There is nothing quite like the first good warm spring rain.

With careful observation, you know which one it is.  It rumbles in after one of the first good warm days of spring.  You can feel its presences as it gathers and collects in the western sky.

Physically, it is sometimes hard to distinguish.  Sometimes it is pierced by thunder and lightening.  Other times, it just slowly falls to the ground in intermintent bursts, with a quiet steady light rain in between.

But you know it by the feel.  The first good, getting-the-frost-out-of-the-ground rain just has that certian feel to it.  It is the first warm rain of the year.  Other rains have that cold, wintery feel to them.  Growing up in the Upper Great Plains, when we didn’t get the ice and the line between ice and rain seemed to be more pronounced then even a couple of hundred miles south of us, we could still tell the difference.  The spring rain just felt better.

The ground knows it too.  The tulips look a little brighter.  The grass goes from it’s light green, testing the surface look to a bright green hue - almost like it is smiling at you look.

And there is just something about the smell of the first good spring rain.  Something fresh, something earthy, something that has that newness of spring, yet you get the sense that the oldness of winter and the grey of the old is still there, but slowly slipping away.

My heart always feels a little lighter with the first good spring rain.  The sights, the sounds, the smells of spring are here to stay now.  The hope that comes with it is fresh on the heels.  It won’t be long before the tractors are rolling through the fields, the cows are calving, the freshness of the countryside will feed into the cities as well.  Gardens being planted, yards greening up, spring fever hitting old and young alike.

While the first spring rain is a once a year event, some of the next couple of rains are almost just as much fun.  My challenge to you, get outside, feel the drops, and wash away the old - and welcome the spring.

 (Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  Following is one of his early writings from September or October 1986)

 (In hopes of saving someone from having the same kind of traumatizing experience, I am relating this story to you.  This happened several months ago, but I have only recently recovered from the shock enough to relate to you this story.   The names have not been changed to protect anybody.  Our story begins in the still dark of a winter night…..)

My wife, Mary, and I were sleeping peacefully (we normally do at 4:45 a.m.) when the phone rang.  If you are like me, a phone ringing in the middle of the night is like shooting 1,200 volts of electricity under your toenails.

My response to hearing the phone ring at 4:45. a.m. was to sit bolt upright in bed screaming in panic., “WHAT’S THAT?!”

My wife’s response to hearing her husband screaming at the top of his lungs at 4:45 a.m. was to sit bold upright in bed screaming in panic, “IT”S THE PHONE!!”

Our cat’s response to hearing both of his owners screaming in panic at 4:45a.m. was to hide in the bathroom.

After the initial panic faded, I plunged madly through the house without the benefit of my glasses or any lights.  Luckily I suffered no permanent debilitating injuries.

IT TURNS OUT the phone call was for Mary.  She works at Hardee’s and someone on the morning shift had called in sick and they wanted to know if she could come to work at 6.  “Is Mary awake?” the voice queried.

“Hold on,” I said.  “I’ll go scrape her off the ceiling.”

After this incident I was physically and emotionally exhausted.  As Mary got ready for work she tried to talk to me.  I simply responded in an incoherent mumble from under the covers.  “Set the alarm for 7, “ I said.  She did and then mercifully left me and the cat alone in our misery.

My troubles were just beginning.

After a little more than an hour of restless sleep the alarm sounded immediately realized that I was in no condition to get up and face the day.  I reset the alarm for 7:45-I thought.  I actually reset the time for one hour ahead.

I then fell into the deepest sleep that I have ever experienced.  I think I know how Sleeping Beauty felt.

At exactly 8 I opened my eyes and began to panic part 2.  The room was so bright that I knew that I must have overslept.  The clock said that it was 9 o’clock. The clock lies.  I was supposed to be at a meeting at the office at 9.

I ran to the phone and dialed the office.”Phyllis?  This is Tom.  Tell Molly that I’m going to be late for our meeting,” I said. and hung up before the bewildered Phyllis could tell me that Molly wasn’t even there yet.

