Morning Milking

Not many girls I knew were lucky enough to grow up in the shadow of a big city and yet have a working dairy farm situated at the end of their road. I never really paid much attention to it until the day I spotted a cow giving birth in a pasture while my family was driving by. Thinking such a momentous event should not be happening unattended, I made my mom stop at the house, raced to and pounded on the door, telling the farmer who answered what I'd seen in breathless gasps that he was surely lucky to understand. He smiled kindly, nodded his head and thanked me, and said he'd take care of it. Then he closed the door and we were done! His response was a little underwhelming, to say the least, but thus began a friendship that lasted for several years.

Apparently I was just one of a number of local children he humored with trips about his farm, letting us tag along as he did his chores, scattering grain for the chickens, feeding the big bull in the barn, and to my great delight, hand-feeding the calves out of giant baby bottles that they sucked at so greedily they threatened to pull them out of my hands.

And always I visited the milking barn, passing the cows in the corral, patiently lined up and waiting their turn to be milked. While most were milked by machines attached to their udders while they fed on hay in the bin, there were some Mr. Peak milked by hand for some reason, sitting on the little three-legged stool and working the udders to produce a steady stream of milk in the waiting bucket below. He gave me a shot at it a couple of times and I remember the softness of the udder, the process of working the teat and my amazement when my efforts were successful. It was magical to a city girl, and I spent countless hours there on lazy summer afternoons.

The farm is long gone now. A Silicon Valley millionaire bought the property and built a mansion on that land of milk and memories. But I was suddenly transported back there recently in a conversation with my sister in which we discussed the importance of “milking joy” out of every moment this holiday season, especially in a year dominated by the worries and struggles produced by a global pandemic. Suddenly I was back on that milking stool, squeezing the nipple, delighting in the milk my actions produced.

God wants us to know we can have that joy in everything we experience, not just during the holidays, but every day in every circumstance we face, if we just take the time to work our situation to produce the blessing it contains. Time stops and joy deepens when we stop long enough to squeeze out all the magic of the moment, appreciating it fully and giving thanks for the wonder of it before releasing it, only to grab the next and repeat the process, again and again as we go through our days. Even the hard times have hidden blessings that are found only when we make the concerted effort to pull up a stool and release them.

Too often these days in our increasing rush to meet holiday deadlines, our joy is produced through artificial means, pumped out of the season in the familiarity of carols, heartwarming movies, eye-popping decorations and wallet-emptying purchases for ourselves or others. We get our spiritual sustenance in the same way, bottled and delivered by any number of outside means. One benefit of milking machines is the incredible amount of time they save on days when multi-tasking is by necessity the name of the game. But there is something special about setting aside some time every day to milk joy the old-fashioned way, spending the time to bond with the One who gives us all good things and finding our peace in the meditative process of seeking Him out.

Our day starts every morning like a cow standing before us with a full udder, ready to release it's joy. Don't let your bucket run dry.

“Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. 'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul, 'Therefore I hope in Him!' The Lord is good to those who wait for Him, to the soul who seeks Him.”

(Lamentations 3: 22-25 NKJV)

 

A Ticket to Ride

We were in the mood to play.

It was such a beautiful day that we headed to Cincinnati early to walk along the riverfront for a bit before heading into the ballpark for the Reds game that evening. Our spirits as high as the sun in the sky, we hit Smale Park and I gasped when I suddenly saw the carousel in front of us.

Gripping my husband's hand excitedly, I asked, “How much would you pay to ride that thing?”, knowing that doing so was not on an item as high on his to-do list as it was on mine.

“Two bucks,” he grunted.

“Let's go see,” I said as we pushed our way through the door and made our way to the ticket table in the corner.

“How much for a ride?” Jim asked.

“Two dollars,” came the reply.

“YES!” I fist-pumped, then said, “I'll even buy!” Fishing the bills out of my wallet I handed them to the clerk and then fairly ran around the ropes to find a seat. The beautifully carved red cardinal claimed my heart, as anyone who knows me will understand, while my husband settled himself into the silver-blue Corvette nearby, likewise a predictable choice. The bells rang, the carousel moved, and my smile fairly split my face from the sheer joy of it all.

