Pastor Don's Ponderings

Your day has come. You raise your head and look around only to discover you are the only one raising your head to look around. Cautiously, you stand on tippy-toe and peer over your taller, non-descript neighbors, hoping on hope that someone, somewhere around you, looks just like you but, it is of no avail. You are alone as you are, in a field of others, with little choice of what to do for yours is a specific gift and calling. So, you bloom.  You bloom boldly, magnificently, proudly and beautifully. You raise your head to the sky and offer to the sun a bit of your color and to the sky a grand, 'Alleluia!'.  You catch the eyes of those who, otherwise, would have just passed by without a notice yet, in you they see the marvelous, delicious nature of God rising out of the mundanity of those around you. They are given reason to pause, to catch their breath and whisper a thanksgiving to the One who set you where you are. You inadvertently, maybe subliminally, transform the narrativ...

On my way to work this morning I called my brother, Larry, to find out what is going on at the family farm. It was one of those moments when, as soon as he spoke, I knew he had a cold. You could almost hear and see the sinus' dripping through the cell connections and he sounded horribly stuffed up . . . and he was walking towards the shop as he talked with me: They are working on the planter today. Rain, sleet, snow, burning sunshine, foggy mornings, there is always something to be done on the farm and rarely, rarely, is there time for sickness of any kind. This is the mindset into which I grew up on our family dairy farm: No matter how you feel, the cows still have to be milked, the heifers and calves have to be fed, the chores need to be completed and, oh if that isn't enough during this time of the year, there are always fences to be fixed, trees to be trimmed in the pasture, equipment needing repair before Spring and book work to be done to facilitate everything else. ...