights. Spotless display cases line one side of the hall; metal and glass mark office entrances along the left. Even the bathrooms shine and sparkle.

This is Cowley pride.

So far as I can tell, the same standard holds true in the other buildings of the campus. Floors, walls, doors, fixtures—all speak to an attention of detail and duty that clearly proclaims the custodial staff here take pride in their work. This is not “once in a while, big event coming up” kind of care; this is simply how they conduct their affairs here at this small college so far south in Kansas you could walk from here to Oklahoma in an hour. It would be a fast-paced walk, I’ll admit.

Another thing I’ll admit is that the dedication of our custodial staff goes beyond floors and windows. At the start of the fall semester, they deliberately place themselves about campus so that they can help new students find their classrooms. Intentionally friendly and helpful.

What a fine example for the rest of us! What a fine example for me.

Suppose I showed that same level of caring and competence in everything that I did? What if I make sure that my decisions sparkle and shine? What if I give careful attention to the details of my work? What if I go out of my way to be helpful to staff and students, teachers and supervisors?

Taking that another step, what if I pay that sort of attention to my soul and spirit? What if I, each day of my life, check carefully to see that no grudge is collecting in a corner of my heart? What if I am careful to weed out every seed of bitterness? What if I pursue peace, forgiveness, mercy and compassion with that degree of dedication?

And above that, what if I did all of those things without any concern about whether or not anyone else ever noticed?

H. Arnett
10/19/15

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Just Another Day

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Knowing I needed to be in Topeka by ten o’clock yesterday morning, I woke up two hours earlier than I needed to. Instead of getting frustrated by my untimely alertness, I got up, showered and headed over to the office. After taking care of a few things, I drove over to the lot where the college fleet is parked and picked up the minivan. At least an hour earlier than I needed to leave, I headed out on US-77.

Just north of El Dorado, I saw the first glow of dawn sprouting from the eastern sky. By the time I hit the middle of the Flint Hills, the first red edge of the sun broke the rim of the horizon. I kept driving and looking off toward the east. That glow burnished miles of prairie grass, giving an orange cast to the whole scene. Tilting down the low slope of a long grade, I rounded a wide curve and saw the sun half-risen. A single cottonwood tree rose up high and dark by the edge of a large pond. The un-rippled surface of the water mirrored the pale blue of a higher sky. The bare dirt and stone of a gully cut away below the road bank.

I’m usually in too much of a hurry on such trips, eager to get from here to there or back again. This time, though, I knew I had an extra hour or more.

I decided to spend a little bit of it, standing on the shoulder beside the van, ignoring the rush and rumble of the occasional truck ripping downgrade on I-35. I wished I had a whole day and a healed knee so that I could walk for hours in this expanse of sod and ditches, stony fields and rocky creeks. I’d climb up the steep edges of bluffs just to see the next few miles of whatever waited beyond the long run of the ridge pasture. Then, I’d hike on to the next creek, the next bluff, the next climb.

Instead, I stood there, red sun shining on my face, immersed in the glory of this new day. This day the Lord had made and invited me into, this day of grace and glory. I didn’t think, “This is going to be a good day.” I knew it already was.

H. Arnett
10/16/15

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Still Taking Chances, Still Sharing Dances

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Somewhere in southern Missouri,
in a place of trees and hills and stone-bed rivers,
she’ll wake up with a slight shiver
and the mists of morning,
a slight fog forming in the tops of trees
and weaving its way
down into the thicker shroud of the valley.

I’ll be driving from southern Kansas
up through the Flint Hills
and into Topeka.

While she’s riding a chocolate gelding
along those steep and winding paths
I’ll be participating in a different melding,
a meeting of minds so to speak
from across the state,
college executives hoping to weave our way
through the chances and challenges
of academic issues.

Across these miles between us
there are still good things
that seam us together along the even edges
we have formed over the years.

Like stones smoothed by years of strong currents,
fitted together in a channel that has known flood and drought,
we’ve had our bouts of ache and flourish.

And now we find ourselves together
two hundred miles apart,
both of us living dreams
that we thought buried years ago.

Though it may sometimes simmer,
the fire of faith will always find some way
to bring its own glow to the light of day,

and find itself nourished
by the God Who Loves Us.

