Tulsa Time

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Doc Arnett

A few Cowley College teachers and I went over to Tulsa last Friday for a session on one test publisher’s alternative approach to predicting success for entering college students. We drove a bit over two hours each way for a two-hour presentation at Tulsa Community College’s Northeastern Campus. The presenter did right well, managing to minimize the commercial aspects and maximize the research, reasoning and thoughtful implications.

We did right well, too, minimizing the effects of the road noise and maximizing the opportunity for a limited time of profoundly professional discourse. We filled in the other four hours of travel with friendly banter and getting to know one another. Truth be told, my own motivation for the trip probably had more to do with that than with the Tulsa part.

Road trips, along with all sorts of potential for PG-13 movies that should be rated “R,” have an almost unrivaled capacity for forming and strengthening collegial ties. Away from the office, away from the expectations of routine and absent the constant self-consciousness, people tend to ease off on the demands that we put on ourselves and one another.

The bumps and rumbling of the road, the view of miles of prairie hills and the occasional visual prompts for personal reflection all lead to a sort of smorgasbord of sharing: marriage, family, professional paths, personal likes and dislikes and the various perspectives of all the places we’ve seen and the people we’ve been.

Of course, there’s always the risk of being a tad too honest, revealing a political bent of one sort or another, but as long as you’re with decent people, the risk is pretty low and the tolerance level is pretty high. As for me, I had the privilege of being with some mighty fine people.

I left with a good opinion of all of them and came back with an even higher one.

Somehow, it got me to thinking that it wasn’t just the lessons and lectures that got Jesus and his disciples bound up so close together. I’m guessing that the walking from Jerusalem to Galilee, the treks up the backsides of those lonely mountains and the long, slow meals away from the eyes of the maddening crowd were a big part of it.

One key difference: Unlike the Master and his students, I’m pretty sure that I learned more from the folks I was with than they learned from me. And I’m pretty comfortable with that. Not expecting me to be the smartest person in the room sure takes some pressure off of me.

And spares everybody else from some disappointment, too.

H. Arnett
10/6/15

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Funeral Invitation

Posted on October 1, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Just for the record, just in case I forget or don’t get around to it later, I want everyone to know: you are all welcome to come to my funeral. Everyone. Well, almost everyone. Here’s the deal: you have to behave yourself. You can’t come and use my funeral as an opportunity to be rude, mean, disruptive, unpleasant or otherwise behave yourself in some uncomely manner. Otherwise, you’re welcome.

If you want to, come share an embarrassing story like the one about the time when I went out to practice basketball (while the cheerleaders were practicing at the other end of the gym) and I had on my shoes, socks, shirt and jock strap… but no shorts. Come ahead, share the story, enjoy the laughs and how red my face would turn if I could have been there and been aware.

If you want to come share one of my awkward moments like when I sort of indirectly cast a slight aspersion on a particular religious group only to find out two minutes later that the new Vice President of Business and Finance was a member of that particular religious group, come ahead. Share the story, chuckle about my occasional lack of forethought and enjoy how red my face would turn if I could have been there and been aware.

If you’re one of those folks I insulted, hurt, wronged in some way, slighted or just plain ole sinned against, come ahead. Hopefully, you’ll know that I repented of that, felt bad about it and wished I’d never done it. Most likely, if I was aware of it, I already asked for your forgiveness; I usually do.

If you’re one of those folks who insulted, hurt, wronged, slighted or sinned against me, I especially want you to come. I want you to know that I forgave you long ago, even if you never asked me to forgive you. Heck, even if you still refuse to admit that you insulted, hurt or wronged me, I want you to come. And I want you to know that I love you and I would run into a burning building to rescue you. Although, I’d rather we just sat on the back porch together and shared a beer. Or a glass of iced tea if that’s what you’d prefer. I want you to know that no matter how big the hurt, how wrong the wrong, I’ve forgiven you and I love you.

I’ve forgiven you even if my wife, my kids, my friends and my dog haven’t forgiven you. But I can promise you that they’re willing to forgive you and it would make it a lot easier for them if you would at least pretend that you’re sorry about it. Okay, the dog is probably going to require something more sincere than that but for the rest of them: the pretending would be a good start.

I want you to come and enjoy my funeral. I want there to be jokes and stories and laughter. I want the tears to be genuine and unashamed. I want the laughs to ripple all the way through the building and spill out onto the sidewalk. I want my funeral to be a celebration of mercy, love, forgiveness and grace. I want my funeral to be a continuing legacy of the very best ideals to which I have aspired, the absolute grandest notions I’ve ever encountered. Even though I will admit that there have been times when getting to mercy, love, forgiveness and grace was more of a struggle than it should have been, I never quit trying. The last thing that I would want would be for my funeral to be a monument to my worst faults, my darkest traits, my greatest struggles.

