Snowy Day in the Ozarks (25 January 2023)

 

Yesterday was a gorgeous snowy day in the Ozarks. 

We woke up to 6-7 inches of snow. It was a gorgeous blanket covering the ground, the trees, the cars, everything.

Stillness and silence filled the air as most activities paused. First to behold in wonder, and then to wait the clearing of roads so that travel could be commenced safely. 

By the late afternoon, the wind had picked up and the temperature had crested above freezing. The heavy blanket covering the trees began to shed, falling in clumps and bursts of snow dust. 

Also by mid-afternoon the silence and stillness had given way for those of us quietly inside the house to play in the wonderland. I hooked my tractor to the sleds. The kids - now all young adults - put on their snow gear, so seldomly used in these parts, and outside we went. 

We played. Asa the big brother had much fun throwing as much snow as he could gather on this sisters. Kyrie, the last of our crew, was a super child again - playing King on the Mountain, except we had no mountain, so she tried her level best to knock her big brother and I over into the snow. This tractor and rowdy play was reminiscent of when we lived in central Michigan a decade ago. 

It was a good day. More restful, still, playful, and productive than days when I wake up and 'get to work'.  

Reminds me of Ruth Haley Barton's work, Embracing Rhythms of Work and Rest, that I have been reading lately, of the necessity of rest that is included in the sabbath. I love the snow, in part because it imposes a sabbath that is good, peaceful, and filled with joy. I'm challenged by it also, because a true sabbath embrace  has to come not from without, but from within. 

Like a Mustard Seed . . .

PASTOR'S NOTE

originally published by Schweitzer Church

16 June 2022

In Matthew 13.31-32, Jesus uses an illustration: “The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches."

This past week my family hosted some friends for dinner who will be relocating soon to North Carolina. As we laughed and talked I thought about the journey of our friendship. We met soon after my family moved to Springfield. My girls were very young and interested in ballet. Miss Cathryn was their first teacher in Springfield. Soon after meeting her, she married Mr. Andy, and we were at the wedding. Along the way, Anna and I took a trip out of state, and this young couple came to stay with our four kids. When we returned, Mr. Andy asked if our kids could be in one of the shows he was directing through Springfield Little Theatre. (That one show has turned into more than we can count.)

Along the way Mr. Andy and Miss Cathryn gave life to three boys. Those boys are young adventurous souls, and when we are together, much revelry ensues. In their presence, there is joy. In their presence, they also give me a gift, of imagining a next chapter of my life, what being a grandfather might be like. From one small act. . .of taking ballet classes unrolled a good kind of life we had no clue awaited us. There is a panoply of joys - especially on that night when I took the boys for tractor rides. (See pic)



Reflecting on this relationship, I was drawn into Jesus parable of the mustard seed and how it reveals God’s kingdom. Starting out small, and then growing into a profound blessing to countless birds and beloved creatures of God.I’ve been reminded of stories many of you have shared with me about small steps of faith and how God has taken you on an incredible journey. I think about the events and ministries taking place around the Schweitzer campus; of people loving and being loved by Jesus in small ways, and then the incredible fruit of the Spirit that emerges in their lives. The Kingdom of God, of joy and peace, of restfulness in Christ, of sacrificial compassion, and investing in community; most often starts with something small and non-descript. 

The kingdom lies ready, like a seed awaiting soil and rain, and when we take up and read the Bible in a regular routine, or we begin to pray, or we start having Christian conversations, or we sing along with the songs of worship, or we take pictures at church, or become a reading buddy, or make an offering to God . . . God’s good and beautiful Kingdom begins to take root in our hearts, and before long, the small seed is a tree. I encourage you to notice and name the gifts of the Kingdom God has planted and grown along your way. In doing so, we give a witness to God’s faithfulness and goodness, to others and ourselves, for those moments when life is hard and overwhelming.

May you rejoice in the countless trees that surround you. I also encourage you to take what may look like a small step of faith today - you never know where Christ may be leading you, or the treasures of the kingdom that will unfold. This I know is true, with small seeds of faith, the Lord creates incredible joy.

I hope you are looking forward to Sunday, when we gather in worship. Something special awaits us!

Pastor Jason

This week's news 9-24-11

This week has been full of writing and reading.  Next week will be more of the same my fellow Beeson Pastors and I get ready for a trip to California and a class on Leadership.

The Leadership class has been unique in its unfolding.  When our cohort arrived in July we were welcomed by the Beeson center staff and encouraged to jump into our reading and writing.  There were other companion events thrown into the hopper, visits to churches, a couple of seminars, an initiative called the Legacy Group.  The Legacy group was described as being an added extra to the Beeson experience.  In reality it was the entrance into our class on Leadership.  Reflecting on the unfolding so far I've come to the conclusion that in some way we've been targeted, or we've had a sniper following us.  I use that analogy because our professor is former Marine drill instructor.  To be sure, it is an interesting ride.

Below are three pictures from the last couple of weeks.

Aravis and her new "reading" glasses.  She likes them. 

