Guilt And Fear

 Good morning folks. This coronavirus and efforts to curb it have stirred up all kinds of emotions. Frustration, anxiety, stress, sadness, anger, and even apathy to others' needs. And yes, guilt and fear. Below Karl is addressing our appreciation supper guests. He did a great job.

  We have sports teams and athletes trying to make us feel guilty because we love our country and will stand for it. We have politicians and teachers unions wanting us to feel guilty because we want our kids to go to school. We have news outlets that have made us to feel guilty for not staying home, or wearing masks, or social distancing. Below is the crew I have the privilege of working "closely" with on a regular basis minus Jim and Pablo.

Last Sunday evening brother Doug's family, brother Bill's family, and Jan and I sat outside Mom's window at the nursing home and listened to a church service together. Mom opened the window just a crack. She was scolded and made to feel guilty for that. Mom would much rather have a hug and chance sickness and even death over sitting in isolation 24 hours a day. I don't have all the answers folks, but I can tell you one thing. The way we are currently doing things is not right.

Then there are all these things we are supposed to be afraid of. You walk in a Caseys store. You wait to check out and you hear, "hey dude, six feet". Who in the world decided six feet was safe and five is not? The doctors we talk to with Mom and Dad tell me the simple masks we wear do no good. Yet we are made to be fearful of folks who don't have one on. We have been indoctrinated by the media to be scared of Covid. Yet as I see this virus hit closer and closer to those we know it's two days to two weeks of being sick depending on how old you are and 99.996% of us live. It's a virus. We all have either had it or will get it. We are being made to be fearful of each other. That's not what God intended.

And with all this hoop-la we have lost our focus and have been made to fear death. People have been dying since "In the beginning". That came with sin. However Christ came and covered that for us if we accept his perfect payment for our wrongs. Folks, as long as we are down here on earth we need to live like we have nothing to lose. Because we don't. Our treasures are in heaven. Forever after this life. I agree with Stonewall Jackson that I am just as safe on the battlefield as I am in bed because God determined the number of my days here before I was even conceived. One more thing to think about. Our countries death count in 2020 will be no higher than in 2019. I am so blessed and thankful for the gals in our family and crew. They planned, prepared, and served a great meal Wednesday evening.   Thanks girls

We were blessed to have a shop full of friends for supper Wednesday evening. It's our way as a family to say thank you to those we work and interact with. The crowd was equal in numbers to what we have had in previous years. It felt good to be together. I did not sense guilt or fear even from those who were 80 or older. We were created for relationships. You know in mid July the Family Leader got together in Des Moines for a leadership summit. In late July our community got together for a fair. Hopefully folks in our community are looking forward to getting together for a concert in the square our family is helping with. This may be risky to suggest however I think it's high time churches send a message out and start acting normal. The longer we make folks feel guilty for visiting and fear sitting together, the smaller the crowd will be when churches finally decide things are ok. Believe me, the folks that despise God and hate our country will be a long time before telling us it's ok.

The place was full of kids Wednesday evening having a blast together. Much of their growing up process is going to school and socially interacting. Grade school kids rarely get Covid and most high school kids getting it have a fever for a day or two. We need to have face to face school and sports, and we need to take personal responsibility to keep kids home if they don't feel well. Sounds like what we used to do. Kudos to our leaders like Governor Kim and others that are not making us feel guilty and are not fearful to lead in a positive rather than negative way.

This next story is for those of you living outside of Iowa. This past week Central Iowa experienced a dry hurricane (a derecho). You could see it coming. We had winds about 65 mph. Winds along and north of I80 were over 100 mph. The blowing dust cut visibility to about zero for a short time.

The company Karl and Kristin feed hogs for lost several buildings. It was reported over 200 hog buildings were damaged or destroyed. Since Karl had just emptied and cleaned, he received 12000 pigs from down buildings. Thanks for the picture Karl.

Tens of millions of bushels of commercial storage including Heartland Coop and Key Coop, and millions of bushels of farm storage were lost across central Iowa. Much of the corn from this area comes to Eddyville.

Iowa Sec of Ag said Iowa had 14.6 million acres of crops were affected with about 3.5 million acres of corn and 2.5 million acres of soybeans in the 36 hardest hit counties damaged or destroyed. Iowa has about 30 million crop acres total. 

Our landlord Gary who owns and operates Kelderman Manufacturing with his sons invented a cornhead reel in 1977. He told me he and his crew are running 6 lines of production building reels. Thanks for the picture Jeff.

Jan, Kristin, and Cassia spent Saturday canning salsa and pizza sauce. Along with some of our own, our landlords Buddy and Eileen brought us tomatoes for Wednesday supper. Thank you.

Our family shoots to start harvesting corn the week of Labor Day. I had a visit with Cargill/Eddyville shortly after the storm and mentioned we weren't sure the crop would be ready by then. After last week's low humidity, winds, and lack of rain for 4 weeks, things have really changed.

Corn maturity is at black layer. You can follow the process by watching the milk line come down the kernel. It takes about 30 days from pollination (tassels) to dent. And another 30 days from dent to black layer. You can see from the kernels below that the milk line is about half way down.

 In 2001 Keith Getty wrote a melody and Stewart Townsend wrote the words to a song about our hope. Take time this week to listen to "In Christ Alone". The final verse sums up such an important message. And I'd like to close by sharing that last verse with you all.

No guilt in life. No fear in death. This is the power of Christ in me; From life's first cry to final breath, Jesus commands my destiny. No power of hell, no scheme of man, can ever pluck me from His hand: Till He returns or calls me home. Here in the power of Christ I'll stand.

We can have that power folks. Our guilt has been paid for. We've nothing to fear. Let's live life like we've nothing to lose. Thanks so much for stopping by.