So, if you want to come to my funeral and share a bit of sadness, come ahead. If you want to come to my funeral and share how some small thing I did touched your life, please come. And sit right down front, right by the family. If you want to come just to verify that the reports of my demise were not greatly exaggerated, please come. If you want to come just to gloat, come ahead but keep the gloating to yourself, please.

I’ve already forgiven you.

H. Arnett
10/1/15

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A Matter of Choice

Posted on September 30, 2015 by Doc Arnett

In spite of my whining and whimpering about my sore knee, I’ve got to confess I think I got off pretty easy. At least I’m not losing any toe nails.

One of my new colleagues, who is about twenty-five years younger than me, ran a 50K race Saturday. Yes, folks, you read correctly, “50K.” For those of you who might be about as metric-impaired as I am, that’s thirty-two miles. Thirty-two miles in one day. Well, actually, about nine-and-a-half hours in Ben’s case. He did the last ten miles or so after tripping on a big rock, smashing a couple of toes and landing hard on his left side.

“I’ve lost two or three toenails already,” Ben stated very matter-of-factly, “I’ll probably lose a couple more.”

According to Ben, and I have no reason for skepticism, the relentless pounding of the toes against the pavement and/or ground causes so much trauma to the nailbed that the nail just comes loose. Like me, Ben wasn’t moving very fast today. Unlike me, you had to look pretty closely to notice that. I clopped around like a lame horse.

Ben is much sorer than I am, I’m sure. There aren’t many muscles that don’t get sore when you run for thirty miles or so. All that motion, all that pounding, all that swinging, all that repetition of motion and force takes its toll.

In spite of that, Ben kept a smile on his face, a cheerful tone in his voice and a pleasant manner.

I’m trying to take a lesson from Ben, trying to aspire to greater display of cheerful resolution and chipper resignation to the fate at hand.

I think God likes it when His children opt not to gripe and grumble about the day He has made. Even when we’ve managed to screw it up a bit. Or maybe especially then…

H. Arnett
9/30/15

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Paying the Piper

Posted on September 29, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Paying the Piper

Well, folks, I’ve gotta tell you that Sam and I sure got our money’s worth over at Extreme Timber Challenge in Bonner Springs, Kansas, Sunday afternoon. Well, except for the tee shirt, we got our money’s worth. The tee shirt is definitely the most pedestrian of any of the ones I’ve gotten in my twenty-plus obstacle course mud runs in the past four years. Plain white cotton tee with a Bigfoot logo on the front and the names of a dozen sponsors on the back… But, in terms of interesting obstacles, challenging terrain and sheer fun factor, XTC was a definite bargain!

Courses are typically described as flat, rolling, moderately hilly or mountainous. Since I knew this one was in the “bluffs” of the Kansas River, I figured it would be somewhat hilly. “Bluffs? In Kansas?” I thought… right.

Well, having spent about an hour-and-a-half jogging up and down rock-strewn, log-jammed creek beds, over the creek and through the woods, I’d have to say that “mountainous” would not have been terribly mis-leading. I also have to say that “fun” for old freaks like me might be a bit of an under-statement.

We climbed over, around and through two old school busses (one of which was set on the slope of a steep ravine). We held onto ropes and worked our way down steep trails. We climbed up on cargo nets, old tires and tree roots. We swung our way over a mud pit and clambered over a fifteen-foot sheer rock face. We held onto a bicycle grip zip line and zipped across a little valley, over a couple hundred feet of slope, pond and mud. We climbed the stairs to the top of a seven-floor -tall wooden tower, wowed at the view of the river bottom and climbed back down. We hiked over rip-rap, scaled a wall of old tires and conquered big bales of hay. We slid down a hundred-foot slip-n-slide into a muddy pool. The race sponsors claimed they had forty-five obstacles in the four-mile run and I don’t think they exaggerated even slightly.

We had so many obstacles and so much fun that we reached the next-to-last obstacle at least thirty minutes earlier than I thought we would. Maybe they exaggerated the distance; maybe it was only a bit over three miles. I don’t know. But I do know that we climbed over that last A-frame wall at the finish line a lot sooner than I expected.

The last obstacle wasn’t there at the race track.

Even though I didn’t notice any pain or even discomfort throughout the whole race, by the time we got cleaned up and into the truck, I told Sam, “My knee doesn’t feel quite right.”

Sam was a little short on sympathy, having jammed his thumb pretty hard when he snagged it on the side of the slip-n-slide.

A night later, I’m sitting here with ice on my bruised and swollen left knee after spending the whole day limping around like Walter Brennan in “The Real McCoys.” So far, the folks I work with have kept their smirks and snickers out of my hearing range. I’m calling this final obstacle, “Getting Over the First Forty-Five.”

