That Jesus was born in a stable makes more sense to me now that I’ve
been a farmer for a few years. The barn is often holy ground. It’s a place of
birth, of feeding, of sleeping, of waiting for the storm to pass, a place of
death.
Our barn was that kind of sacred space a few nights ago. I went out to
feed the guardian dogs like I always do, just after dark, in the hour when it
seems darkest to me…all light of the sun gone, stars twinkling but not yet
noticeable in my intense concentration to see what’s in front of me. I balanced
the scoop of dog food in one hand while I held my smartphone in the other, the flashlight
app shining in front of me, searching for one food bowl and then the other.
When I stopped at the second bowl, I noticed our old ewe lying on her
side, half inside the barn, half out. She was barely moving. I knelt down to
lift up her head and immediately saw that she was weak. I tried to stand her
up, but she couldn’t unfold her legs for me to get her up. I called Lisa. I
needed her help to move her into a warm area of the barn. I wanted her to have
a chance to say goodbye. I’ve seen this before. I knew we were losing her. They
say a down sheep is a dead sheep, and we most definitely had a down sheep.
The ewe is our oldest animal, a sheep that came from a flock from which
Lisa first started her own flock. We call her Left Teat, her proper name long
ago forgotten after she was christened with the new upon losing half of her
udder to gangrenous mastitis. Left Teat is a battle axe of a ewe. She has a
deep, raspy bleat that sounds like she’s smoked two packs a day her whole life.
Her thin legs hold up her large, sagging body. Aside from the infection in her
udder, she’s never been sick a day in her life, well, at least not that we know
of. She sat vigil with her grandson and later with her daughter when they each
died earlier this year. She’s slow now, but she has a powerful will to live.
Lisa came out and sat down next to her. She held the ewe’s head in her
lap. I filled the dog food scoop with sweet grain, a treat that a sheep or goat
with any life at all left in them can’t resist. I placed the bowl in front of
her. She plunged her head into it and ate vigorously. A good sign, I thought.
But, I’ve been tricked by that before. I know better than to believe that’s a
guarantee we can nurse an animal back to health.
Lisa heard some gurgling in her lungs, so I ran into the house to get a
syringe with an antibiotic that we know works well with respiratory illnesses.
I drained the nearly empty bottle dry. We had just enough to give her one dose.
After her shot, Lisa and I moved her to a comfortable area in the
middle of the barn, free of drafts and away from the hay feeder where the goats
were jockeying for position to get dinner. Lisa quietly held her head. Tears
were streaming down our faces. We decided to see if we could get her to stand. Her
weak legs struggled under her weight, but she stood, and stayed that way until
a young goat, inexplicably, rammed her and knocked her down. We helped her sit
up and sat down next to her, waiting, crying, trying to make meaning of the
tears.
We’ve had sheep and goats long enough now that the older animals are
reaching the natural end of their lives. We lost several this year. There was
Spot and Sunshine, Jewel and Belize, all fixtures in the Living Kitchen
barnyard. Each died after what would be considered a normal lifespan, but still
too soon for us. With each one’s death, we’ve wondered if we still have what it
takes to farm with livestock. It takes a toll. We share a special connection with
the animals, and they with us.
After we got Left Teat comfortable, Sally, our oldest goat, walked over
to where we were sitting. She lowered her head and nuzzled her nose into Left
Teat’s neck. She stood like that for several minutes. We cried harder, moved by
the gesture. Sally lifted her head from Left Teat and began to lick the tears
from Lisa’s face. For the next several minutes she comforted first Left Teat
and then Lisa.
We didn’t want to leave, but it was getting late. The dogs needed
attention and we needed to make a gesture toward eating dinner. Before I turned
in for the night, I went out to check on her one more time. I walked slowly
toward the barn, dreading the sight, already feeling the frustration and anger
of losing another animal well up from deep inside my gut. When I passed through
the barn door, tears were already falling from my eyes.
The light reached the pile of hay where we’d left Left Teat and with
one more step covered her, revealing two animals sitting up, side by side,
chewing their cud. Goat and ewe were cuddled up, doing what they do. Not only
was Left Teat still alive, she was better, holding up her head, faraway look in
her eyes as her jaw slowly gyrated from side to side. I was shocked.
I slept more peacefully that night than I expected. When the alarm went
off the next morning, I put on my boots and coat and grabbed the flashlight. I
didn’t want to lie in bed one minute wondering if she was still alive. When I
got to the barn, I found her on her side, several feet from the spot where we’d
left her. Sally was still lying in the spot next to where Left Teat had been. She
hadn’t moved an inch. Left Teat let out a deep-throated bleat when she saw me
and started struggling to get up. She didn’t quite have the strength to do it,
so I helped her. I moved her back over to the spot next to Sally. She sat up
and started chewing her cud. She’d lived through the night, the loving care of
an old goat to keep her company. A few hours later, she was up wandering around
the barnyard. Lisa let her into the yard, where she grazed all day. Later that
night we found her in the barn sitting between Sally and another goat, Dottie,
head held high, chewing her cud.
I fear I project too much onto the animals, making meaning of their
gestures that so anthropomorphizes them that I perpetuate a ridiculously
romantic notion of what it means to care for animals on a farm. They are
animals, not people. I don’t have any real idea what they understand and how
they make sense of what happens, but something bigger than me, than the animals
was at work that night in the barn. No scientific explanation would diminish it
for me. It moved me in a way that no experience with the animals ever has.
Alan Lightman, author of The Accidental Universe and a professor at MIT
with dual appointments in science and the humanities, says this,
Faith, in its
broadest sense, is about far more than belief in the existence of God or the
disregard of scientific evidence. Faith is the willingness to give ourselves
over, at times, to things we do not fully understand. Faith is the belief in
things larger than our selves. Faith is the ability to honor stillness at some
moments and at others to ride the passion and exuberance that is the artistic
impulse, the flight of the imagination, the full engagement with this strange
and shimmering world.
Maybe faith is the ability to believe that an old goat can sense our
distress and offer comfort where we can’t, to sit with an old ewe with a powerful
will to live, keeping her warm, assuring her that she isn’t alone, until the
medicine can work its wonders. Maybe it’s the ability to let go of any scientific
notions about the separation of species and believe for a moment that sometimes
we can care for and save that which is vastly different than us because we are
connected in time and space, breathing the same air, walking the same ground,
feeling the same sunshine on our faces and the same cold, biting wind cut to
our bones. Maybe its believing that will to live, care, love, and empathy are
as important as medicine in curing an ailing being, accepting that animal and
human are equal in their inability to make an illness just disappear, but also
equal in their ability to offer care for one who is suffering.
I think there’s no mistake this happened at Christmas time. Jesus' birth
was really not so different from the healing of an old ewe. They both remind me that
God came to us in the same way I experience life with these animals…connected
with us in time and space, flesh and blood, able to feel what we feel and participate
in those things that are much bigger than our selves. Much theological training
has left me knowing very little with certainty these days, but on this
Christmas Eve, this is my confession of faith.
