2 A.M. Her distress cry pierced the frigid blackness. My lantern’s faint beams caught her blinking hard, her eyelashes coated with the tiny, compact snow crystals unique to the Montana high country. The same sparkling snow blanketed her shivering body. I lifted her into my arms, twirled about, and labored uphill a couple hundred yards toward the shelter with yellow light visible through the windows, promising warmth. Our breath clouds mixed, immediately froze leaving millions of miniscule gems drifting slowly earthward. The exertion left me exhausted and gasping for breath, but urgency spurred me on. I gently laid her on freshly strewn straw. A noiseless voice in my soul whispered, “I’ll never tire of this wonder.” A newborn Holstein heifer calf.
The veil over heaven just got a little thinner.
Thus begins a liturgy. An ancient rhythm repeated for generations of mankind devoted to bearing the image of God, as ones intent on seeing things on earth flourish.
For this heifer calf to live, to grow, to develop into a fruitful, flourishing milk cow, many little liturgies are required. Rhythms, routines, schedules intentionally carved out over days, seasons, years. I will be deliberate in my efforts to see this heifer flourish. It’ll take nearly three years before she produces her first drop of milk. I’m all in – born to this task of nurturing, growing and shaping. I call her Blossom.
And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good. (Genesis 1:25, KJV)
What rhythms, routines, habits make up your day?
Do you see them shaping you to love something/someone?
Are you able to cause something/someone around you to flourish?
Barnyard of Heaven 