Holy Cud Chewing

In these retirement years on the farm, a small herd of cows has kept company with us.  Having never  been around a cow in all my life, there has been much to learn.  One of the things I have learned about cows is that they have one stomach but four separate compartments which causes many folks to say a cow has four stomachs.  Practically speaking, this is true.  Like massive lawn mowers they eat the grass in a hurry.  It goes into one of those stomachs and after a time the cows take a knee on the ground, bring up the undigested grass, and chew their cud. 

 

Ruminate is what the process of cud chewing is called.  In a monastery the monks might prefer the word "meditate," but I have become partial to "ruminate."  Recently as I was reading "The Book of Creation"  by J. Philip Newell, I ran into some cud chewing words, "We are created out of the essence of God, not out of nothing...To say that we are made in the image of the divine is to say that what is deepest in us is of God...This perspective in the Celtic tradition leads to a reverencing of human nature.  No one is to be regarded as an object, for at heart each woman and man is a holy mystery."  Like a cow chewing her cud, I have been chewing on these words for some days now.

 

Practically speaking what has happened is that I have found myself looking at people differently.  I see some unknown person crossing my path for a moment and I find myself saying within myself, "That one has the essence of God."  It has been a perception shattering journey through the day as I hear myself quietly saying these words about someone I do not know except as a stranger whose path has crossed my own.  Over and over throughout the days these words, "That one has the essence of God" is heard in my heart.  The next thing which might happen is that I might start saying it to the man who looks at me in the mirror each morning.