At first we were busy snapping pictures of each other on our separate seats, until I finally had to remind myself to stop and simply enjoy the ride, for surely it would be over all too soon. Savor the moment, I told myself...the up and down, the round and round regularity of it. Bliss.

There was a baby on the seat next to me, supported by her mother standing alongside. After a while, she started to cry; she'd had enough. The mother plucked her off and held her for a moment, then moved her nearer her toddler-aged friend riding alongside, who held her hand for comfort for a moment or two. Inevitably, soon the carousel slowed, then stopped as the bells signaled it was time to get off. We headed back outside, but I laughed at a glimpse of the sign that's posted on the door when the attraction is closed, stating that the carousel animals are sleeping now, and to please come back at another time.

Everything around me was smile-worthy, it seemed, so happy was my soul. We jumped on the foot piano “keys” at the Playscape like the biggest of kids, trying to make the overhead bells chime, and then tried to walk along the River Trail, but our progress was slow, stopped at regular intervals by my insistence that we halt and take a picture of just about everything I saw.

“Are you a tourist today?” Jim asked, understandably a little frustrated by my desire to photograph landmarks that we see on a regular basis...the Roebling Bridge, the Great American Insurance building (majestic in a blue sky dotted with white clouds, flowers framing the view!), Great American Ballpark...the list ran on. I only put my phone away when we spied the bench swings overlooking the river, and rushed alongside of them till we found an open seat. How relaxing to simply sit and swing, watching a tugboat push a barge along on the water in front of us, a riverboat ferry docking at river's edge to deliver a load of Reds fan to the ballpark, a gentle breeze cooling our faces that were turned towards the sun. It was simply an unbelievably beautiful day, and our hearts refused to do anything but rejoice.

How wonderful that that is exactly the future God has in store for us!

Don't you know, this life is but a carousel ride. We eagerly embark, looking for our niche, that place in life that matches the skills and desires that God has placed inside of us. At times we get so caught up in the details of the ride that we have to be reminded to savor the journey, the ups and downs, the round and round regularity of our routines and every beautiful moment in-between. No joke, life can get pretty scary at times and we may beg to get off, but when we cry, our Father holds us in a comforting embrace or moves us a little closer to a fellow traveler nearby who holds our hand and lifts our spirits for a little bit till we're brave enough to move on. For surely we have only a limited number of spins around the sun before life slows and a bell chimes to let us know our time has come to an end. Reluctantly we leave, only to push through another door and realize that while our bodies may sleep, our spirits are more awake and alive than ever before, and everything before us is brand-new and beautiful, waiting for us to explore and enjoy, our Savior by our side.

“I would never have guessed you wanted to ride that Carousel,” my husband said later that day. It was a wish I had never vocalized, perhaps because it wasn't that important, one I never fully understood myself when I stashed it away after watching TV coverage one day of the carousel's assembly process. But God knew, just as He knows the secret desires of all our hearts, and the Bible promises that He'll make them happen...if not in this world, then surely in the next. Oh, what joy He has in store...!!!

“But as it is written: 'Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.'”

(1 Corinthians 2:9 NKJV)

Mason Jar-Worthy Moments

I startled my neighbor the other morning.

Coming up the driveway a little faster and farther than I usually do before stopping to look for passing traffic, I caused the driver of an approaching truck to slam on his brakes, thinking I was going to pull out in front of him. I waved my apology, and as he went on by I realized why he was a little nervous; he was carrying precious cargo. Pulling a trailer loaded with bee hives, the driver was the owner of the honey farm just down the road, bringing home a load of golden goodness locked in the little compartments of the honeycombs.

He held an open house on his farm last weekend; I wish I had been off so I could have learned more about the honey production process. I know the basics, that forager bees collect nectar from flowering plants, then pass it on to worker bees at the hive where it is stored and gradually transformed into honey by the evaporation of excess liquid. The bees feed off the stored honey in the hive in the winter months, and it produces a bountiful harvest that we enjoy in a variety of ways every day.

