A Taste of Divine Glory
Illustration
Stories
The voice of the Lord causes the oaks to whirl
and strips the forest bare,
and in his temple all say, “Glory!” (Psalm 29:9)
Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it… (Isaiah 42:5a)
When I need a safe place to escape from the stresses of modern life, memory takes me back to the barn in winter on the farm where I grew up.
It is fifteen below outside, but warm inside atop the hay bales stacked almost to the roof of the loft. Steam rises through the open hay chutes carrying the smells of the cattle below.
I climb down from the mow and look out over the herd settling in, some of them already beginning to lie down. Light from flickering hundred-watt bulbs sparkles in the cobwebs on the perspiring sandstone walls. Pipes bang as a drinking cup gushes, one last drink before bed. Eddy Arnold’s sweet ballad, "Welcome to My World,” wafts from the radio that hangs from a whitewashed beam over the freshly limed driveway.
There is nothing like the barn on a cold winter night after milking is done. I see the green alfalfa hay spread in the manger in front of the stanchions, and golden oat straw sprinkled beneath the cows. The energy that fills the air is palpable.
And it is more than just the body heat from forty Holsteins, a dozen calves, one old cow dog, and five barn cats curled up on a pile of feed sacks. It is something ethereal, something mystical. The Creator is powerfully present, somehow, in a way that perhaps only people who work with animals can fully know.
The dairy barn on such nights, as the farmer turns out the lights and heads toward house and supper, is a "thin place," a Celtic Christian term for "those rare locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses."
My soul sings as I make my way up the snowy path toward the kitchen light. A full February moon is rising over the hogsback casting shadows through the looming white pines we planted fifty years ago. The coyote chorus rings out from the hilltop, howls down the valley, and echoes back from the bluffs along the creek. The Milky Way glimmers overhead, a billion stars breathtakingly close in the clear, cold air. There is the big dipper and the north star, and the little dipper over there above where the outhouse once stood.
In the morning I will fill a pint jar with cream skimmed off the top of the milk in the bulk tank in the milk house, before the milk hauler comes to haul it away to the cheese factory. Poured over steaming oatmeal and topped with a pad of butter and brown sugar, this barn to table feast is the farmer’s daily communion, a taste of the divine that is in all things here and in heaven.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 8, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
and strips the forest bare,
and in his temple all say, “Glory!” (Psalm 29:9)
Thus says God, the Lord,
who created the heavens and stretched them out,
who spread out the earth and what comes from it… (Isaiah 42:5a)
When I need a safe place to escape from the stresses of modern life, memory takes me back to the barn in winter on the farm where I grew up.
It is fifteen below outside, but warm inside atop the hay bales stacked almost to the roof of the loft. Steam rises through the open hay chutes carrying the smells of the cattle below.
I climb down from the mow and look out over the herd settling in, some of them already beginning to lie down. Light from flickering hundred-watt bulbs sparkles in the cobwebs on the perspiring sandstone walls. Pipes bang as a drinking cup gushes, one last drink before bed. Eddy Arnold’s sweet ballad, "Welcome to My World,” wafts from the radio that hangs from a whitewashed beam over the freshly limed driveway.
There is nothing like the barn on a cold winter night after milking is done. I see the green alfalfa hay spread in the manger in front of the stanchions, and golden oat straw sprinkled beneath the cows. The energy that fills the air is palpable.
And it is more than just the body heat from forty Holsteins, a dozen calves, one old cow dog, and five barn cats curled up on a pile of feed sacks. It is something ethereal, something mystical. The Creator is powerfully present, somehow, in a way that perhaps only people who work with animals can fully know.
The dairy barn on such nights, as the farmer turns out the lights and heads toward house and supper, is a "thin place," a Celtic Christian term for "those rare locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses."
My soul sings as I make my way up the snowy path toward the kitchen light. A full February moon is rising over the hogsback casting shadows through the looming white pines we planted fifty years ago. The coyote chorus rings out from the hilltop, howls down the valley, and echoes back from the bluffs along the creek. The Milky Way glimmers overhead, a billion stars breathtakingly close in the clear, cold air. There is the big dipper and the north star, and the little dipper over there above where the outhouse once stood.
In the morning I will fill a pint jar with cream skimmed off the top of the milk in the bulk tank in the milk house, before the milk hauler comes to haul it away to the cheese factory. Poured over steaming oatmeal and topped with a pad of butter and brown sugar, this barn to table feast is the farmer’s daily communion, a taste of the divine that is in all things here and in heaven.
*****************************************
StoryShare, January 8, 2023 issue.
Copyright 2023 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