We have 3 other clocks in our house, not to mention the Timex strapped to my wrist. Did I bother to look at any of these?

Oh,nooo.

I dashed around the house getting ready, this time with the benefit of light.  It’s tough to brush your teeth while you are still eating your cereal but it can be done.  I jumped into the car while at the same time running a comb through my still-wet hair.  Every stoplight from our house to the office turned red as I approached.  (That was a total of one.)

I quickly checked to make sure that my fly was zipped and then dashed into the office.  As I ran through the door I looked at the clock to see how late I actually was for our meeting.  It was 20 minutes after.

WAIT A MINUTE….

It was only 20 after 8..  That’s when I realized everyone in the office was staring at me with a slightly quizzical look.

Rats.

There is an old Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”  It seems we are living in these times today.  A time when our senses are being assualted.  We are overloaded with music, television, movies, internet, computers, radios.  We are expected to eat, listen, visit, interact with others all while being constantly on the move.

Our thoughts are being assualted.  Our world is getting more and more complex with each passing day, as our societies become more and more interconnected and intertwined, we must think more about what we do, but seem to have less time to do it in.

Sometimes it comes down to do what is right, what is noble, and what is easy.

The Good Lord promises us the Advocate, the gift of the Holy Spirit, so that we might know that He lives, and so that we might live in Him and He is us.

It is hard in this day and age to live out faith.  To spread the word. 

Recently at a business training session, I went to breakfast early and ran into our facilitator, when I asked him how he was that morning, he answered “Blessed.”

Wow. Did that change my perspective.  It was a simple word to a simple question, but it changed my outlook on the day.  In this day, that simple word isn’t seen as politically correct.  That simple word isn’t seen as something a “normal” person would utter.  That simple word is not an easy one to say.  But it is the truth.  It is the right thing to say.  That is living life in the Spirit.

Our times are interesting.  Economic troubles.  World strife.  Polarization of our religions.  Families being ripped apart by differing opinions.  Drugs.  Young people being disallusioned by society.  Turning food into fuel.  Time seeming to move faster and faster.

Every day, we are faced with the choice - what is easy, what is right?

May we chose to live in the Spirit, and have the Spirit live in us.

The habenaro chile pepper is one of hotest, most intense peppers, or any food for that matter, on the planet.  Orginally grown in the Amazon and slowly spread through out the American continent by the natives peoples, it takes its name from the Cuban city of Havana.

What in the world would a Minnesota farm boy know about the habenaro?  A farm boy that grew up thinking that kethup was a spice?  Who used to use his father’s horseradish, not as a condiment, but by rubbing a little under his nose when he got a cold to stop his runny sinuses?  What on earth would a country boy like that know about these spicey delicacies?

Because this is the same country boy that won the habenaro pepper eating contest at an annual Minnesota crawfish boil in 2004. 

Seven habenaro’s in 45 minutes.  Oh yes, I felt the burn and the pain as they went down.  A little milk, a little cheese, and that was quickly placated.  I looked at the awe and amazement of my friends and co-workers as I plucked them like grapes and dangled them into my mouth, waited for the “oohhs and ahhs” to subside and then would drop them in and chew (or just swallow and pretend to chew) with little pain showing on my face and to the delight of the onlookers.

It was the stuff of legends.

But nothing could quite prepare me for what hit me the following morning.

I awoke to a slighly cold and clamy feeling at about 6:30am that Sunday morning.  And a slight tinge in my stomach.  I couldn’t quite place what it was, until I remembered, “ah yes, I’m a habenaro hero.”

Since I was up, I figured I might as well go to 7:30am Mass.  By 7:00, as I was getting ready to go, I started having the first of a series of hot flashes.  Nothing to worry about - I could survive.

As I pulled into the church parking lot, I realized that I could no longer stand erect, that the burning in my intestines was now tightening the muscles in my back, if that was possible.

By 8:00am, with the church service half over, I wondered if they could just use this as my funeral Mass, as I was sure the flames would erupt either up my throat and out my mouth, or simply burn through my stomach and burn me from the middle on out.  “How would they identify me from the charred remains?” mused I…not really kidding…

As I staggered to my car about 8:30am, now hunched over, in a half fetal position, I realized that I had lost the feelings in my hands and feet.