There’s not much fun in this world that doesn’t come with a price tag of some kind or another. I’ll sure take this over some of the other ones I’ve had to pay!

H. Arnett
9/29/15

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Special Moments

Posted on September 28, 2015 by Doc Arnett

Having been alerted by our astronomy teacher, I was looking forward to Sunday night’s lunar eclipse. According to him, if I remember correctly, it was going to be a good many years before this particular alignment would occur again: the moon at its closest point of orbit, this near the autumnal equinox and a couple of other things I can’t remember. The gist of it was that this one was going to be pretty spectacular.

As I drove along I-35 through the Flint Hills, I was still hoping for a cloudless night. In the sun’s last slipping into the horizon, the dust of dusk hung in the atmosphere gave a bright red glow to all of the western sky. Across the hills, the late stems of summer took on a softly-tinged cast of orange. The sun slipped away.

Running south on 77 a bit later, I saw the moon rise huge and white in the east. I thought briefly about the Thanksgiving nearly thirty years ago when I was hiking south on the wide plains of west Texas. That evening, I saw the sun and the moon on opposite horizons, both huge and round, a profound moment in a critical turning of my life.

After that brief reminiscence, I returned to the now rather than then. The moon rose higher but still full and bright. An occasional cloud passed between us but the image still carried. South of Winfield I saw the first tell of the coming eclipse, a small dent in the lip of the moon on its northern edge. By the time I finished unloading the truck, less than a third of the moon still showed. I could see, though, a faint glow of the shadowed rim.

There are some moments in life that we can see coming and know ahead of time they’re going to be awesome. We wait in anticipation, hoping that all goes well and that all will live up to our expectation. There are other moments that catch us barely alert and yet leave us changed in deep ways. All of them are part of life, part of our experience and part of who we become.

Let’s be thankful for all of them, whether it be the ones that come once in a lifetime or those as simple as a few friends gathered around a small fire in the first slight chill of autumn.

H. Arnett
9/28/15

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Old Friends and New Beginnings

Posted on September 25, 2015 by Doc Arnett

This is the end of my fourth week into the new job. I was a bit spoiled by the first two weeks. Since September First was a Tuesday and the second Monday was Labor Day, I started out with two four-day workweeks. That was nice. Looking back already, it was real nice!

The days have been long and full and I have met forty or fifty new people. I don’t mean “Hello” in the hallways; I mean significant interactions and conversations. Most of the conversations have been work-focused. In fact, nearly all of them. I set up appointments with all of the department chairpersons, most of the directors and with both assistant or associate vice-presidents. I’ve also met with several teachers. Good conversations, every one of them.

But my favorite thus far has been the one with the VP for Institutional Advancement. That conversation was not scheduled in advance, was not intentionally arranged. It was more of a consequence. Actually, sort of a casualty.

Ben happened to be standing in my line of sight when I stepped out of my office door last Thursday, needing someone to help me pick up and move in some furniture into the new house. I’d already called a couple of other guys here at the College but they weren’t available. Ben was.

So, he helped me load up the little pickup with two dressers, a couple of night stands and a nice used occasional table. And a really nice re-purposed console/bench. Then, he helped me unload it, set everything into the house and re-arrange most of it when it turned out my first choice wasn’t the best choice.

After that, we sat out on the little back deck, sipping our drinks and watching the sky fade into dusk. We talked about work, raising children, church, remodeling and a few other things. And in the process, a couple of colleagues moved toward becoming friends.

I miss my family as well as friends from church, from work, from the neighborhood all back in Doniphan County. Some of those stretch out from over eleven years and a few from nearly thirty years. I miss them all. But I also embrace the opportunity of making new ones.

In one regard at least, love is a bit like closet inventory: it always expands to fill the available space.

H. Arnett
9/25/15

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Early Morning in Ark City

Posted on September 24, 2015 by Doc Arnett

I look east and see the street lights along Fifth Avenue glow above the buildings, sidewalks and pavement. The first brush of morning’s rising paints its pinks on the soft edges of slowly drifting clouds. Brick and stone mark the dim shapes of buildings as the street dips down below the railroad tracks several blocks away.

Nearest me, the old Carnegie Library rises up against the shapes of trees, stately in its form and still holding to an old dignity even though it has been empty for years. The exposed ends of rafters, curved and painted, nestle into the underneath of eaves. The steps lead up into the northern entrance. In the coming light, passersby might see in through the old glass and have no notion of what has passed here.

A man who spent the first half of his life building up a fortune spent the last half giving away much of it, making his mark across the country in the form of such things as this. His name is cast or carved into the masonry above the entrance and the date of the building’s finishing.

