Shalom

A sad day

Just before bed I often check my hometown's county newspaper, just to keep up on the happenings of Shelbyville, IL.  This evening I was saddened to see a familiar face looking back at me in the obituaries.

Mrs. Price, age 86, has passed from this life.

I remember sitting in my sandbox, watching her feed the chickens scratch grain.  Suddenly, like a snake her hand reached out and grabbed a rooster by the head and swung it over her head to break it's neck.  She taught my mom to garden and preserve the harvest.  She took me to my first tent revival meeting.  When mom had to be rushed to the hospital with her tubal pregnancy, Mr and Mrs Price took care of me until family could arrive to pick me up.  I learned to hunt on their acreage.  I learned to care for animals with their guidance.  The first barn I ever thought of as "beautiful" was their barn.

Mrs Price loved me and I loved her. 

She was the first Christian that I ever knew.  Shortly after my baptism I wrote her and her husband to thank them for the lives that they had lived before me.  Mom had the opportunity to see her every few months and relates how she enjoyed the pictures and stories of my own children.  I wish she could have met them in the flesh.

She had a hard life and she ran all 86 years of it faithful to her Lord and Savior.  She buried two sons and a husband during that time.  Rest in Peace Frances.  We are poorer for your absence.  We are richer from the giving life you lived.  Until we meet again,

Ears to Hear

This morning Otto, age 3, was helping me with the morning chores.  After he had taken the eggs to his mother and we had given hay to the rabbits Otto asked, "What is that sound dada?" 
"I hear a car Otto."  I replied.

Listening with his head cocked to the right as the sound of the car moved into the distance, "No, I hear an airplane."

Now it was my turn to cock my head.  I could not hear the airplane.  All I could hear was a flock of nearby birds whose proclamations seemed to drown out all other sound.  Just as I was about ready to come to the conclusion that Otto was mistaken, there it was.  I too heard the airplane.  "I hear it too Otto but do you hear the birdies?"

Listening again, the seconds passed.  Finally a smile came to his face.  "Yes I hear the birdies.  I hear a lot of birdies."

Because we do not hear something, does not mean that it is not there or that those who do hear it are wrong.  Sometimes it just means we need to cock our heads, turn our ears to listening and filter out the other noise.  Sometimes it is our job to listen.  Sometimes it is our job to ask others to hear.

The work and the image of God

I felt it in my shoulder on Wednesday, when the terrier brought me his rope and we began to play "tug."

I felt it in my back on Thursday, listening to a lecture in Zorn Arena at the University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire.

On Monday and Tuesday I carried 1200 pounds of concrete up our hill to the site of some future garden beds.  The site is badly eroded and the earth has very little organic material to it.  A few weeds grow there now but even they do not thrive.  I am laying the blocks in a course two high to create a miniature retaining wall.  Afterwards I will mix manure and topsoil to the native sand and, I hope, restore the area to productivity.  I hope to get two such beds done in time to plant my corn up there. 

It is a rare thing for organic matter to oppose gravity.  Perhaps a predator occasionally leaves a carcass at a higher elevation but otherwise wind and water conspire along with gravity to move organic material toward the oceans.  Where there was stasis, humans have largely disturbed it.  Along the great plains where thick sod protected the soil, we sowed row crops.  Forested hillsides once protected the ground from water while leaf debris acted as a series of obstacles to keep the earth close to home.  We have harvested them for lumber and firewood, leaving the ground vulnerable.

Moving topsoil uphill is to co-participate in an act of creation.  It is a way of bringing life to where there is no life.  But it comes at a cost.  One must care enough to be pained at the barren landscape.  One must exert themselves physically and sometimes that involves physical pain.  One must also realize that their best efforts may result in failure.

Greater than my little attempt at ecological restoration are those who work for peace, both in our neighborhoods as well as on a geopolitical scale.  Human communities, large and small, seem to drift into conflict.  There are periods and formulas of stasis, but they are easily disrupted then chaos and violence take hold.  People begin to flow to violence as topsoil flows to the ocean.

The role of the peacemaker is to carry concrete blocks and topsoil up a steep hill.  It can be a painful job as they carry the building blocks of peace and life against the gravity of violence and death.  One must care enough to see the pain of others and having seen that pain to not look away.  One must take the chance of getting involved.  I only face the pain of a sore shoulder and back at worst I might damage my body and require time to heal.  The peacemaker risks suffering a sore or damaged soul as they struggle to restore community to a place that it has been lost.  That pain is much more distressing than the physical pain of physical exertion and the soul takes much longer to heal than a muscle.

There is also the physical risk.  It can be a deadly job as one enters the conflict zone.  Domestic dispute calls are the most dangerous calls faced by police.  No one needs to be warned of the danger of a war zone.

