Cows

In Marin County, California we have a lot of good things: an abundance of open space, many dairy farms, and loads of great hiking. There was a day all those good things converged on me at once.

I was in a rut, walking the same trail every morning. Lovely, quiet, convenient, and boring. One morning I decided to try a new trail. I drove to Novato and parked at a busy trail head. I only meet one person on the trail. At the top of one long hill I went through a farm gate, carefully closing it as the sign instructed. That’s the beauty of Marin, many private lands have trails for public use. I enjoyed the varied terrain. I walked through a meadow of wildflowers, up a craggy hill and was on my way through a grove of shade trees.

I heard the rumble of a truck engine and so walked to the edge of the road to let them pass. The rumble came closer, but it sounded odd, not mechanical. I couldn’t identify the sound. I scanned the hills above trying to figure out where the roar came from. Then I saw them, a heard of black and white cows charging down through the trees!

Let me pause here to say my experience with cattle amounted to watching them from the car window as I buzzed by or viewing them at the petting zoo of the county fair. Never had I seen them on the run or heard more than a lazy moo. Now there were dozens dodging trees, raising dust, and snorting. I froze. When my wits returned I grabbed the nearest tree. I hid on the downhill side while the cows raced around me and off down the trail. Before the dust settled a rancher in his pick-up truck sailed by me and he tipped his hat in greeting. I raised my hand howdy in return when in fact I wanted to scream at him, “I was nearly run over by your cows!”

I stood there and waited for my ears to quit ringing, for my heart to stop pounding and for my mind to compute what had just happened. Did I just get run over by cows? Yup, but I was perfectly fine. Startle but fine.

Life runs me over sometimes. All my responsibilities and chores plow down on me and I want to hide. Time to regroup. In dramatic fashion the rush of my daily frenzy was illustrated to me. I wondered: Do I create a false sense of urgency? How important are all the things I push to get done in one day? Food on the table, clean house, fulfilling work, healthy body, cared for family, joyful spirit, these things matter, but what’s essential?

When I pause, I find the most important thing to me is to be loved. The only one who loves me unconditionally for my whole life is God. So my relationship with God is one I should nurture daily. When life overwhelms me quiet time with God is the one thing I should do. I don’t. A herd of responsibility barrels down at me blocking out all reasonable thought. I miss the small voice whispering love and encouragement. It’s no fun to be frightened by an excessive To-Do List. It drains the joy right out of me.

Unfortunately I often think the only valuable connection with God is formal prayer time: days seeped in Bible study and hours spent quietly seeking His voice. That’s an ideal, the reality is different. I grab small connections. This is my substitute for long meditation, and I find these little times stretch into day long conversations. I talk to God in the shower, making breakfast, walking for exercise, carpooling, prayer before lunch, the list of our connections in a day surprised me when I kept track. I still long for big blocks of quiet time to really listen and sometimes I can make that happen.

Prayer, defined as a conversation with God, comes in many forms. There is no one right way to do it. The only right thing is to do it often.

Posted 5/13/2008 @ 9:21 AM | Weekly Thoughts