We come across a ridge and hear a cowbell in the cove beyond, a tinkle sweetening the air with vague rubato as the breeze erases tones and then the notes resume like echoes from the past or from a cave inside the cliff, a still, calm voice in dialect and keeping its own company, both out of time and long as time, both here and from a higher sphere, as if the voice of history were intimate as memory. ~Robert Morgan “Cowbell”
Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly, Asleep on the black trunk, Blowing like a leaf in green shadow. Down the ravine behind the empty house, The cowbells follow one another Into the distances of the afternoon. To my right, In a field of sunlight between two pines, The droppings of last year’s horses Blaze up into golden stones. I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on. A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home. I have wasted my life. ~James Wright “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota”
photo by Kate Steensma from Steensma Creamery
One of the lullabies I remember hearing as a youngster were cowbells in the pasture outside my bedroom window on our small family farm. Each of our three milking Guernsey cows wore a bell on her neck so my dad could tell where they were in our wooded field. He’d whistle and call “Come Bossy!” and they would walk single file into the barn, ringing and tinkling with each step, for their twice daily grain and hand-milking.
When I was old enough, I liked to perch on top of their bony backs while my dad leaned his head into their flank, whistling a tune while he milked them, the steaming stream of milk hitting the metal bucket with a high-pitched whine. The bells on their necks still chimed as the cows chewed, moving their heads up and down to finish their meal.
This was divine music that soothed and reassured me and I felt I could follow it anywhere. All was right with the world, thanks to the cows and their intrinsic tunes created by their movements, as if they were created to charm their keepers.
There are moments when I believe we are hearing what heaven must sound like.
Now, seven decades later, the soft harmony of cowbells is replaced by the random chords of wind chimes hanging outside our house.
The memory of cowbell music remains a reminder: I have not wasted my life if I can taste heaven through such simple things and magical moments.
But I still need more cowbell…
This year’s Lenten theme:
…where you go I will go… Ruth 1:16
and because there is always a need for more cowbell…
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The main thing is this– when you get up in the morning you must take your heart in your two hands. You must do this every morning. Then talk softly to your heart, don’t yell. Say anything but be respectful. Say–maybe say, Heart, little heart, beat softly but never forget your job, the blood. You can whisper also, Remember, remember. ~Grace Paley from “The Art of Growing Older” in Just As I Thought
Approaching seventy, she learns to live, at last. She realizes she has not accomplished half of what she struggled for, that she surrendered too many battles and seldom celebrated those she won. Approaching seventy, she learns to live without ambition: a calm lake face, not a train bound for success and glory. For the first time, she relaxes her hands on the controls, leans back to watch the coming end. Asked, she’d tell you her life is made out of the things she didn’t do, as much as the things she did do. Did she sing a love song? Approaching seventy, she learns to live without wanting much more than the light in the catbird window seat where, watching the voracious fist-sized tweets, she hums along. ~Marilyn Nelson “Bird Feeder”
I’ve been learning in retirement to let go by relaxing my grip on the controls on the runaway train of ambition. This is a change for someone driven for decades to succeed in various professional and personal roles.
I’m aware who I am is defined both by what I haven’t gotten done and what I managed to do. And now, at seventy years old, I hope I still have some time to explore some of those things I left undone.
Except I haven’t been as robust and healthy as I wish to be. For the past month, during very chilly weather and after a prolonged bout of bronchitis, I found I couldn’t tolerate the cold air outside or in the barn while I did daily chores. My chest strangely hurt.
I finally took myself to a cardiologist who was concerned with a number of risk factors in my family and my own history and arranged testing, which I flunked yesterday.
I ended up with two stents to open blockages in my main coronary artery, plus a night in the hospital. I spent the night thinking about blessings and what needs to happen in my life now:
Reflecting with gratitude on being alive by the grace of our Lord. Holding my heart gently and treating it well. Humming as I go. Just sitting when I wish but walking when I must. Watching out the window for the real twitters and tweeters in this crazy noisy world. Loving up those around me.
It’s sweet to remember why I’m here. I’ve been given a new chance to enjoy every moment.
So after a lifetime of getting mostly A’s, flunking isn’t always bad.