Beeson picture day. Love the kids shirts.

Beeson kids:  Moses, Taylor, Asa, Silas, Earnest, Elizabeth, Aravis, Elijah, Kyrie, & Rachel

A picture of great joy.  Kyrie has Barbie driving a toy Allis-Chalmers D-19 tractor. 

Kyrie and Elijah, adventurers extraordinaire.  She's about 13 feet up and Elijah is abut 16 feet up.  They climbed down on their own.

The Long Ride

On the road

On May 20th, I had the great joy of driving this 1962, D-19 Allis-Chalmers, from Mt. Pleasant, Michigan to my in-laws who live north of Fremont, Michigan.  Total distance is about 62 miles.

This great adventure is the result of another unfolding adventure in our lives.  At the first of July 2011, I will be embarking on doctoral studies at Asbury Theological Seminary, specifically the Beeson Pastor track. In the Beeson Pastor track residential students move to Wilmore, KY for 11 months.  They take as few worldly goods with them as possible and stay in a 3 bedroom furnished townhouse.  Beeson Pastors also invest those 11 months in 9 courses on preaching, missions and church leadership with some extra learning trips rounding out the education.

It surprised Anna, but I thought we shouldn't take the tractor to Kentucky.  Thanks to my in-laws, we found a great spot to keep this orange beauty for at least the next year.  (For all of you John Deere fans out there, I had lots of offers from people close to Mt. Pleasant who would have loved to store this tractor.  That goes for the Case & Farmall folks too.)

I left Mt. Pleasant and arrived at the farm about 5 1/2 hours later.  Along the way I stopped 4 times.  I stopped to see a friend near Remus and the other three were for gas.  Norm Swinford wrote in an Allis-Chalmers book that the D-19 earned a reputation of not being able to drive by a gas pump without stopping.  I didn't need to stop as often as I did, but my legs were thankful to be off of the vibrating platform.

At one gas stop I went in the store to pick up some coffee and pizza.  The coffee canister was almost bone dry.  I let the check-out clerk know that it was empty.  She said she'd brew a fresh pot.  As I waited on the coffee I went up to pay and she said, "oh don't worry about it.  It's your lunch."  I told Anna about that and she said, "I think she was thinking about a country song . . . ."

At another stop another lady stopped and asked what year the pretty girl was.  I told her - 1962.  But then I wondered, why did she use the pronoun "she"?

My in-laws live close to a retreat center called "The Shack," in what the locals call Jugville, USA.  Just north of The Shack is a small convenience store.  As I approached the store from the north a car passed me with a dog in the backseat.  The window was rolled down and the dog stuck his head out and barked mightily.  I was standing up at the time and almost ducked for cover.  The driver and passenger snickered all the way to the country store.  Glad to make someone's day.

Taking a trip on the seat of a tractor,, or a bicycle lets one see things that are often overlooked.  Isabella county is chock full of red winged black birds.  They are majestic when they take off in flight. God must have had fun taking a black bird and painting two marvelous stripes of red where their wings meet their bodies.  West of Whitecloud, MI there's a grove of Cedar trees that filled the spring air with a splendid fragrance that is missed entirely when we roar by in our temperature controlled cars.  Just west of Stanwood, MI there's a gorgeous view that breaks out as one prepares to go under the highway overpass; there's a moment, a few hundred yards, where you can look out across a great forest that spans into western Michigan.  The sights and smells, and sounds, they're all there, but more often than not we're going to fast, trying to catch life, that we miss the fullness of life that is right before us.

The sun was out so I got the first sunburn of the year.

5 and 1/2 hours on a solitary tractor gives a person ample time to see, notice and pray.  I've come to appreciate the place of solitude and prayer that can transpire on the seat of a tractor.  The hum of the engine drowns out the other noise. Trying to talk on a cell phone is crazy.  It creates this marvelous buffer zone where the work of prayer can be entered into, enjoyed, and sipped like a great cup of coffee.  Things that need to be worked out in prayer really can be.  There's time to talk to God and ample time for Him to talk in return.  There's no place else you can go.

My second class at Asbury is on Spiritual Formation. A portion of the class experience is a weekend at the Abby of Gethsemane.  There we will be asked to quiet our worlds and our words.  We will be encouraged to take time to listen to God . . . maybe I should drive the tractor to KY.  Anna . . .
    
One final thought.  18 years before on May 20th, I drove into this driveway preparing to marry Anna.  I didn't drive in on a tractor, nor did I think this day would ever come.  Life is full of surprises. 
 

I'm in the driveway after 5 1/2 hours of fun.

That was fun, now, where do I park this and can I get a cup of coffee?  My mom picked out the sweatshirt.

tractor sledding - christmas break

This is one of the things we did during Christmas break.  We need more snow to do some more sledding.
The idea for a sled to pull behind the tractor came from my childhood.  My grandpa Markel had horses and when we had enough snow they would hook up a bob sled.  Since it's initial run I've added some other safety features.  The kids love it.