I remember thinking to myself, “This could be an interesting day.”

By 9:00am, I was back home and went immediately to the bathroom.  At that point, I became concerned.  What was coming out of the back end of me could potentially eat its way through the porcelien.  As I was altenating between sitting on the toilet and rolling in a fetal position on the bathroom floor.  I was worried that either the stool would collapse as I sat on it, or that I would be burned as the contects of the toilet oozed out of the pits I was sure it was eating into it.

Either way, I was sure I saw and smelled smoke coming out of the bowl.

By 11:00am, I was beginning to regain my senses.  There was now some feeling in my hands and feet, and I could stand up, semi-erect.

I had an aunt and uncle’s 40th wedding anniversary to attend, so I changed, and made it across town to the VFW hall.  Still a little pale, and with little appetite.

I had survived.

The next morning, Monday, one of my co-workers walked up and asked,  “so how were you feeling on Sunday morning?” 

Ever the Minnesotan, my response, “Oh, not so bad…but my stomach kind of tickled.”

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s)

You can take the boy off the farm but you can’t take the farm out of the boy.

Yep, that’s right, I’m getting just a touch homesick for the farm back home.  It probably wouldn’t be so bad if were living in Minneapolis, Chicago or Vladivostok, but here we are right in the middle of Kossuth County, Iowa.  For acres and acres as far as the eye can see, farmers are reving up their tractors for spring planting.

It’s just a little tough for a farm-boy like me to sit inside and peck away at a keyboard while the farmers are getting ready to stir up some dust.

Six months ago I’d have never have admitted that I missed the cows either.  While I was in high school I would have given anything to get rid of those dirty so-and-sos.  I guess I was suffering from just one too many dung-filled tail-slaps in the face.

So here I sit.  No milk buckets to carry, no manure to pitch-I’m getting soft.  For weeks I’ve been telling myself that I’m not gaining weight, but I’m sure getting tired of cutting myself in half everytime I put my pants on in the morning. 

I used to have calluses on my hands too.  I was pretty proud of those.  These weren’t your mere hardening-of-the-skin calluses, but real hard-as-leather-discolored-skin calluses.  When I was a little tyke I couldn’t wait until I had hard dark hands like Dad.  Then I would be a real farmer.

Now I don’t even have dirt under my fingernails.

Every now and then I hop in my pickup and go fir a drive in the country.  Just to pretend. 

There is nothing quite like the thrill you can get from listening to a heavy diesel tractor idling in a field or farm yard.  It’s quite a feeling of power to know that just a the touch of your hand, you can send that tractor roaring off down the field to rip up all those nasty weeds.

The old tractors are fun too.  We had several Farmalls.  An “H,” a “Super M” and a “Super MTA” were the mainstays of power on our little farm You just couldn’t destroy those old tractors- you just recycled the them.  Every 6 or 7 years we would tear them apart, fix them up, and put them back together again and they would be nearly as good as new.  Through the entire process you prayed that you didn’t have any extra pieces left over when you were finished.

Unlike many youngsters, I was no stranger to metal tractor seats.  More than a few evenings it was more comfortable for me to stand than sit day after day in the field.

In order to stop this rambling reminiscence before it gets out of hand, I’ll tell you that since I am no longer a real farm boy, I’m going to pretend in our backyard.

Much to my wife’s growing dismay, I’ve started some plants in a sunny window of our spare room and I’ve got little packets of seeds heaped up in the middle of the dining room table.  I’m just raring to go for “spring planting.”

Next week I’m going down to a hardware store and pick out a shiny new shovel, rake and hoe.  I can already tell this is going to be fun, I think.

Meanwhile, Mary wails in the background, “What are we going to do with all this stuff if it all grows?”

I guess she just hasn’t realized that crop surpluses are a part of farming.

Jesus tells us, “Do not let your hearts be troubled.  You have faith in God; have faith in Me also.”