Every day after work he’d sit in his armchair with its antimacassar and its plush burgundy velour and she’d kneel on the floor to unfasten the laces, loosen the tongues, and lift out his feet. When I was ten I stayed for a week and did it for her. He thought I did it for him. ~Andrea Hollander Budy “My Grandmother Taking Off My Grandfather’s Shoes” from When She Named Fire
I did not grow up in a household that took time off. Time was redeemed by work, and work was noble and honorable and proved we had a right to exist.
Vacation road trips were rare and almost always associated with my father’s work. When he came home from his desk job in town, he would immediately change into his farm clothes and put in several hours of work outside, summer or winter, rain or shine, light or dark.
My mother did not work in town while we were children, but worked throughout her day inside and outside the house doing what farm wives and mothers need to do: growing, hoeing, harvesting, preserving, washing, cleaning, sewing, and most of all, being there for us.
As kids, we had our share of chores that were simply part of our day as our work was never done on a farm. When we turned ten, we began working for others: babysitting, weeding, barn and house cleaning, berry picking. I figure I put in over 60 years of gainful employment – there were times I worked four part-time jobs at once because that was what I could put together to keep things together.
I know I’ve missed out on much of life being a “nose to the grindstone” person.
Now retired, I try a different way to redeem my time: to notice, to record, to observe, to appreciate beauty that still exists in the midst of chaos and cataclysm..
Life isn’t all about non-stop labor, yet we get on with our work because work is about showing up when and where we are needed.
And we are always needed, by someone, somewhere, somehow. That’s the reason why we’re here.
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I was your rebellious son, do you remember? Sometimes I wonder if you do remember, so complete has your forgiveness been.
So complete has your forgiveness been I wonder sometimes if it did not precede my wrong, and I erred, safe found, within your love,
prepared ahead of me, the way home, or my bed at night, so that almost I should forgive you, who perhaps foresaw the worst that I might do,
and forgave before I could act, causing me to smile now, looking back, to see how paltry was my worst, compared to your forgiveness of it
already given. And this, then, is the vision of that Heaven of which we have heard, where those who love each other have forgiven each other,
where, for that, the leaves are green, the light a music in the air, and all is unentangled, and all is undismayed. -Wendell Berry “To My Mother”
During barn chores, it did seem odd that one of our Haflinger geldings stood facing the back wall as I opened his stall door to give him his hay. For a moment I wondered if there was a problem with his appetite as he usually would dive right into his hay immediately. A closer look told me the problem was with his hind end, not his front end: his heavy white tail was wrapped snugly around a J hook hanging on the stall wall that is meant to hold his water bucket. Instead now he was hooked instead of the bucket — and he was stuck.
He had apparently been itching his butt back and forth, round and round on the handy hook and managed to wrap his tail into such tight knots on the hook that he was literally tethered to the wall. He was very calm about the whole thing – perhaps a little embarrassed.
He turned his head to glance at me, looking pitiful. How long he’d been standing there like that through the night was anyone’s guess.
I bet he no longer was itchy.
I started to work at untying the tail knots to free him and found them wound so tight that loosening them required significant cooperation from my 1200 pound buddy. Unfortunately, any time I managed to almost unloop a knot over the hook end, he would pull forward, snugging it even tighter.
Out of desperation I pulled out the scissors I keep in my barn jacket pocket. I cut one knot hoping that would be sufficient. Then I cut through another knot. Still not enough. I cut a third big knot and thank God Almighty, he was free at last.
He sauntered over to his hay now with a chunk of his tail in my hand and a big gap in what was still left hanging on him. It may take a year to grow that missing hair back out. But hey, it is only hair and at least someone kind and caring came along with a set of shears to release him painlessly from his captivity.
We aren’t all so lucky.
I know what it is like to get tangled up in things I should probably give wide berth. I have a tendency, like my horse, to butt in where I best not be and then become so bound I can’t get loose again. It can take forever to free myself, sometimes painfully leaving parts of my hide behind.
So when I inevitably get tied up in knots again, I hope someone will come along to save me. Better yet, I hope someone might warn me away from the things that hook me before I foolishly back right into them. I’ve got to loosen up and quit pulling the knots tighter.
It’s best to always have a forgiving detangler handy. You never know when you might need one.
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When it snows, he stands at the back door or wanders around the house to each window in turn and watches the weather like a lover. O farm boy, I waited years for you to look at me that way. Now we’re old enough to stop waiting for random looks or touches or words, so I find myself watching you watching the weather, and we wait together to discover whatever the sky might bring. ~Patricia Traxler “Weather Man”
My farm boy does still look at me that way, wondering if today will bring frost, damaging hail, a wind storm, a blizzard,
maybe fog or mist, or soft lazy snowflakes, a scorcher, or a deluge.
