Borrowed Bravery

This is Caliber (l) and Raphi (r). They are paddock-mates, and they hang out together a lot. Caliber is the boss, and Raphi does what he's told. You can see that from this picture. Caliber has his ears pinned, and his head swung toward Raphi. That's horse-talk for "Get out of my way." And Raphi has his ears pointed toward Caliber, and his nose pointed away from Caliber. That's horse-talk for, "On it, boss."

Being boss means that Caliber gets to tell Raphi what to do, and Raphi gets to listen. Caliber goes through the gate first. Caliber gets to eat first. Caliber gets to the water first. And Raphi gets to wait. If Raphi didn't listen, those pinned ears would be followed with a warning nip or a hoof strike, and warning nips with horse teeth and hoof strikes can draw blood. Raphi has had his share of bites and welts over the years.

Now, Caliber is generally a pretty fair boss. When both horses know their place, there isn't a whole lot of jostling. It is rare that Caliber gets to the nipping or striking stage because Raphi sees those pinned ears and obeys. Caliber lets Raphi eat and drink and have his being without undue nagging, and Raphi chills pretty happily under Caliber's leadership.  They get along well.

But every once in a while, something will come up to disrupt the balance.

Like me.

You see, when I show up in the paddock, I become the boss. I get to tell Caliber and Raphi what to do, and both of them have to listen. And I tend to favour Raphi. Because, well, I love that boy. So let's say I have an apple. Under normal circumstances, Caliber would get that apple. He is, after all, boss horse, and there is only one apple. But because I am disrupting the balance, I pin my ears and swing my head toward Caliber, and say, in horse talk, "Get out of my way," and he, in horse-talk, says, "On it, boss." Then, in horse talk, I say to Raphi, "Come get the apple," and he, in horse-talk, says, "On it, boss, happily." My presence momentarily elevates Raphi in the herd to a position higher than Caliber's.

This past week, I was working with Raphi and the trailer. There was hay on the trailer, really good hay. All the horses wanted to get onto the trailer to eat that hay. All of them were loose, without ropes. Left to their own devices, Caliber would have been on the trailer, eating the hay, while the others stood outside and drooled. But I was disrupting the balance, so Raphi was on the trailer, and Caliber stood outside drooling. And then I watched as Raphi stepped off the trailer, pinned his ears, and swung his head toward Caliber. Boss-talk. Brave words from the low horse.

He did it only because I was standing there to back him up. He did it only because he knew I was the boss, and he was with me, and that gave him strength he didn't have of his own accord. He did it not because he had confidence in his own strength, but because he trusted me. He trusted my strength, and he trusted his relationship with me. He knew I wouldn't let him down. If I had walked away, it would have taken about two seconds for Caliber to move Raphi and get on the trailer.

Borrowed bravery.

Like David and Goliath and God.

You come at me with weapons of mass destruction, but I come in the name of the LORD.

Like me and the evil one and God.

You come at me with your lies and your shame and your haunting, horrible words that could leave me bruised and bleeding, but I come in the name of the LORD.

And the best part is that, while I cannot stay with Raphi all day, every day, God does stay with me.

Borrowed bravery.

On my own, I am weak. But with God?

I am brave.

Commute

The air is cool as I step out of the house, but the moisture in the air promises great heat later in the day. Already the clouds are building.  I toss my bags into the back of the car, and hop in. Another commute. It's as much a part of my day as brushing my teeth, and the city slides by routinely. I merge onto the highway and hit cruise.

It's quiet. No radio. To much to think about. Too much to pray about. Too much to see. The next hour is mine. My mind flows into it and fills it up.

My wheels hum over the pavement. The goldenrod hangs heavy, covered in dew, each drop catching and reflecting the slanting sunlight. Early-morning mist hangs over the fields and trees, silhouetting them in diffuse light. Sure signs of fall, these heavy mists and drooping goldenrod heads. A sure sign that the seasons are turning, and today is the first day of school.

My life has followed this rhythm for as long as I can remember. September to September. Fall to fall. How many times did I not start school, dressed up in my new fall sweater, only wake up to a day just like this one -- full of mists and goldenrod and thick humidity that blooms into full-out summer heat later in the day. I smile. Oh, there is something so new about the first day of school.