I’m pretty sure that more than the first half of my life has past. Some of what these hands have found to do can still be viewed in the homes and stones that I have re-shaped, made into something I thought was better than what I found. Whatever fortune I have made is pretty much whatever can be stored in the hearts and minds of those I have loved and known. I hope that the teachers that I have helped trained have taught in ways that were better than what they would have known otherwise. I believe that the children I have loved and love are raising children whose lives will ripple into other lives with goodness and grace.

In the end, the only treasure whose measure will matter much is what we have laid up in that place where moth and rust cannot corrupt, held in greater hands than ours, stored up for the hour of that Great Day. Knowing that, I will gladly yield a bit more of what I cannot keep in order to gain what cannot be stolen.

H. Arnett
9/24/15

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Running the Hills

Posted on September 23, 2015 by Doc Arnett

This man, my son, runs alongside of me,
though he could easily pace far ahead
in a very short time.

Around the circle of the pond,
hidden in the trees,
we curve left and head up
the first steep hill.

The woods are green and heavy yet
with the long wet summer
but the air has a feel of autumn.

The dirt is still damp from yesterday’s rain
but not mud, at least not in most places
where our feet seek the traction needed
for moving our will against gravity.

We swing around the base of the hill,
following the trace of the small stream
and avoiding the thorns of wild rose and raspberry.

After the long run back up and around the hill,
we tackle the steeper slope that brings us out
into the opening between Peter’s Creek
and the pasture off to the south.

We pause for a moment,
look at the fields rolling out north and west.

A bit farther up and east,
we reach the trail cut down the banks,
careful of the seams the rains have cut

and the bare stones bladed up from the earth:
these things could make ankles bend in ways
they are not meant to bend
and send a man gasping to the ground.

We make our way down
through occasional glints of sun and mud,
a last turn through the woods and into the creek.

Cold water stings our feet for only an instant
and then rises up to our knees.
Run hard enough long enough and even the chill
will feel like God’s own blessing.

H. Arnett
9/22/15

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September Sunset in the Flint Hills

Posted on September 22, 2015 by Doc Arnett

At El Dorado, I turn east and north onto the Kansas Turnpike.
The fading light shows dimly through a dome of gray
that stretches as far in every direction as I can see.
Not far beyond the lake, I make my way into the Flint Hills.

Miles of rolling fields stretch out across the prairie,
marked by clumps of cottonwood and hedge,
scrub oak along the lines of ditches
and on the banks of rock-bedded creeks.

A half-hour below Emporia, the leading edge
of this slate-bellied cold front leaves a long thin line
along the horizon west and south;
a space of clear sky the runs beyond the dome.

As the sun slips toward its evening home,
a sudden glow spreads across the higher runs of sod and stone;
an orange cast moves across the grass and banks
and a sudden flash of brilliant red blazes from the mirror.

On the upper slope, long stems of native grass bend and sway,
ridges in the wind rippling their way toward Oklahoma.
Shadows shift and play, glints of light shimmer from the seed heads,
full and silver in this intermingling of autumn into summer.

I am eager for home and weary of the road
with three more hours to go.

Headed up the five mile slope to the last long line,
I slow near the crest, seeking the best place.
I park the truck, climb my way up through the loose grit and stone,
gripping whatever my hand can find that helps.

Forty feet above the road, I stand on the cusp,
watching a fiery sun paint brief strokes across the curling edges,
feeling the north breeze on my face and in my hair,
staring at miles of stone and earth, wind and grass.

I am eager for home and weary of the road,
but I cannot let this beauty pass—
not without this reverence,
this bowing of my head

in the presence of Him who has made it.

Of what good is beauty if we let all of duty
dull our eyes to the glory of the skies,
the glory of passing wonders?

H. Arnett
9/21/15

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Alone in the New Home

Posted on September 21, 2015 by Doc Arnett

I empty the faded flowers into the trash.

The lilies she bought and arranged
into the vase left beneath the sink
when others moved away
brightened the living room for a week
and then began to follow the way
of this world’s beauties.

The stems are still green but nothing good remains
of the blooms.

A few of the petals, weary of their duty,
dropped into the wide mouth of the vase.
Wilted and already starting to rot,
they clot around my fingers
as I fish them out,
drop them into the trash.

This house is empty and still;
scatterings of furniture not yet arranged
into any semblance of place or purpose
seem strangely turned.
Empty chairs point along empty walls toward the kitchen
as if knowing their mission
will be revealed from that direction.

Lord willing, she will be back this week
and much of what lacks will be made better.
I am learning to live with this new schedule
of living in two places.

But I know this,
it is not flowers that brighten the space
where she moves with grace and wisdom,
nor hanging pictures that fill my heart
until the moments of our parting are ended.

I close my eyes in the dim light
of this nearly empty room
and feel her voice moving in me
like oil over stones.

H. Arnett
9/20/15

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