How many times have we heard the reassuring words in the Gospels?  At his conception, we heard the angel say to Mary, “Be not afraid.”  At his birth, the angels said to the angels - “Do not be afraid, we bring you great tidings of great joy.”  All through his ministry, including up to the last meal with His Apostles, when He broke the bread and gave His flesh to eat, he told them “peace.”  Upon his rising, the first words were, “Do not be afraid.”

Yet we live in troubling times.

We are no longer put to death in the collisuems.  We are no longer hunted down and thrown to lions.  We have the freedom to ask questions of our faith.  We have the freedom, almost the expectation, to go to church and belong to a congregation.  Social norms now say we must have our children baptized.  Go through the motions of our faith.

But the cries for justice, for peace, for real faith are still there and still present.

There is hunger in the developing world.  There is people without food, without shelter, without freedom, without the basic rights that we have here in the United States.  Even when they have their rights, there are people locked in the viscious cycle of poverty, in the cycles of addictions.  Even when people have what they need, they get locked in the cycles of shelfishness, in conceit, in arrogance, in greed.

There is no peace.  There is no justice.  There is no goodness.

Or so it would appear.

In reality, there is goodness, there is justice, and their is peace.  For everyone that helps his neighbor, everyone who stands for what is right, whether during protests or activism, or just going to the ballot box - there is hope, there is goodness, there is justice.

We are all called to live a life of hope.  To do the deeds, to give ourselves in serving each other, to work to bring the Kingdom of God here on earth.  To leave the world a little brighter.

Jesus said “Do not be afraid.” and “Do not let your hearts be troubled.”  He did not say it would be easy.  He did not say stay safe.  He did not say we would not be disappointed by others or by events,

He said, “Have faith in Me.”

I like rabbits, I really do.

But two of the last homes I have lived in, I have been plagued with some of the hungriest little cottontails that have managed to decimate any of the feeble attempts to make my homes seem a little greener.

Makes me get a hankering for Hasenpfeffer just thinking about them.

Growing up, they were not that common of a sight, dispite their quickness, they were rarely a match for our cattle dogs or the small army of cats that prowled the farmstead.  When we did see them, they weren’t in the yard for very long - and rarely did the dog or cat let them rest if they managed to sneak into the garden.

Occasionally, you would end up with a stray cottontail that could ellude the dogs and cats and go to work on the garden.  But we counted on that garden to make it through to the next year as well, and more drastic means were called upon.  One good shot from the twenty-two rifle would take care of it - I don’t know if we ever actually killed one that way, but it scared the malted milk balls out of them enough to make sure they never came back.

When I bought my first house in the midst of the city, I wanted to test my green thumb and farming skills amid the crop of 1950’s story and a half homes.  Digging up a corner of my yard, my retired neighbor watched my progress.

“I love fresh vegetables, reminds me of growing up on the farm,” my neighbor said as he puffed on his cigerette.

“Yup, agree.” I said “Beans, peas, corn - I’m going to grow as much as I can on this fifteen square foot piece of earth.”

“Good” my neighbor said as he rubbed the tattoos on his arm, “the only thing I like more then fresh vegetables is watching those cute little rabbits running and playing through our back yard.”

I knew I was in trouble.

A quick check at the garden center said I had two options.  One - get a dog.  Two - try planting marigolds around the perimeter of the garden.  Rabbits hate the smell of marigolds.  Since I lived in a small house, with a smaller yard (half of which was soon to be a cornicorpia of produce).  I chose option two.

The garden grew.  The corn, the beans, the peas, the spinich, the cabbage and totatoes, they all grew.

Little did I know that the rabbits were only waiting long enough to make sure they had a full feast.

Every morning I’d get up and see a family of rabbits happily munching on my garden.  I swear I saw one reading a tiny rabbit newspaper and another picking its teeth with a toothpick.  I was expecting to find a card by the backdoor thanking me for planting the floors around their pantry.

Thoughts of pellet guns, poisons, and death traps raced through my mind - but everytime I’d go outside, it seemed my neighbor would remind me as he worked on his Harley - “I sure do like seeing those rabbits everyday.”