I reassure him as best I can, because he knows me so well in our many years together:
today, like most other days will be partly cloudy with a snow shower or two and occasional sun breaks.
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The bud stands for all things, even for those things that don’t flower, for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing; though sometimes it is necessary to reteach a thing its loveliness, to put a hand on its brow of the flower and retell it in words and in touch it is lovely until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing; as Saint Francis put his hand on the creased forehead of the sow, and told her in words and in touch blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow began remembering all down her thick length, from the earthen snout all the way through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail, from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine down through the great broken heart to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them: the long, perfect loveliness of sow. ~Galway Kinnell “Saint Francis and the Sow”
None of us trust our own loveliness; we who are concerned with a blemish or an unusual shape of toe or nose.
Yet we are made as we are as an image of our Maker.
If we consider the purpose for which we’re created, then we are just as we should be – blessed with exact shape and size and spirit with which we serve and bring joy to others.
Our loveliness must be retold so we believe it thoroughly – as a bud is all about blossoming, a mother pours her love into the empty, a father leads and guides the lost.
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Christmas Eve, and twelve of the clock. “Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock By the embers in hearthside ease. We pictured the meek mild creatures where They dwelt in their strawy pen, Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then.
So fair a fancy few would weave In these years! Yet, I feel, If someone said on Christmas Eve, “Come; see the oxen kneel, “In the lonely barton by yonder coomb Our childhood used to know,” I should go with him in the gloom, Hoping it might be so. ~Thomas Hardy “The Oxen”
Says a country legend told every year: Go to the barn on Christmas Eve and see what the creatures do as that long night tips over. Down on their knees they will go, the fire of an old memory whistling through their minds!
So I went. Wrapped to my eyes against the cold I creaked back the barn door and peered in. From town the church bells spilled their midnight music, and the beasts listened – yet they lay in their stalls like stone.
Oh the heretics! Not to remember Bethlehem, or the star as bright as a sun, or the child born on a bed of straw! To know only of the dissolving Now!
Still they drowsed on – citizens of the pure, the physical world, they loomed in the dark: powerful of body, peaceful of mind, innocent of history.
Brothers! I whispered. It is Christmas! And you are no heretics, but a miracle, immaculate still as when you thundered forth on the morning of creation! As for Bethlehem, that blazing star still sailed the dark, but only looked for me. Caught in its light, listening again to its story, I curled against some sleepy beast, who nuzzled my hair as though I were a child, and warmed me the best it could all night. ~Mary Oliver“Christmas Poem” from Goodness and Light
Growing up on my childhood farm, remembering the magic of Christmas eve night, I bundled myself up to stay warm in our barn, to witness an unbelievable sight.
At midnight we knew the animals knelt down, speaking words we could all understand, to worship a Child born in Bethlehem town, in a barn, long ago in a far away land.
They were there that night, to see and to hear, the blessings that came from the sky. They patiently stood watch at the manger near, in a barn, while shepherds and kings stopped by.
My trips to the barn were always too late, our cows would be chewing, our chickens asleep, our horses breathing softly, cats climbing the gate, in our barn, there was never a neigh, moo or peep.
But I knew they had done it, I just missed it again! They were plainly so calm, well-fed and at peace in the sweet smelling straw, all snug in their pens, in a barn, a mystery, once more, took place.
Even now, I still bundle to go out Christmas eve, in the hope I’ll catch them just once more this time. Though I’m older and grayer, I still firmly believe in the barn, a Birth happened amid cobwebs and grime.
Our horses sigh low as they hear me come near, that tells me the time I hope for is now, they will drop to their knees without any fear in our barn, as worship, all living things bow.
I wonder anew at God’s immense trust for His creatures so sheltered that darkening night – the mystery of why of all places, His Son must begin life in a barn: a welcoming most holy and right. ~ “In the Barn” (written Christmas Eve 1999)
I walk to the barn tonight as I do each year, Counting my blessings, knowing my flaws, Praying for family and friends so dear, And for each precious creature with hooves or paws.
Each horse is content and a witness to peace, And I wish every person could know, Sadness and worry for a moment can cease, While patting noses down a stall row.
For once I see the sky is clear And stars are shining bright The northeast wind is coming near And briskly chills this special night.