Peacemaking, however, is co-participation in the work of God which makes the pain and the risk worthwhile.

God bless the peacemakers, returning to productivity those swaths of earth, those nations and neighborhoods, too long given over to barren weeds.  There is no household too small to deserve their attention, there is no nation so complex to be beyond healing.

Taking a Stab at Cartharthis

Part 1:

I did not anticipate buying the house when we came out to look at it.  It was at the highest end of what we had decided to pay and, from the pictures, it was unimpressive.  It looked better in person though still in need of some loving care.  It was a lot of house for the money (we made our realtor drive us to all of the "cheap houses") so we made a bid and bought the house.

I knew the roof was bad and needed to be replaced but I was surprised when, as I was inspecting it the next spring, it started to give way beneath my foot.  Knowing as much about roofing as I know about the English Civil War (i.e. just enough to sound like I know what I'm talking about) I repeated that time honored moment between father and son when I verbalized what I had suspected for many years, he knew a lot more than I had given him credit for in the past and I needed his help.  The first time he came to see his first grandchild became a work trip to replace my roof.

We took the measurements and did the math and concluded how many squares of shingles we would need.  "That just doesn't seem right."  He said but doing the math again we came to the same conclusion.  I know he was just concerned about spending my money so he suggested that we get a smaller number of shingles and just go back to town if we needed more.  I ended up making two more trips to town for shingles.  The lesson I learned, just trust the math.
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Part 2:

For years I have wanted a truck but just have not been able to justify the expense.  I only really need one a couple of times a year and for each of those times I have found a way to work around the problem.  For example, I found a gentleman who, for a small fee, is willing to deliver small bales of hay twice a year, 30 bales at a time.  The small extra expenses that I incur from not having a truck do not even add up to the insurance or the extra fuel expense if we were to exchange one of our current vehicles for one let alone if we were to add another vehicle.

Running out of hay this week I called our supplier.  He was out for the year and everyone who advertises hay quickly runs out so a new plan was needed.  I decided to rent a small moving van, still a lot less expensive than owning, and made a trek to get the hay today.  The financial math still firmly on my side I was pleased with my thrift and creativity.

To say that moving vans are not that good on snow and mud would be an understatement.  Once the hay was unloaded it took me an hour to get it out of the drive.  The truck became stuck 3-4 times and I was constantly rocking it to get it moving.  I finally got it out of the driveway though, to be honest, three times I was pretty sure I was going to need a tractor or tow truck to extricate it.

"Experience," I thought as I drove back to the rental company, "would have warned me that this would not work as well as I had originally hoped."  The lesson I am taking away, sometimes math does not tell the whole story but must be informed by wisdom.
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Part 3

I was leaving for work tonight and while the snow is melting, making the driveway appear less ominous, the road pact beneath is water logged, making its navigation more difficult.  Thinking about the days earlier activities as I walked out the door I told Kristi, "I'm off, if I can get out of the driveway one more time!"  It seemed funny at the moment.

Driving down the temporary ruts of mud bordered with snow I began to think of all the times I drove down dirt roads not too unlike our driveway as a kid.  Steering out of the rut, as I remembered the experience, made for better traction and an easier to control commute.  "What the heck." I thought, so I pulled my car out of the muddy rut and up onto the snow.  For a few seconds all the promises of better control and traction were met.

Without warning or time to compensate I was pulled to the right and into the snowbank which has developed over the numerous plowings this winter.  My momentum drew me forward and up and over some ice, which has developed from so many freezings and thawings.  Forty-five minutes of digging and rocking got me no where helpful, so I had to call in sick to work.  Not only is my car stuck but it is blocking the drive so I cannot take Kristi's car.

The lesson I am thinking, "Sometimes the unexpected negates the best of experience."  Or perhaps most important, "If something works, don't change it."
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Conclusion:

My muscles and joints ache in that manner peculiar to the aftermath of short-strenuous abuse and I'm trying to be philosophical about the whole days events.   What I am realizing is that each body of knowledge is good for its own set of questions.  Trust math to figure out how many squares of shingles you need and experience to tell you if you should drive a moving van down a muddy drive.  For that matter, I did trust experience to inform  me how to get the truck out of the driveway, even when I had given up reason and could only hope that I could get the truck out.   

Concerning the unexpected I do not know what to say.  Either I can counsel that one learn to accept the inevitability of it or that when faced with a challenge one should trust recent experience of what works over the old experience of what worked better.  At the very least the former is a lot easier to practice within the scope of human events.  The latter could also stifle creativity and experimentation.

Perhaps I should just listen to the words of my dad who has in recent years become fond of counseling,  "Just go to bed.  Every problem looks worse than it really is when you are tired."  There will be enough time to sort out the lesson of it all in the morning... right after I get the car unstuck.