Teaching Lesson #10,495 from the Farm Animals
I’m a slow learner. I’ve been a regenerative farmer and rancher for just south of eight years. I am just now starting to get it.
Why won’t the cows stay behind their electric fences when we are thirty minutes from moving them. Why do the chickens stop laying eggs just as our customers want them?
Well, the cows are just being cows. They are hardwired to always be on the move to escape predators. Plus, they are always looking for the best new grass. They are searching to eat dessert grass first. And it actually looks good on them!
The chickens stop laying because they are chickens. When the days get shorter they take long sabbaticals. They take time to finally rest and molt. They spend that time growing new feathers so that they can regulate their body temperature for the rest of the year.
Why do the goats eat every other animals feed and generally give the word curious a bad name? Why can’t the turkeys even find their own food when they are born? Why do our heritage breed pig squeals rival those of Scream 6? Why do the *#%>! wild hogs multiply faster than wild rabbits?
Not one of them is interested in being the cows/sheep/chickens/pigs/hogs they think that I want them to be. They are simply trying to do the things that their breed of animal does.
Imagine if I thought of myself as part of the animal world instead of so far above it?
I have started trying to be the husband that I want to be instead of the husband that I think my wife wants me to be.
It has involved some uncomfortable “no I am not going to do that” moments. But it is amazing how my inner voice of resentments, “I have to do this for her and that for her again” has softened.
I’ve even started to put down the marriage scorecard. “If I am going to do this for her, she better damned well do this for me.”
And those little things that used to bother me about my wife? I’ve somehow just started to accept them as the whole beautiful package named Susan.
I’ve been a part of a group for fourteen years that says it this way, “you are only as sick as your resentments.”
Did I say that I am a slow learner?
I’ve also started to be the boss that I want to be rather than the boss I think I should be. I find that I am more clear-minded, confident and caring in my decisions than I have been in a long time.
Could it be that we don’t need the latest leadership training or organizational technology? We don’t need another class on modeling leadership or working with governing boards? What if we stop being the leaders that we think we are supposed to be and be the leaders that we want to be?
Some of you know that we unexpectedly lost our dog Cafe ‘Ole last week. When I was told about ‘Ole, I decided that I would actually grieve how I wanted to rather how I than how I THOUGHT my family wanted me to.
What you should know is that I was a pastor for twenty-five years. You put a call into me about death, divorce, depression or drug problems and I’ll show up with focused eye contact and concerned compassion voice. I will get with you where you are in your grief, and walk with you through it for as long as it takes. Hey, I got lots of compliments for this!
So when I decided to grieve the way I wanted to, I told my wife that I was not going to be a part of any pet burial but “you feel free too.”
I called my son, told him about the dog, and sat there in silence for about five (it felt like 50,000) minutes on the phone. Not once did I try to get a read on his feelings or offer some word of comfort.
I did not try to get with anybody “where they were” in their grief. I decided to experience my own grief instead.
The returns are early but do you know my wife decided to have our dog cremated and didn’t mind my decision at all.
My son hasn’t needed my pastoral efforts and seems to have really appreciated the space.
As I have just been present to my own grief, it has been so powerful to just let it come and go as it has needed to.
I was told as a young preacher to never make myself the hero of my own stories, and what I have said here this morning does have theological flaws. But you know, I really don’t give a crap. I’m nobody’s preacher.
The irony of it is that as I have I stopped trying to be the person I thought everyone wanted me to be, I’m becoming the person everyone has always needed me to be.
I’m a slow learner but maybe I am starting to get it.