H. Arnett
10/15/15

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Dogs and Cats and Other Friends

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Doc Arnett

I was raised with dogs and cats on our farm in Todd County, Kentucky. I think people are sometimes suspicious that perhaps I was raised by dogs and cats. I don’t know if they think that because of my personal grooming habits or because of the way I shed. Neither is sufficient evidence for the suspicion, I think, but people have a long history of choosing to ignore any evidence that doesn’t support their conclusion. It’s sometimes necessary, I suppose, given our need to hold to a particular belief long after any supporting evidence has dissipated. Current Kansas tax structure being one particular example.

But anyway, back to the dogs and cats.

The dogs were never allowed in the house, at least so far as my parents knew whenever they returned from town. As to the cats, Sunbeam was a regular visitor to the old kitchen in the morning hours when Dad was still at the milk barn. She eventually became an old yellow tabby. So far as I can remember, she was always a yellow tabby but the old part came several years later. Ultimately, she spent her ninth life in the close proximity of a warm car motor on a cold day. This was not an uncommon demise for farm cats consigned to outdoor life in the winters of southern Kentucky. As most any insurance underwriter knows, there are certain risks associated with quaint rural life. These sometimes involve partial dismemberment by a variety of farm equipment, with the old-time corn picker being notorious for grabbing up hands that should have shut the tractor off before they started grabbing corn stalks jammed into the rollers.

Keeping my distance away from those rollers, I’d sometimes head out across a field or into the woods or along the creek with my border collie, Sandy. Sandy was a male, a point of some consternation to my now adult children. He was black and white and kind of a, well, sandy color. So, not knowing that the fine grit bordering much of the earth’s great oceans was of feminine gender, I named him “Sandy.” He was born on the farm when I was nine years old, the only member of the litter who was not allegedly given away. I say “allegedly” because I know that sometimes “given away” is a farm euphemism for a decidedly non-adopted demise for puppies.

Sandy and I stayed together after we left the farm, including the time that I lived alone at Browns Grove while I was going to high school at Farmington. I believe my parents told everyone that I’d been given away. Everyone that knew me and my parents well agreed that was probably best for all of us. It enhanced my already keenly developed sense of responsibility and increased my maturity and self-confidence.

As part of that new-found maturity and confidence, I would sometimes bring Sandy into the house at night. I had this romantic image of my faithful canine companion, sleeping by my bed and keeping me safe from the monsters underneath it. Sandy would lie there faithfully for all of three or eight minutes and then whine to go outside. I tried to convince him that it was okay, but I’m pretty sure he expected Mom or Dad to come in and find him inside the house.

Other than that, we had very few disagreements and a great many good moments together. That’s about as much as good friends can hope for.

H. Arnett
10/14/15

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18 Chairs*

Posted on October 13, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Eighteen black chairs on a concrete slab,
bounded by brick and grass,
placed between buildings in the amphitheater
for the past nine days
so that those passing by would remember—
and perhaps pray—for families and survivors
of a shooting at another community college
nearly two thousand miles away.
Eighteen chairs of black plastic and shiny steel,
hoping that this can somehow bring feeling
into abstract news.

Nine black chairs tilted over against the cold stone
to show nine deaths,
a last breath of confession of faith
in the face of hatred and anger,
those ancient dangers that withstand
every law and notion,
all emotion stripped and fused
into one dark, harsh lashing.

Nine black chairs sitting empty
to show some sort of hope
that these wounded would somehow
return to learning,
to bearing the scars of marred lives
determined to find a way to grace
and regain that place
that will never again be taken for granted.

On the tenth day,
I stand with another man,
heads bared,
praying for healing,
for comfort,
for sharing of this sense
that there is something deeply wrong
in a culture where this has become commonplace,
knowing that it will take a Touch
far greater than law or liberty
to mend a rend such as this.

We say our “amens”
and bend our backs
to stacking nine black chairs each,
believing in the Reach of One Greater Than Us
to relieve us of this toil and trouble,
to bring mercy into a land
aching for gentle rain.

*In memory of eighteen students shot on the campus of Umpqua Community College in Myrtle Creek, Oregon, on October 1st, 2015.

H. Arnett
10/12/15

Umqua CC Memorial

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Chili, Apple Pie and Uncle Remus

Posted on October 12, 2015 by Doc Arnett

After a supper of homemade chili and salad, topped off with apple pie a la mode, my host leads me out to the back yard. Beyond the circle of the fire, the dark shapes of cedar trees rise up against the dusky sky. Between those trees and the fire pit, a circle of cedar benches ring the stones. In the fading light, the older kids search for branches to bring to the fire.

A long-handled pair of loppers increases the options and they take advantage. From time to time, they bring a fresh cut cedar branch to join the dance of the flames. Even in the midst of hot coals and burning chunks of wood, it takes a little while for the green to dry enough to take fire. When it reaches that point, there is a sudden crackling and popping as the flames sweep up the smaller pieces.