I managed to get one tomato out of that nice little garden.

When I was shopping for my second house in the same neighborhood (a job in Ohio had me move for two years), I found a nice house, almost identical to the first.  Looking at the house, the only thing growing in the garden on that nice spring day were the tulips.  As a farmboy, I new the perinniel was low mainentence and good to look at in the spring - like some of the farm girls I knew from college.

The first spring, I was excited as the snow melted and the first green shoots sprung from the ground.  Then one morning - they were all gone.  Nibbled to nothing by the same varmints that destroyed my first garden.  Both my new neighbors were sympathetic…to the poor bunny rabbits.

“Well they don’t have much else to eat out here - nothing else is growing.” Darn city slickers.

This year, I think I’ve finally found the solution, I’ve poor vineger all around the garden edging.  Everytime I notice a rabbit getting close, I poor on more vineger.

My tulips are close to full bloom.  Only a few have gotten tasted.  And the poor rabbits are looking longingly from a distance and I can see them saying to me, “what’s up doc.”

Now I just hope that vineger smell manages to go away before the snow flies this fall…

(Tom Jirik wrote columns in several newspapers in Iowa from the late 1980’s to the mid 1990’s.  Following is one of his early writings from September or October 1986)

Silence.

Oppressive, heavy, deadly silence that was broken only by the slow dripping of water from the kitchen faucet.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He sat there in a sterile white kitchen.  His face glistened with sweat.  His palms were sweaty with perspiration.  Hands shaking so much he could barely light the cigarette in his hand.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

The silence was so overpowering that every nervous breath he took roared in his ears.

He tried to avoid looking at the chipped formica table in front of him.  It reminded him of what he had to do.

He had to do it.  He had come to that realization 2 weeks ago.  For 2 weeks he tried to think of another way, but there was no other way.

It was in there, alive and laughing at his fear.  He hated it and feared it, but he would have to use a knife and complete the grisly task.  There was no other way.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He looked down at the dirty socks on his feet, then at the clock above the dripping sink.  Three minutes had passed since he had looked at the clock last.  He realized that he could hear the clock ticking.

Drip. Tick. Drip. Tick.

His breath roared and behind the door it laughed.

He crushed out his cigarette in the ash-tray next to the knife.  His white T-shirt was soaked with sweat.

As he looked at the knife he imagined how it would be when it was in his hand, cold and sharp.  He would gouge and jab at its heart and the knife would make sucking sounds as he plunged it in.  He hated himself for thinking about it.  He hated the laughing more.

He picked up the knife.  His fingers left greasy fingerprints on the wooden handle.  It was a fine knife with a hand-carved handle and a 7-inch carbon steel blade.

He looked at the blade.  He was hypnotized by the way the glaring light in the kitchen flashed from the cold steel.

Drip. Tick. Drip. Tick.

He grabbed the handle on the door to the refrigerator and yanked it open with all his strength.  In one motion he grabbed the pale green Tupperware bowl from the shelf and ripped the cover from its top.

There it was, the object of his fear… green, furry, mold. Alive and growing on the top of month-old hot dish.

He jabbed the knife in again and again, pulling the soggy mass out of the bowl and into the garbage with a sucking sound.
Forcing himself not to gag, he ran to the sink and submerged the knife and the bowl into the hot water.  

He stood with his hands braced against the edge of the cupboard, taking ragged gasps of breath, sweat pouring down his face.

Drip. Tick. Drip. Tick.

“Boy, do I hate mold,” he said to no one in particular.

“I am the gate.  Whoever enters through me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.  A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.”  Those are the words of our Lord from John’s gospel - He is the gate, the gate to happiness, the gate to heaven, the gate to peace.

That doesn’t mean that we will not suffer, that we will not stray, that we will not face the thief.  For thieves there are.  Evil men, evil thoughts, evil nature that will lead us astray. 

Sinful thoughts, sinful actions, sinful nature.  The thieves are still present, still among us, still within us.  But we must follow His voice.It seems in this day and age, we are facing more and more of these thieves.  Both from within and from outside.

