Cow Watching

It is not an uncommon moment around here to watch the cows.  Of the ten cows that graze in the pasture, one is a steer born about a year ago.  I call him Freezer, not out of disrespect, but as a way of reminding myself that his purpose is to help sustain life.  After a couple of years in the pasture, he becomes our primary source of meat for the next year.  The other cows sustain life by providing more calves, but this one sustains life as he becomes a source of food that is homegrown here on the farm.    

As I watched today the words sustain life really got hung up in my mind.  I found myself thinking about the early words of Genesis as it speaks of men and women being created with the same purpose.  As those who co-create with God, we find purpose in sustaining continued life.  But, it is not just in the biological act that we sustain life, but in the living and caring for those who come after us.  As parents we are given the divine purpose of living before and with our children in a way that at its core sustains their lives.   Two decades of our living is investing in sustaining life.   

But, in an even greater sense we are meant to live connected to the creation in such a way that our living helps sustain the life of the creation as well.  The creation is not something provided for us to use to the point of exhaustion, but to use responsibly and carefully.  Actually, the creation provides clues for us about right living, but we are usually moving at a pace that makes it impossible to see and hear what is being shouted out to us by everything around us.  In the midst of the creation is life that gives order, purpose, and life to us and even as it sustains us, so are we meant to live in such a way that the life of the creation is sustained by our care of it.