For weeks stars hid behind a cloud Of doubt, of fear, of weeping rain, Explosions at once so horrid and loud The whole world instantly felt the pain.
Like stars that glow through blackest dark Good overwhelms bad with barely left trace All owed to a Child who left His mark By giving Himself in infinite grace.
(written Christmas Eve 2001)
O magnum mysterium Et admirabile sacramentum Ut animalia viderent Dominum natum Jacentem in praesepio! Beata Virgo, cujus viscera Meruerunt portare Dominum Christum Alleluia
O great mystery, and wonderful sacrament, that animals should see the newborn Lord, lying in a manger! Blessed is the virgin whose womb was worthy to bear the Lord, Jesus Christ. Alleluia!
Usually, after turning out that forgotten barn light, I sit on the edge of the tractor bucket for a few minutes and let my eyes adjust to the night outside. City people always notice the darkness here, but it’s never very dark if you wait till your eyes owl out a little….
I’m always glad to have to walk down to the barn in the night, and I always forget that it makes me glad. I heave on my coat, stomp into my barn boots and trudge down toward the barn light, muttering at myself. But then I sit in the dark, and I remember this gladness, and I walk back up to the gleaming house, listening for the horses. ~Verlyn Klinkenborg from A Light in the Barn
…all who heard it wondered at what the shepherds told them. But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.. ~Luke 2:18-19
Inside the barn the sheep were standing, pushed close to one another. Some were dozing, some had eyes wide open listening in the dark. Some had no doubt heard of wolves. They looked weary with all the burdens they had to carry, like being thought of as stupid and cowardly, disliked by cowboys for the way they eat grass about an inch into the dirt, the silly look they have just after shearing, of being one of the symbols of the Christian religion. In the darkness of the barn their woolly backs were full of light gathered on summer pastures. Above them their white breath was suspended, while far off in the pine woods, night was deep in silence. The owl and rabbit were wondering, along with the trees, if the air would soon fill with snowflakes, but the power that moves through the world and makes our hair stand on end was keeping the answer to itself. ~Tom Hennen “Sheep in the Winter Night” from Darkness Sticks to Everything: Collected and New Poems.
Yet another school shooting takes hold of my heart and breaks it: two of our children are school teachers, our grandchildren are students.
there is so much about this world I don’t understand – the news of each day causes more questions and a sense of ever deeper despair.
There are times when I feel my hair stand on end, wondering where it all leads.
Half a lifetime ago, I was far more confident after so many years in school and training; now I am well aware there is much I can never know or understand.
To accept the mystery and power that moves through this world is an awe-filled load to carry.
All shall be revealed in the fullness of time. Yet shortening time is gets emptier by the minute.
I want to know why too many are taken from us too young, why there is persisting darkness and evil causing fear and suffering, why we stumble and fall and fail again and again, why we don’t trust one another or trust God when there are simply things that can’t be known or understood yet.
Most of all I need faith that God has my life and your life in His hands. His power moving through our hearts is real and true and trustworthy even if we don’t know all the answers to myriad questions yet.
So like sheep, huddled and frightened, we wait for our Shepherd’s voice to tell us where to go and what comes next.
He leaves the light on for us because, like sheep, like children, the darkness and the unknown can feel overwhelming.
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This year’s Advent theme is from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s sermon on the First Sunday in Advent, December 2, 1928:
The celebration of Advent is possible only to those who are troubled in soul, who know themselves to be poor and imperfect, and who look forward to something greater to come. For these, it is enough to wait in humble fear until the Holy One himself comes down to us, God in the child in the manager.
God comes.
He is, and always will be now, with us in our sin, in our suffering, and at our death. We are no longer alone. God is with us and we are no longer homeless. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer – from Christmas Sermons
I wanted a horse. This was long after we sold the work horses, and I was feeling
restless on the farm. I got up early to help my father milk the cows, talking
a blue streak about TV cowboys he never had time to see and trying to
convince him that a horse wouldn’t cost so much and that I’d do all the work.
He listened while he leaned his head against the flank of a Holstein, pulling
the last line of warm milk into the stainless bucket. He kept listening
while the milk-machine pumped like an engine, and the black and silver cups fell off and
dangled down, clanging like bells when he stepped away, balancing the heavy milker
against the vacuum hose and the leather belt. I knew he didn’t want the trouble
of a horse, but I also knew there was nothing else I wanted the way I wanted a horse—
another way of saying I wanted to ride into the sunset and (maybe)
never come back—I think he knew that too. We’ll see, he said, we’ll see what we can do. Joyce Sutphen – “What Every Girl Wants”
I once was a skinny freckled eleven year old girl who wanted nothing more than to have her own horse. Every inch of my bedroom wall had posters of horses, all my shelves were filled with horse books and horse figurines and my bed was piled with stuffed horses.