I pray for my nieces and nephews. Two of them are, for the first time, not going back to school. They're that old. I'm that old. I pray for them, too. It must be such an odd feeling, watching the world go back to school, and not being a part of it. Two of them are still too young for school. All the rest, like me, packed a lunch, grabbed a book bag, and started for new classes. New beginnings. So I pray for each by name on this mist-filled, golden-bright, fall-cool, summer-humid morning as the highway hums beneath my wheels.

Rows of corn march in soldier precision up the hill of a farmer's field. One plant follows another in lockstep up the hill, tassels waving like hat-feathers. The bean fields aren't like that. Their plants grow in tangled masses, obliterating the neat rows in which they were planted. How like the events of my day. How I wish they would unfold like rows of corn, neat and tidy, one following the other in precision, but so often they tumble about in a tangle like bean fields. What will today be like: corn fields or bean fields? But I am not there yet, and here, now, in the peace of my car, as the fields slide by, none of that matters. It will be what it will be, and God is Lord of it all. Breathe in, breathe out.

And so the miles roll, and my mind soars and leaps and wanders, and I pray and watch and wonder, until I hit the outskirts of town, and I cancel the cruise and dodge the construction, and wend my way to the school.

Ok, God, it's yours. Make it so.

**********

The promised heat of the morning has been fulfilled. It hits me like a wall as I open the car and toss in the books. The road shimmers as I pull back onto the highway, windows down, hair whipping in the hot wind that blows in from highway speed.

The mists have lifted, hanging now low in the sky in a thick haze made brown with the dust of the construction along the highway. But that clears as I leave the city and head back through farmers' fields, and the sky burns blue and bright, filled with massive clouds that grow higher as I watch. Their bottoms are sullen and grey, their tops billowy and bright. It is a big view, this open sky and farmers' fields, and my soul stretches to meet it.

A good day, altogether. A bit corn field, a bit bean field, but good.

A huge flock of starlings swoops over the highway. I want to bend low over the steering wheel to watch them in their dance, but I dare not. Too much can happen too quickly at highway speed. How is it that such a number of starlings can flit and dance together across the sky, turning in pinwheeling perfection, each knowing its spot, without ever colliding, but we drivers below can't manage that? Perhaps because they are focused on the dance, and not on the drivers below. Their movement is magic, visual harmony playing across the sky.

The rich sweetness of cut hay sweeps through the car. I breathe deep, and find the field of neat swaths, drying to golden goodness in the hot sun. An advantage, I suppose, of not having air conditioning, smelling that good, sweet hay.

I notice that the bean fields are yellowing, a pale mirror of the heavy richness of the goldenrod. Fall is such a yellow season, as if every part of the earth is gathering up extra sunshine to store it for the grey days ahead. All is yellow and golden and rich, and while winter is coming, I am not there yet, and here, in the peace of my car, as the golden goodness slides by, none of that matters. The richness of today is here to enjoy.

The clouds are still growing. I am in the shadow, but I can still see the edges, impossibly bright, rim-lit with the sunlight behind. The silver lining. Except it's not so much silver, as blinding incandescence, too much to take in, too much to look at. What does that say, I wonder, for our maxim? "Every cloud has a silver lining," as if there is some glimmer of goodness even in the hard times. But this is not a glimmer. It is a dazzling display of brilliance, a show-off shine of glory that cannot be taken in with naked eye. It is a glory that cannot be hidden by the dark cloud, a glory that breaks the cloud and reaches through with long fingers to touch the world below. And I wonder, I wonder if perhaps we content ourselves with silver linings and fail to see the majesty of the glory of the Sun.

By the time I pull off the highway, I am back in the sunshine, and the clouds glow pink behind me. I can see more clouds growing ahead. I am surrounded by storm, but as I stop at the top of the ramp, there is silence. No hum of wheels, no whine of wind, no scream of traffic. Just peace and sunshine, and the song of crickets fills the peace. The worries of the day break free and float away. It is what it is, and God is Lord of it all.