Although I had to work the day of the open house, as I sat on the deck with my coffee I noticed a honeybee gathering nectar from the nearby flowering plants. Wondering if it was a wanderer from one of my neighbor's hives, I observed how diligent it was in its search, going from one bloom to the next, hitting them all. God reminded me that just as honeybees are becoming rare, so, too, in this day and age of negative news and mindsets are those who seek out the sweet in all of life's experiences.

I want to be such a person. So it shouldn't have been a surprise that in the next couple of days I came across a devotional written by Max Lucado that talked about the many jars of canned goods he would see in his grandmother's cellar. It suggested that we can similarly store up good thoughts and moments to get us through emotionally lean times in the months ahead.

The idea took hold, perhaps because August is a canning month and people have been busy processing what is coming out of the gardens they have cared for so diligently over the summer. As a grocery store cashier I have seen a multitude of mason jars pass over my register scanner recently, and have helped a number of patrons find the pickling salt and spices they need only at this particular time of the year.

It was when God told me to pull out a mason jar of my own that I reminded Him nervously that I am neither a gardener nor a cook. He may have actually laughed at that point, remembering perhaps some of my earlier attempts at both. But He calmed me by saying I simply had to be the “forager bee” He created me to be. For the next month I was to go through each day looking expressly for the moments that made me laugh or smile, gathering those droplets of joy in my mind. Then in the evening, just before bed, I was to write a word or two about each of the most fun on three tiny slips of folded yellow post-it notes, just enough to later jog the memory, and then deposit them into the jar that I kept on the windowsill just over my sink. Those instructions could be condensed to three little commands I saw on a page-a-day calendar recently: Capture smiles. Capture love. Capture life.

Didn't we used to do that as kids? How many of us lucky enough to live where lightning bugs abound could resist the urge to catch as many as we could in a jar to use as a bedroom nightlight later on? Even then we were unwittingly storing up joy for dark times ahead. (Nowadays a string of battery-powered lights in a jar evokes the same emotional uplift without leaving a mess of dead fireflies to dump out in the morning. Progress!)

Because I love to play games with God, I eagerly signed on to the project. I have to admit that even my husband felt a twinge of anxiety when he first saw the mason jar waiting to be filled...but his concern turned to curiosity as the days went by and he saw it slowly filling up with yellow paper instead of yucky food I would later require him to eat. Finally he had to ask me about it, which of course was part of the point. You see, people will notice when you deliberately start filling your mind with joy you seek out instead of the junk the world offers. It becomes visible in even your facial features; they can't help but notice the smile on your lips, the giggle in your conversation, your laughter with an increasing number of friends. Eventually they will ask you about it, and that's when you get to share with them the goodness of God, how He fills our days with sweet nectar that is ours for the taking, blessings of all kinds that are blooming all around us, just waiting to be gathered up, enjoyed, stored, and shared.

But what was I to do with the jar at the end of the month? He told me to first pick a time to dump it all out and review the contents, enjoying each moment once more. Then I was to refill it with the paper slips and put it on the top shelf of my kitchen cabinet, where I keep my pills. The significance of that latter instruction was not lost on me - truly a daily dose of smiles does as much for my health as my blood pressure medicine and vitamin tablet combined! And so I did as I was told, but I didn't shelve my commitment to being an active member of the hive. It is said that if you do something for thirty days it becomes a habit, and truly now I can't help but look for laughter everywhere I go. At the end of the day I review the moments that are written across my heart and give thanks for the joy of the day gone by.

This is a game that all can play. Just as it takes a bunch of bees to make a hive, so it takes a whole family working together to make a home a happy place, a lot of coworker cooperation to do the same at the workplace, and all of us working together to bring positive change to our world. How wonderful to think that the power to accomplish all that begins with the individual bee, simply buzzing from flower to flower.

“Attention, all! See the marvels of God! He plants flowers and trees all over the earth...'Step out of the traffic! Take a long, loving look at me, your High God, above politics, above everything.'”

(Psalm 46:8-10 MSG)