Tractor Transformation

Last December some guys from the church and I went to Archbold, Ohio.  On our way back home we stopped at my parents farm and loaded up this D-19 Allis-Chalmers, 1962 model.  I first bought it 1 January, 1990.  Here are three pictures of transformation.   

Aravis & nephew Owen atop the tractor at Roger Brooken's farm.  With Roger's expert know how the tractor that had not started in 13 years, started and motored around.

A picture from the spring.  I changed the snap-coupler hitch to an after-market 3 point and brought the tractor with Roger's disc in to work up our garden.  Kind of a big garden tractor.

After the garden work was done, I took the tractor to a local artist, Pat O'Brien.  Pat created a driving picnic table this summer and has a plethora of steel art work.  He fixed most of the oil leaks, re-shaped the tin, sand-blasted it down to raw metal and painted it - maybe better than out of the factory.  

Tractor Update

Allis-Chalmers D-19, at the beginning of its paint job.

Driveable picnic table.  Built and owned by the person painting and doing tin work on my tractor.  Asa is at the wheel.  It has a JD 730 grill, a 12 hp. lawnmower motor.  It can seat 8 adults and has cupholder holes in the top.

Plowing and Pictures

Today has held some wonderful experiences.  First I had a dream that prodded me to accomplish a real task in the day.  Then coffee with some good old guys out in the middle of the country.  Cap off the morning with pulling a 5 bottom plow with my Allis D-19.  (OK - I had to skim the surface in a few places.)  Then, working with Anna's camera on some picture projects.  Yet to be done today, Asa's baseball practice.

Here's a picture I captured yesterday in the church parking lot.  It made me smile and laugh.  I love to see people responding to Jesus!

Once Upon A Time - by Asa & Jason Leininger

Last night Asa was looking for a project.  I suggested that we write a story together.  He said that would be a great idea.  He said, I'll write one line, then you write a line.  When he came to me to write my line he said, no looking at what I wrote.  So that's how the writing came to be disjointed.  Truth be told, I did peek before I wrote my last sentence.  Maybe a disjointed story isn't out of the norm anyways - for many of us we live with many plot lines at work, and they intermingle to be the story arc.  Enjoy this short story, once upon a time . . .

Once upon a time

There was a farmer who owned an old tractor, an old old tractor. And he wanted to fix it, and he wanted to polish it. But it was stolen.

Blue and red, they are colors on my bed, they run along in my head, like ribbons holding in the dreams.

It was taken deep into the Misty Mountains where the creature Gollum lived with it for 500 years until the most unlikely creature you could possibly think of found it. It was a hobbit named Bilbo Baggins…… 60 years later

THE FELLOWSHIP of the TRACTOR,

Began with a trip to Louisville, Kentucky, to see a dream specialist. His office was directly beneath the roaring crowd assembled in Freedom Hall to see the tractor pulling finale.

In that arena Bilbo Baggins appeared, with a tractor huffing purple and pink smoke, with lightening white flames shooting up its smoke stacks. What triumph would come for Mr. Baggins today?

And He lived happily ever after for the rest of His days. And who knows what happened to the old farmer.

THE END

Allis Chalmers D-19 runs

This afternoon I stopped by the barn where Allis is being worked on.  We've done many things to get her running.  I walked in and knew that Roger had some success.  The old tractor started and ran.  I drove the old girl down the road.  I think it's been about 13 years since the tractor has run and been driven.  A great afternoon. 
Now we'll work the kinks out of her, make sure she's reasonably fit and free of major oil leaks and mechanical problems, and then a new coat of paint.

A tractor update

The first of the year has brought a new experience my way, working on a tractor, and doing it with my kids. It's been a great learning experience. I've finally figured out what a cam shaft does, what the valves do, and a host of other things about motors.
Every time I've gone to work on the tractor I've taken along some of the kids. Aravis has gone the most. She's very much into Barbie's and I'm hopeful that I can add some color to her life with an appreciation of tractors. I posited the idea of making a Barbie tractor movie that would have a different plot line than all of the other Barbie movies she has. She likes the idea very much and is working on some ideas as only a 4 year old girl can do.
Asa has gone twice and Moses once. They serve as good time keepers. When they start saying they're beyond cold, then I know it's time to pack it up for the day. This keeps our time to a realistic pace. They helped a bunch last week when we put the gas tank back on. There were two nuts that were impossible for me to put on, but their small hands were just right.
Anna said early on this would need to be a project that included them and it's becoming a great deal of fun. Later this week the carburetor should be finished being rebuilt and we'll hear the old engine run.

Aravis & Allis

This is Aravis atop an Allis-Chalmers D-19. This tractor has been in my life for more than 20 years. It is in a barn southwest of Mt. Pleasant. The tractor doesn't run right now. We're working on it. We've been helped along by a tractor enthusiast in our church. To date, we know the motor turns over, it fires - but backfires, the gas tank was clogged - so now it's off and to the cleaner. The best part of it, Aravis likes it, at least just a little.