Harvest and Election Signs: A Midwest Pick-em-up Truck Drive Musing

 Yesterday, after spending most of the week in Zoom meetings for board's I serve on, I needed to get out from in front of a computer screen. So I told Nancy I was going to fire up the pick-up truck and head out for a ride. "Wanna go with?" She did and so off we went on the backroads -- Gasburg Road, Joppa Road, Bunker Hill Road, and many more.

We didn't talk much -- mostly just looked at fields that had been harvested, that needed harvesting, and were being harvested. We saw big combines working their way across cornfields, trailing clouds of dust and spewing field trash. We witnessed other combines, their wide corn or bean heads removed, maneuvering along the narrow country roads, cars and trucks scooting as far over as they could without tumbling into a ditch, as they moved from one field to the next.

We also saw the risings and fallings of the supposedly flat Indiana farmland that was revealed in the freshly picked fields. We drove through woods being stripped of leaves by cooler temps and the yesterday's blustery winds. The yellow, gold, and red leaves that once adorned the trees now spread like a carpet at their feet, while their arm-like limbs reached up into the sky.

Around every bend, we encountered yard signs promoting this candidate or that one. Looking at them, I remembered something that our granddaughter Alexis posted recently. According to her poll of yard signs, Joe Biden was going to place third in the Hoosier state's voting for president behind Trump and Firewood for Sale.

That was a good joke, I thought. And from our informal survey on our drive, looked to be true. 

The election will be over shortly, one way or another. And I, for one, will be happy to see the signs (regardless of candidate) come down. I will be even more glad to see the political ads disappear from the airwaves and interwebs. People send me, via messages and posts and tweets, things that vilify the candidate they don't like. I'm sick of it. I'm also weary of the increasingly negative attacks of candidates on each other. If I wasn't a pacifistic Quaker, after watching the ads and reading the memes, I'd be for taking all these horrible people out and shooting them. After all, according to the ads and memes there is not one good person running for office. And where these used to mostly be about higher offices (which is odd) now they've trickled down to the state, county, and city offices. Yesterday there was an ad on television saying how Peorgie Tirebinder, who is running for county dogcatcher, had been taking kickbacks from Purina Pet Chow and Pet Armor Flea and Tick Treatment to finance his condo in Florida.

Okay, I made that last little bit up.

As I sat in silence in Quaker worship this morning, I thought about some of what I've just written. Not a good way to center down into listening for God's voice -- except it was. Because I did hear a voice reminding me that on November 4, the signs and ads will be gone -- except for the "Firewood For Sale" ones. And that's a good sign. It connects us with the daily that goes on and on. Firewood, for some people will still be needed -- and it will be available. Those signs are a constant in rural Indiana ... and other states.

I was also reminded that there is another constant. The God of grace and God of glory. The God who is transcendent and immanent. The God who is Light, and Love, and Truth, and who promises never leave or forsake us. The God who is the Great Lover of Our Souls and warms them with a holy fire and lights our way forward. 

We could use a few signs for that. 

The Chick Magnet & Wildlife

I ran out of gas today. Well, not me, my mower. So I loaded up the gas cans in the Chick Magnet and headed to town. "The Chick Magnet" is the name of our old farm truck (tri-owned by me w/ two other guys). It's a 1990 Chevy S-10 with tinted windows, alarm system, chromed wheels, honkin' stereo and a bunch of other stuff. It's also got painting peeling off, rust everywhere, some major dents in the bed, and a host of bumper stickers holding the tailgate together ("You can no more win a war than you can an earthquake;" "Genuine VW Parts, Dude;" "I love Old Baldy," and more). You know it's a farm truck because you have know certain tricks about it -- like the keys aren't really necessary most of the time, the doors have to be closed a certain way if you want them to latch, the mud in the wheel wells is from 4 different fields, and stuff like that.

As a farm truck, it doesn't get driven all the time. Mostly to haul wood from a field after splitting or running to the hardware store for parts -- that sort of thing.

Anyhoo, I loaded it up and headed to town. When I got out at the gas station, I heard a strange buzzing. Loud. I started filling the gas cans and could still here the buzzing. Joined by a bird chirping at me from somewhere. I looked around the canopy over me for the bird and didn't see it. Then I decided to put some gas in the Chick Magnet. I opened the door covering the gas cap and the source of the buzzing was revealed -- a bunch of angry wasps swarmed out. As did I -- swarmed out of the neighborhood of the gas tank. After most of them dispersed, I went back and saw they had built a next right on top of the gas cap. No wonder they were buzzing -- they'd just taken a five mile trip in a beat up old truck. So I cleared them out, got gas and headed home.

When I got home and shut off the truck, I heard that bird again. Loud. Inside the truck. Remember what I said about shutting the doors just right? Well, somehow a birdie had built a nest inside the truck. Up inside the heater. Which explained why the air conditioning didn't seem to be putting out much air. So I opened the doors and I think the bird flew away whilst I finished mowing.

The oil needs changed in the Chick Magnet -- but I'll tell ya, I'm really a-scared to open the hood! Maybe a bobcat living in there.

I gotta drive that truck more often.

--Brent