PRAYER MEETING with the COWS

I skipped down the path to the old barn where Daddy was doing the evening milking chores. I loved that whole scene: the soft glow from the old ceiling lights, the lowing of cattle, the scent of fresh milk, and the very essence of what farming with animals is all about.

Born in Center County, Pennsylvania, I was four years old when my family bought a dairy farm in New York State.  On that farm, my life was magical. Fields to roam, barns to explore, and the tightly structured life of a dairy farm all fit together into a cocoon of beauty and pleasure for me.

 And then there were the animals: chickens, ducks, horses, cats, and a new puppy. And, of course, the main characters, the dairy cows.

Nothing is more beguiling to me than the gentle, expressive eyes of a cow. We somehow communicated when those gentle cow eyes gazed into mine.

At four, I discovered how to get a barn full of those beautiful eyes to focus on my little inconspicuous frame. 

I had invented a plan. After the ladies had been milked and were still in their stanchions nibbling on hay I would wait patiently for Daddy and our hired man to leave. I wanted to be the only human in the milking barn.

As soon as the barn was empty of other humans, I became the person in charge.

Grabbing an old scoop from an open feed sack by the back steps, I filled it with the sweet grain that was like candy to the cows. Walking up and down the aisle in front of those huge questioning eyes, I shook the familiar scoop of grain and handed out little samples of grain in each of their feeding troughs

Soon all those beautiful eyes were carefully watching me. I had captured a grand audience.

What next? According to my limited experience, this would be easy: when bodies are gathered together informally as this was, we could have a prayer meeting!

But, I needed a sermon.

Digging into my repertoire of learned homilies I came up with what I thought would be appropriate:

“Ladies, Jesus loves you and He died for your sins,” I explained in my loud preacherly voice. A row of innocent eyes peered back.

“Okay,” seeing no response I went on to the next agenda, “are there any prayer requests?” Again, no response. 

The day my little prayer meetings ended was the day I had an unwelcome intruder. I think we had just started the prayer time when, from somewhere in the middle of the barn came a loud, “Moo.”

Startled, my eyes opened wide. “Who said that?” I shouted accusingly looking down the line of unbowed heads.

From the shadows, my daddy stepped forward, chuckling.

Oh, the embarrassment! These little meetings had been a secret between me and the cows. Now the secret was out.

I was done.

Of course, my little escapade became a family story for years.

Seventy-some years later, I fondly remember my little “prayer meetings” with the cows. I still talk to animals as though they understand me.

But since then, my biblical education has grown beyond that of a four-year-old.

No, my cows did not/could not know this Jesus or the Truth my little four-year-old heart wanted them to know. But they knew me, and according to the charge from the Garden, I was/am the one standing in the gap.  

I long for that day when the Second Adam will return to set things right again, and when the creation (cows included) will no longer be under the curse brought by the First Adam.

I will save my salvation messages for the people for whom Christ died until one day the Curse under which this fallen world limps along will be broken.