A New Partnership

With cows in the pasture and the line of round hay bales running out, we start longing for grass around here long before most folks want to drag out their lawn mowers.  Grasss in the pasture means no more hauling hay and most of all, it reduces the likelihood of having to buy hay.  There are at least two signs of grass in the field.  One sign is seen and one is smelled.  The sign the eyes give is the vision of the greening of the pasture and hay bales that are being ignored.  The sign the nose gives is that a different smell begins to be caught in the wind and carried across the fence line to anyone who passes by.  The smell of manure from grass is certainly a richer smell than the one derived from cows eating hay.    

Most folks who take a drive into the country where cows might be part of the landscape seen out the closed car window never notice such a thing.  And while this is true, it also speaks to a larger issue of how we have separated ourselves so completely from the creation.  It is as if we have become spectators in the creation instead of paricipants in it.  If our ancestors lived on a farm and many of them did, they lived midst the creation in a kind of day to day partnership with the Creator.  Unfortunately, we have become such an urbanized culture that many people go from the womb to the grave without really knowing the creation as a great blessing.   

For most of my life I lived as one of those who lived in the creation, but still somehow managed to live apart from it.  Such becomes easy when life is lived confined inside an automobile, or lived in an air conditioned office where windows are not even made to raise for the benefit of fresh air, or in places where walking on the grass is forbidden by prohibitive warning signs.  I am grateful for these days when I end up bringing in the house some of that holy dirt on my clothes.  The farm has become a place of signs and wonders of the working, walking, and still creating Creator and for this new partnership I am deeply grateful.