Fence sitting in the Spirit

We are building a fence on the farm behind our house for Junie B. Jones. Fence building is an art. After the basic decisions are made... layout of the posts, metal or wood posts, barbed wire, electric wire, regular wire or wood... the art and craft work begins. Our fence rambles and curves following the contours of the sloping land behind our house. There are no corners because it is a fence for horses. If you have corners, dominant horses can trap other horses in them and hurt them. We are using wood because it is a material kind to horses. They will not be cut by running into the fence. It can be clearly seen and they can look over it without bending or stretching it out of shape.
Our neighbor and friend Gary is using his sawmill to cut the boards for us from trees on the farm. We have more jack pine than a dog has fleas so finding wood is not a problem. Yesterday, with Gary’s help, we began putting the boards up. Unlike the fences my daddy built painstakingly by hand, we have the joy of power tools. Post holes were dug by an auger on the back of the tractor. An air hammer and chain saw (from Gary’s tool stash) made the installation of the boards move quickly. Gary, Dianne, Michael and I soon fell into a rhythm as we figured out the steps of the fence dance. Mama came up to see and when I turned around, I saw her leaning on the fence, looking out over the hills and mountains that circle our farm. All night long that image has stayed with me and this morning, when I woke up, there was a revelation present waiting in my consciousness.
I am a fence sitter. Fence sitters are seen as weak individuals who cannot make up their minds or take a stand but I beg to differ. Like fence building, fence sitting is an art and one we should all practice from time to time. Fence sitting requires one to stop work, whatever that may be, and climb the fence. One cannot fence sit and do anything else. Only your body, balanced on the top of the fence, still and quiet as you watch the world around you, and your soul are needed for fence sitting. Porch sitting and fence sitting are first cousins but fence sitting is a balancing act.
When you are perched on top of the fence, the first lesson learned is the precariousness of your position. If you don’t pay attention, you will slide off, picking up splinters on the way down. You cannot assume you are permanently planted high above the "madding crowd" safe from all the hoo hah in the field below. I can observe the milling around and running of the horses and cows contained in the fence but I must remember I will have to get down occasionally from the fence top in order to feed them. The top of the fence is not my final resting place.
The second lesson learned is not to always stay down on the ground. A new perspective awaits the fence sitter. You can see over the stock in the field and catch glimpses of the world beyond. You can also see your animals more clearly from the top of the fence. Tillie is limping, Junie B. Jones is slobbering, Ferd needs more to eat, Annie is getting ready to calve. Paradoxically you have a long range and an up close view at the same time. I can see the future and the present from the top of the fence. My personal interpretations and truth assumptions are stretched by the visions from the top of the fence. I can see the horizon and the foreground, the field where I now live and the fields yet to be explored, more clearly when I get my feet off the ground.
I am also more vulnerable sitting on a fence. I am apart from the crowd below, a sitting duck, an easy target, and that is not always a bad thing. Vulnerability forces you to pay attention. You cannot assume your position on the fence is more secure that the person sitting next to you. Both of you wobble from time to time. Nor can you assume your view from the fence is the same as your fence sitting neighbor. My mama first sees the fences on the farms when she looks out over the horizon. I see the mountains beyond. We can share what we see and see what the other sees, but our view is still our own.
First Corinthians 3:5-6 is my fence sitting Bible verse. "Not that we are competent of ourselves to claim anything as coming from us; our competence is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not in a written code but in the Spirit; for the written code kills but the Spirit gives life." So I fence sit in the Spirit and observe the written codes killing and the Spirit also giving life. I get down off the fence and enter the fray with renewed vision of the possibilities for a beloved community. I give thanks for all those who are my beloved family in the Spirit who give me life and love, who bind up my wounds, pray for me, then push me back out into the world to be a competent minister of the new covenant. Thanks be to God.