We talk as the night moves in; stars begin to appear above us. The four-foot circle of the fire pit reminds me of the shape of an old well and that reminds me of an old Brer Rabbit story. It is one my mama read to me from the Old Walt Disney story book, before it and Uncle Remus were deemed socially unacceptable. Before the movie Song of the South was relegated to the archives and available only through foreign bootleg sources.

“Hey, kids,” I call, “have you ever seen one of those old-fashioned wells with a little roof over it and a long rope wound around a cylinder with a bucket fashioned on each end of the rope so that when one bucket goes down the other bucket comes up?”

“No,” the oldest boy answers, “but it sounds really cool.”

And so I began the story of Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox and “The Fitsy-Fotsy Figaloo Fishes.” Using the voices that my mom used when she read the story to me, I go through the tale, adding a few sound effects that Mom didn’t add. I watch the kids and their parents, the glow of the fire dancing shadows on their faces, and watch their expressions change from time to time.

It is not hard at all for me to imagine other children in a darker time, gathered around the fire of an old shack, listening to another bearded old man telling stories. Stories of how even small creatures can outwit the large ones, stories of mischief and deserved deceit. I imagine that what I feel tonight and what these children are feeling is very similar to what Joel Chandler Harris witnessed nearly two hundred years ago.

Long before iPhones and portable DVD players, families gathered with their neighbors and shared music, stories and time. There is an ancient tradition in this gathering here on a small farm within a stone’s throw of Oklahoma. Ancient yet perennially refreshing.

I think Mom would be tickled to know that her stories have reached southern Kansas; I know she would have enjoyed watching the children as I told the story. I am glad to have shared the gifts that she gave me. The family thanks me for coming out for supper and the story. They all seem to have truly enjoyed my presence and I have deeply enjoyed their hospitality and companionship.

I think my heavenly Father is pleased, too, to see His children gathered together and enjoying one another’s company. Bringing warmth and comfort on this journey toward an even better gathering.

H. Arnett
10/12/15

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Below the Falls

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Doc Arnett

We stood for a few minutes, admiring the view of the bluffs and the Cowley County Fishing Lake on a gorgeous autumn afternoon. While Randa snapped a couple more pictures, I noticed a faint footpath leading back to the west. Within a couple of minutes, I’d disappeared into the bushes and branches woven around the trail. After walking a hundred feet or so, I paused at the edge of the bluff and looked back toward the lake. My eyes followed the line of the flat stone across to the hill on the opposite side and then back toward the west. The line stopped abruptly toward my right.

It took me several seconds to figure out what seemed to be an illusion. The ground seemed to fall away to the west of that rock line. Seams of gray were interrupted by a wide band of a coppery color with a small pool of water lying to the side. Suddenly I realized that I was looking at the waterfall. Well, at least at what would be a waterfall if there was any water to fall.

Instead of the narrow, slight outcropping I’d expected to find in a little creek, this lip spanned sixty or seventy feet across, with a drop of thirty feet or more. The coppery color was the deep soil that layered beneath the seams of limestone. Large boulders at various angles littered along the edge down from the bluff to the bottom.

Using tree roots for handholds, Randa and I climbed down, with Layla trailing us on her leash. Sycamores and cottonwoods grew along the rock-strewn bed below the falls. That small pool at the base of the falls and a glistening seep along the southern bank were the only indications of water. There were signs in the sweep of old stems and leaves caught against trunks a couple of feet above the ground indicated there had been times of flow, though.

We probed around the scattering of stones and boulders and walked along the creek bed after it passed out of the bluffs just a hundred feet or so downstream. Dozens of different colors and half that many textures spanned the stretch of rocks and stones. We felt smooth edges and saw sharp breaks, suggesting the differences in spans of exposure to water and wind and time. The trees growing closer to the base of the falls were much younger than those growing downstream.

Along the northern bank, the thick base of an old cottonwood testified of decades of determination and endurance. In its roots, rocks the size of couch cushions were held at odd angles. Several feet above the thick base, the trunk had been broken and rotted, giving way to nothing but a jangling of strong branches holding a few quaking leaves in the gentle breeze. Yet the old tree still held to deeper soil, a mass of rocks and roots reaching down a few feet and then disappearing into the nourishing earth.