We strive for money, prestige, honor, for glory.  But there is no glory but through the cross.  We become like Adam and Eve before the whispers of the serpent - “you will be like gods.”  We too share their weakness and fall for the serpents song.  We take the glory, prestige, honor and glory - when by right, they belong to Him.

We fail to use the gate - we fail to remember that with money, prestige, honor and glory comes a price - a weight.  These things are not in and of themselves evil, but they are when we fall to pride, to greed, to glottony, to sin.  We forget that these things are fleeting, that the pasture lies through the gate - through the words, through the goodness of Christ.

For we are sinful by nature.  We are weak by nature.  We fall for the serpents whispers.  But we must remember the words of Peter in the book of Acts, “Repent and be baptized in the name Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will be given the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is made to you and your children and all those far off.”

That promise is of salvation for our souls.

But there is no promise that we shall be free from suffering.  Indeed, in the Letter from St. Peter, we are told to expect suffering - but we are to follow his example of the cross.  We are to suffer patiently, and with joy.

Suffer with joy?

For we know that the sufferings of this life are fleeting.  We know that peace - peace as He gives - is found in the forgiveness of our sins, by the promise of the cross.  That in his suffering, dying and rising, we too are reborn - by His wounds we are healed!

We are called to leave the sins of this generation, to leave the temptations, to leave the evils behind us.  That does not mean that we retreat from this world.  That means that we should go forth boldly, doing good works, living life justly, judging no man, forgiving those who have wronged us - leading a life lead by the Spirit - a life more abundant!

I grew up with no hockey aspirations.  I was a dairy farmers son in small town Minnesota that thought high sticking was what happened when you were chasing the cows through the woods and a stray branch snapped back into you face. Sure I had heard about the North Stars, the Rangers, the Penguins, the Whalers, the Islanders - the farm radio used to give us the scores right after reporting the Vikings losses in the fall and the Twins prospects in the spring.

Going away to college, I went to my first minor league game in Fargo, the now defunct FM Bears.

I was hooked.

All through college, we took in hockey games when we could through a series of minor league teams that plyed the rinks in the Fargo Moorhead area.  Then on to the University of Illinois club team.

When I finally moved to Minneapolis and St. Paul on my second tour of duty on my job, I finally had the chance to go to my first Minnesota Wild game. 

It was fast, on the edge of your seat action.  You had to keep your eyes on the ice.  There was scoring, there was fighting, there was people being slamed into the boards - so in some ways just like growing up with my older brothers…

You also have to understand that growing up in Northern Minnesota, we Czechs were a bit of a minority among the Germans and the Scandinavians.  We got along with them great - except sometimes we felt they showed just a little to much emotion.  I can remember clapping at some football and basketball games, but shouting?  Never necessary.  Standing?  Discouraged - after all you will block the view of the people behind you.  Jeering a referee or a competitor?  You must show respect authority and the competition.  The wave?  Are you out of your mind!

The Wild games were something completely different.

Cheering and jeering.  Standing.  Shouting.  The entire atmosphere is charged.  They play the right music, show the right clips on the scoreboard, pump in just the right words to get people excited and on their feet.  Movie clips from famous war and battle movies?  Check.  A song that references the loss of the beloved North Stars?  Check (actually - the exact words from the Wild Anthem are “A big blue line runs around our state, A line that can’t be crossed.  The day they try to take this game, Is the day the gloves come off” and - I’m not kiding here - “The game’s in our blood and our blood’s in the game. Lay us down under a frozen pond.”

I’m not one to get carried away with the crowd, but I do get into it. 

I stand, I shout, I yell.  The hair on the back of my neck stands up when the Wild anthem is played.  In short, not normal Czech like behavior.

Sometimes you need to forget your cares a little bit, sometimes you need to cheer on your favorite team and release some that pent up stress and emotion.  What better way to do it then cheering on your favorite hockey team.

Especially when twenty-five of the team is make up of people from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.  That’s enough to make a Czech cheer.