Category: A Change Happens

When we were thinking of moving to our franch several years ago, our realtor showed us the fence dividing our land from our neighbors.  We agreed that it’d be the first thing to fix.  “Good fences make good neighbors,” we all knew, remembering Robert Frost’s famous poem “Mending Wall” and Carl Sandburg advising, “Love your neighbor as yourself; but don’t take down that fence.”  Well, we didn’t get to repairing the fence right away, and three years later, it’s actually a little worse.  A bad fence gives you many opportunities to interact with a neighbor.  No doubt, you really get to know a neighbor when you are searching with flashlights late at night in your neighbor’s back several hundred acres for a cow that simply stepped over the leaning fence.  Over the last few years, we’ve learned that it’s nice with one less barrier to getting to know someone.  You may be surprised how much you like your neighbor!  Isn’t it interesting that we may have hundreds of followers on social networks, but not know if we walked by a neighbor in the grocery store?  “Love thy neighbor as yourself” … period.  There’s probably a reason it’s the second greatest commandment.  Let your fence fall into disrepair.

One day our neighbor handed me a magnet that reads, “Eat Veggies Not Friends.”  No explanation as to why was needed.  She knew of the fate of a lamb on our franch.  You may ask, “How can you eat your own animals?”  We wanted to teach our children that if you couldn’t raise your own animals for meat, then you shouldn’t eat meat.  “Don’t be a hypocrite,” instructed my husband.  Our eldest daughter expressed the tug-of-war happening in her heart, “I love that lamb, but I really love meat.”  When you raise your own animal to one day be on your table, you learn to fully appreciate the life that is given for the nourishment of your body.  It gives you another reason for finishing what’s on your plate – if the reality of so many malnourished children in developing countries isn’t enough motivation.  Our children do not whine about how they are too full to finish their lamb dinner but still have room for dessert.  Not a single crumb is left as we remember how we poured time and love into that lamb for the past year.  It is definitely easier on your spirit to mindlessly roll through the supermarket aisles and fill up your cart with chuck roasts, chicken breasts, and pork tenderloins.  But, then you don’t know who to thank.  We can thank Augustus.  Though I must admit, it isn’t easy.  I don’t want to be a hypocrite.  I think I may soon need some recommendations for vegetarian cookbooks…

Grace is something we say in our family before every meal.  “Saying grace” refers to the practice of thanking God for the food before us.  It is actually one of the most common forms of spoken prayer and is a tradition among all the major world religions.  I grew up saying the common lovely Catholic grace “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ, Our Lord. Amen.”  Now,  in our family, the prayer of thanksgiving we’ve chosen isn’t written out for us – instead, we take turns thanking the Lord for our food and for His provision in other ways as well.   It is said three times a day and sometimes before snacks.  You know what happens when something is said over and over again, each time similar to the time before.   It’s often expressed without full attention, without thoughtfulness, and even without comprehension of the meaning of the spoken words, and definitely without sincerity.  It was happening in our family – made obvious by the recent comment of our five year old, “The people who don’t believe in God are lucky because they get to eat their food sooner than me.”  Then, we butchered the first lamb born on our franch.  And a lamb who had a name was on our plate.  Bow your heads with me as our family says grace with utter sincerity.