Sixth Sunday of Easter, May 10, 2026
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Hot flash
And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father,
and I will love him and reveal myself to him.
At Jacques Seed Company a team of research folks went to southern Illinois to weed their bean fields, experimental varieties that would hopefully prove to be profitable in the future. I worked in the office as truck dispatcher and receptionist, and that day I joined the research crew – Lyndall, Pat, Ben and the others. Change of scenery for me, and a big help to them. Most of those guys were collegey, not farm kids, and they hadn’t done much weeding of the beans so far in their careers.
We drove south from Lincoln, talking, sleeping, singing … and then there we were on the edge of a soybean field near Burnt Prairie. We got there in the middle of the day, sun beating us over the head, and we worked all afternoon sweating and drinking water, sweating some more.
Then I began to faint. The farm boy couldn’t keep up with the college kids. I laid down on the ground between the rows, and they attended to me. Water, ice, the loving touch of folks who didn’t want me to die, I rested for a couple of hours, and then pulled a few more jimson weeds. They were excited, because we were staying at the Louisville Executive Inn with its atrium and glass elevators and nightlife. First time for me. I thought Burnt Prairie was all we were going to get.
That night a Louisville club featured a hypnotist, who invited those of us in the crowd with courage to join him onstage. That included me. The heat stroke, or whatever it was, must have made me malleable, because the Jacques guys told me afterward about a few embarrassing things I did.
That would have been 42 years ago, 1984 or so. Yesterday in Austin, I was cleaning out the car, removing heavy stuff like a hydraulic jack and cordless lug wrench, and a spare tire. to make room for ADRN donation boxes. I didn’t think about the heat and pushed too hard. Stumbling into our apartment, I fell into a chair. Then into bed. Margaret gave me water, electrolytes, protein drink, cheese, strawberries … I couldn’t eat right away. Laying on my new cool adjustable bed with the massage going, I felt the heat all over me. Fever? I guess so. Dehydrated? Probably. Neither of us knows much about coming back from heatstroke (or whatever it was). I didn’t think I should go to sleep, maybe. I didn’t want to stand up because I figured I’d faint and fall right over. My friend John in Champaign told me about his own experience with that a few months ago.
And while I laid there I thought, as I often do, of Faulkner’s first novel with the auspicious title, As I Lay Dying. I remembered my spiritual director friend’s own counselor-priest, invited to lunch with a friend, choking on a potato, and dying at the table. I thought of Anne Rice, author of the Dracula novels and the Jesus books, collapsing in a diabetic coma before she realized she had become diabetic. I remembered the story my brother told me about his own experience a few weeks ago.
Not a great way to spend half the afternoon. But then, since I finally could and thought I should, I pushed up from the bed and resumed my life. I sat there and ate all the food, the strawberries and the cheese and the bread. Then Margaret and I were happy to still be together in our Austin world, sitting on the couch and getting normal again.
I kind of realized more thoroughly how close these heart issues (and who knows what else) have got me to the edge. Margin for error? Not so much. Not what I’m used to.
But thoughts of the bean field in Burnt Prairie did help. I didn’t die then in 1984, when Chris and Marc were barely tall enough to not get lost in our own bean field, and Andi was not yet born. All those Jacques guys cared for me, and then we rode in the glass elevator, and then the hypnotist had his way with me. I think we must have had steak dinners too. Mr. Jacques gave his research boys and girls generous expense accounts.
We talked, Margaret and I, and then we acted more concretely on what we already knew, that both of us would do much better with help from our friends. Gift, gift, gift! Margaret wrote a note to our Empty Nesters classs, I called my three confidant friends and asked for help … and I did not return to the overheated Prius just outside my window.
So thankful.
Always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks you for a reason for your hope. But do so with gentleness and respect.
The reason for my hope isn’t lodged in logic or intellectual argument. It’s the stuff of stories and visceral experience of how much friends and family and the Holy Spirit wrap me in their love. Francis told his friars to preach always, but only, if necessary, with words.
Like today. Like the beanfield in Burnt Prairie. Saturday afternoon all the colors were brighter when I opened my eyes again.
Let all the earth cry out to God with joy!
(Acts 8, Psalm 66, 1 Peter 3, John 14)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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