Given a deep enough grip and a solid enough determination, we can endure the storms and floods. Faith and hope can hold through the darkest nights and strongest winds. Eventually, though the stones may affect the shape, they cannot keep the roots from their seeking. Faith that overcomes mountains can certainly make its way around a few rocks.

H. Arnett
10/9/15

Cowley State Lake Waterfall 2

Waterfall at Cowley State Fishing Lake

Waterfall at Cowley State Fishing Lake

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Kansas Waterfall

Posted on October 8, 2015 by Doc Arnett

On our way back from Tulsa the other day, one of the teachers in the group shared a tragic story about two former students. One of them had murdered the other some miles away and had then driven the victim’s car out to Cowley Lake. Perhaps thinking to somehow hide the real crime scene, he pushed the car into the lake.

On a much brighter note, she then said, just as we passed by the lake on Route 166 several miles east of Ark City, “There’s a waterfall.”

Considering the setting of these low rolling hills, I imagined a small creek dropping a slow trickle over a few feet of exposed outcropping. Still, a waterfall is a waterfall, especially in a place where it is not expected.

On a gorgeous afternoon, with mostly clear skies and the temperature just above seventy, Randa and I went out to investigate the waterfall rumor.

Native grasses bent in the wind of passing cars and trucks, reflecting the subtle colors of early fall in southern Kansas. Bits of stone gleamed gray in the bare places of hills and fields stretching out for miles. Along the ditches, cottonwood, elm and prairie oak staked their dark shapes. At the eastern end of a flat valley, I pointed out the big barn on its limestone base built into the side of the hill and nestled against the trees.

Up the hill and around another curve, we turned down the gravel drive south of the highway and wound our way back past the campsites. The state fishing lake in Cowley County looks as if it was built into the abandoned bed of an old rock quarry. Vertical bluffs rise up along the north and south boundaries, especially toward its west end, opposite the small creek running in from the east. A turnabout marked the end of the gravel drive. Ceresa lespedeza lined the parking lot, along with shrubs and trees. A fence drifted along the edge of the bluffs, above a wide flat of stone that spanned north and south, varying from a hundred feet wide to maybe three hundred feet or more as it stretched east, ending at the water a quarter-mile away. I stood for a while taking in the view of stone bluffs and the dark greens of trees and bushes with a touch of autumn color just beginning to brush the leaves and grass.

It was lovely and totally unexpected, a microcosm of Vermont or New Hampshire transported nearly to Oklahoma. It is a rare and rich blessing to bask in the goodness of certain moments, scenes and events and then discover that something even better is just around the corner. I was about to find that this was one of those moments.

H. Arnett
10-8-15

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The Blessing of Inconvenient Travel

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Doc Arnett

I’ve known for many years now that interstate highways tend to lie about the places they go through. It’s not anything malicious or malevolent; it’s just the ways of things when the purpose of convenience gets elevated above all others. And it’s certainly not that I object to convenience, either.

If I wanted to experience every bump, dip, hill and twist of western Kentucky, I’d get right off of the WK Parkway and get right onto the misery of those four-digit semi-paved trails. In most situations, especially the ones that involve getting from E-town to Murray in the shortest time possible, I very much enjoy the fact that I can zip right along at seventy miles an hour, smoothly winding my way through the curves and over and around the hills.

But back to my original statement: if you really want to experience the geography of a place, forget the interstate. All that smooth grading, even sloping and gentle turning is not the true nature of the places through which you are traveling. The truth is a bit less convenient, a bit more varied and more nuanced. And, if you’ve got the time and inclination, infinitely more interesting.

I discovered this fact many years ago about Highway 50 as it weaves and bends its way across central Kentucky when I took a deliberate detour and enjoyed an hour of chasing crawdads in a stone-bed river. I enjoyed this truth about Doniphan County for a bit more than a decade in and around northeastern Kansas, hiking for hours in mostly futile searches for mushrooms. And I’m looking forward to approaching revelations about Cowley County and the Flint Hills.

Some folks would simply rather move right on through and be on their way. They see I-35 or US-77 as nothing more than the least inconvenient conduit from Where I Am to Where I Want to Be. As long as there is an ample amount of fuel available and a sufficient store of readily available nourishments and refreshments, they care less about the terrain through which they travel. They might enjoy some sort of break in the scenery from time to time but they have neither the time nor the inclination for greater familiarity.

When we become so absorbed in our daily destinations that we ignore the settings of our sojournings, we are at risk of losing more than the road. We were meant to be engaged travelers, not bored tourists. If we can open ourselves a bit and slow down a little, we may find some good changes in more than the scenery.

H. Arnett
10/7/15

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