Breathe in, breathe out.

Home.

Locking the Core

One of the key parts of learning to ride a horse is learning how to stay on. (You also need to learn how to fall off, but that's a different story for a different day.)

People assume that you stay on by gripping with your legs and holding on with your arms. So they hop on, and they wrap their hands around the horn (if there is one) and they pull up when they start bouncing. Their legs come up as they try to squeeze, and their body curls down, and they end up basically in a fetal position on top of the horse as the horse goes faster and faster. (Squeezing a horse with your legs is fairly universally the way to make the horse go faster, and the horse, feeling the rider fall forward, tries to catch up and keep underneath the rider.) The harder the rider tries to do what seems instinctive, the worse the situation becomes.

You don't stay on the horse by gripping with your legs and holding on with your arms. You stay on by locking your core. You keep your legs long, and your back straight, and you use your arms not to pull yourself into the saddle, but to push off the saddle, up through the shoulders, down the back, and into the seat. We call it "pushing passenger". It's learning to keep the weight deep in the seat of the saddle, pinning your butt to the back of the horse, and locking your core muscles so that you don't flop. When you do it right, you feel immediately more secure.

It works. A couple of years ago, my horse spooked at a combine coming down the country lane. He galloped full speed back to the barn and to safety. For about two seconds, I tried to slow him down, but he had one thing on his mind: to get away from the horse-eating farm implement chasing him. I knew he was going to stop full-tilt at the gate, and I could just picture myself pinwheeling through the air over his head, and landing on my head on the other side of the gate, never to rise again. Everything in me wanted to grip with my legs, hold on with my hands, curl up in a little ball on his back and hide my head. Instead, I grabbed that saddle and pushed myself down in the seat with everything I had in me. I locked my core. And I stayed on. I knew I had done it right the next day when my abs were sore.

 But that fetal position is so instinctive. Life has a way of knocking us about, and the longer we live, the more instinctive it feels to curl up to avoid the blows. Adam and Eve did it in the garden. The Israelite slaves did it beneath the lash of the Egyptian taskmasters. Elijah took the fetal position when Jezebel was hunting for him. The disciples curled up in the boat in the storm, even as Jesus was curled up fast asleep. I have been in the fetal position for the last two years. I've been hunkering down, curling up, making myself small, trying to protect my head and my heart. Life hurts. It gallops away like a running horse, and, for fear of hurting even more, I have curled up in a little ball and hidden.

But the fetal position doesn't work. I know it, every time I get on my horse. I can feel it physically, that the more I try to protect myself, the more I bounce, the more I flop, the more vulnerable I feel. The higher my legs come, the more I pull on the saddle, the more I propel myself up and off, and this old body doesn't bounce as easily as it once did. If I insist on the fetal position, I end up not riding at all, because it feels so dangerous, and I miss the delight of the dance between human and horse, sunshine on my face and breeze on my cheek, mane in the wind, liquid eyes looking at me, the sheer joy of being on horseback.

Instead, I need to lock my core and ride.

Yes, life has a way of hurting. Blow can follow blow. Heartache follows heartache until it feels that there is more bruise than whole flesh. Life can run away with me, and I see the gates up ahead, and emotionally I flinch as I picture myself crashing into them, pinwheeling over them like a cartoon character, and leaving a crater on the other side.

So I need to lock my core. I need sit up straight and look where I am going. I need to plant myself deeply in what I know to be true.  I need to hold on to those beliefs that are central to all that I am. I am His. He knows me. He loves me. He is good, and He is God, and He is on the throne, no matter how fast it feels as though life is galloping away with me, no matter what gates may stand in the way.

Am I guaranteed then to not get hurt? To not fall? By no means. Every time I get on the back of my horse, I take the risk of falling. It's the nature of riding. Just as it is the nature of life. I can't eliminate the risks. I can only mitigate them. I either lock my core and get into the business of living, and live with the risk, or I curl up in a fetal position and emotionally and spiritually die. So I will straighten up and get back to the business of living. And then remember this:

"I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto him until that Day" (2 Tim. 1:12).