I suffered an extremely serious case of horse fever.
I had learned to ride my big sister’s horse while my sister was off to college, but the little mare had pushed down a hot wire to get into a field of spring oats which resulted in a terrible case of colic and had to be put down. I was inconsolable until I set my mind to buy another horse. We had only a small shed, not a real barn, and no actual fences other than the electric hot wire. Though I was earning money as best I could picking berries and babysitting, I was a long way away from the $150 it would take to buy a trained horse back in 1965.
I pestered my father about my dreams of another horse, and since he was the one to dig the hole for my sister’s horse to be buried, he was not enthusiastic. “We’ll see,” he said. “We will see what we can do.”
So I dreamed my horsey dreams, mostly about golden horses with long white manes, hoping one day those dreams might come true.
In fall 1965, the local radio station KGY’s Saturday morning horse news program announced their “Win a Horse” contest. I knew I had to try. The prize was a weanling bay colt, part Appaloosa, part Thoroughbred, and the contest was only open to youth ages 9 to 16 years old. All I had to do was write a 250 word or less essay on “Why I Should Have a Horse”.
I worked and worked on my essay, crafting the right words and putting all my heart into it, hoping the judges would see me as a worthy potential owner. My parents took me to visit the five month old colt named “Prankster”, a fuzzy engaging little fellow who was getting plenty of attention from all the children coming to visit him, and that visit made me even more determined.
When I read these words now, I realize there is nothing quite like the passion of an eleven year old girl:
“Why I Should Have a Horse”
When God created the horse, He made one of the best creatures in the world. Horses are a part of me. I love them and want to win Prankster for the reasons which follow:
To begin with, I’m young enough to have the time to spend with the colt. My older sister had a horse when she was in high school and her school activities kept her too busy to really enjoy the horse. I’ll have time to give Prankster the love and training needed.
Another reason is that I’m shy. When I was younger I found it hard to talk to anybody except my family. When my sister got the horse I soon became a more friendly person. When her horse recently died (about when Prankster was born), I became very sad. If I could win that colt, I couldn’t begin to describe my happiness.
Also I believe I should have a horse because it would be a good experience to learn how to be patient and responsible while teaching Prankster the same thing.
When we went to see Prankster, I was invited into the stall to brush him. I was never so thrilled in my life! The way he stood there so majestically, it told me he would be a wonderful horse.
If I should win him, I would be the happiest girl alive. I would work hard to train him with love and understanding. If I could only get the wonderful smell and joy of horses back in our barn!
I mailed in my essay and waited.
Fifty nine years ago on this day, November 27, 1965, my mother and I listened to the local horse program that was always featured on the radio at 8 AM on Saturday mornings. They said they had over 300 essays to choose from, and it was very difficult for them to decide who the colt should go to. I knew then I didn’t have a chance. They had several consolation prizes for 2nd through 4th place, so they read several clever poems and heartfelt essays, all written by teenagers. My heart was sinking by the minute.
The winning essay was next. The first sentence sounded very familiar to me, but it wasn’t until several sentences later that we realized they were reading my essay, not someone else’s. My mom was speechless, trying to absorb the hazards of her little girl owning a young untrained horse.
I woke up my dad, who was sick in bed with an early season flu bug. He opened one eye, looked at me, and said, “I guess I better get a fence up today, right?” Somehow, fueled by the excitement of a daughter whose one wish had just come true, he pulled himself together and put up a wood corral that afternoon, despite feeling so miserable.
That little bay colt came home to live with me the next day. Over the next few months he and I did learn together, as I checked out horse training books from the library, and joined a 4H group with helpful leaders to guide me. I made plenty of mistakes along the way, learning from each one, including those that left behind scars I still bear.
Prankster was a typical adolescent gelding who lived up to his name — full of mischief with a sense of humor and a penchant for finding trouble, but he was mine and that was all that mattered.
…that and a dad who saw what he needed to do for his passionate kid. I’ll never forget how he showed his love for me by doing what was needed in that moment.
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