Today is the first day of the rest of your life....ahhhhhhh, It is as if I never made a mistake, like I am a new born babe ready to take on that cold world. I am thrust out of my mothers womb, fresh as a chick out of its egg. Each day gives me another chance, to forget, to forgive, to renew, start over.
Living around and working with animals, I can see they are like that. Each day is a new start. The horses don't remember me rushing them out their door, so I can get to town shoping. As if my time was so important. They take me as I am each day I enter their housing; the horses nicker to me softly, nodding up and down, eyes soft with trust. Chickens cluck as they meander up to the feed dish and watch to see if I have a treat for them.
Oh, I am not saying they don't re-act, like last summer when I chased the nine month old rooster in the coop one day, because he had to go....! Three roosters were one to many. Fluffy-duffy the blond Orpington pictured below is head honcho in the coop and Big Red the Rhode Island Red, pictured above, is next in line. Even with a large run besides the 10 x 16 foot coop for space it just wasn't big enough for our new comer that was hatched out last spring. He just got too cocky they say....ever hear that saying about our male gender? As I carried the new comer out the pen door and stuck him into the metal portable cage he calmed down as if nothing happened and started to peck at the fresh green sprouts of grass that stuck through the openings on the bottom as if nothing was wrong.
Living for the moment.... He wasn't fretting about going to the butcher. He wasn't pouting because I took him away from the flock, he just lived for the moment which was chomping down as much of that fresh green grass that was poking up into his new wire cage.
Now as I stepped back into the coop that day, the rest of the flock got out of my way real quick. They re-acted to what I just did to their buddy. But as soon as they saw me walking slowly, talking softly, giving them their nurishment of feed and cracked corn they followed suit. Easter the Rohde Island Red hen cosied over in my direction, clucking to me as if she was saying, "Sure glad you settled down and hit the routean button, much more peceful around here. "
Living for the moment, keeping my thought life on the right button is a challenge. Wish the thought button 'forgive' wasn't so hard to push down. Acceptance makes me new again, it lets me live one moment at a time like my new comer rooster who had to leave, holding my mind at the present moment. Not thinking about the past and not getting too far ahead of myself.
My mom who died at 83 years of age often told me, when she was with me, "Kate you are putting the cart before the horse again." I would fret and worry about things that might happen and miss the present. Extrodinary things happening on an ordinary day. The count down for the big Extrodinary day 'Christmas' is getting closer. The dates on the calendar fly off faster than that rooster making tracks to get way from me.
I am an early riser, love to get that first cup of coffee and quiet my being, my soul. Gently walking through paragaphs of Wisdom reaching out to me as my eyes devour line after line of words. Discovering answers just like that new comer rooster found that luscious grass. I find answers to those extrodinary moments that surprise me, me, re-acting and then acceptance slips in and rests my day.
Today's teacher came to me through a well loved book by Brennan Manning called The Wisdom of Tenderness" What Happens When God's Fierce Mercy Transforms Our Lives" Another book of Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel, whispered many answers to my troubled soul at the time I read it.
So Dec. 16th is flying off the calendar even as I wright this.....good evening to you all,
Good tidings to you.....
Kate
