Biscuits and Gravy

There is a new girl on the farm...Biscuits and Gravy. She looks like Grandma’s biscuits smothered in sausage gravy, white with brown and black spots. Her eyes are rimmed with black eyeliner. She is a beauty and knows it.
The first time Gary brought her over to our cows, she found an open space in the fencing and nearly beat him back home. This time we locked her down in Dixie’s stall for three days to give her time to separate from her mama and her herd. Every day I fed and watered her, gave her treats and worked to gentle her. When she gets aggravated, she shakes her head like a bull and claims her space. I got too close for her comfort one morning and she rushed me only to meet my boot on her nose. We have come to a mutual understanding.
Last night I let her out of the stall. She came out full steam ahead and began eating the hay I had laid out. The pecking order began with Junie B moving to Biscuit’s pile of hay to claim it. Biscuit moved but not for long. I watched the wheels turn in her bovine mind and she came rushing back to her pile, swinging her head, pushing Junie B who is twice her size, away.
Dixie, the alpha horse, tried next and received the same treatment. Whatever Biscuit wants, Biscuit gets. There is a new leader of the pack and she is the smallest one of all. After filling her belly she ran the fence line while I walked behind watching. She kept looking for a break, a place to go through and when she didn’t find one, began to run and buck.
She will spend a week or so in the horse pasture learning the ropes and settling in. Then we will move her down to be with the other cows and watch the games begin there. I can’t wait to see how Tilly Crowned with Horns handles this little upstart.
Personhood in cows and people is a wondrous gift. We each come wrapped as a Christmas gift to the world full of our own unique selves. Some of us are spitfires like Biscuit and others of us are more like Ferdinand the Gentle Bull. The mystery of our presence in the world is echoed in the paradox of our uniqueness and our sameness. We are all alike and we are all different.
My birth and your birth were incarnations of a loving God who takes delight in our being. Jesus was a more complete reflection of this Love but we too can be God’s children on earth. It has taken me a lifetime to begin to know and love myself, to appreciate the gifts I have been given and to forgive myself for my failures. During this mysterious holy time of new beginnings, I pray for a Biscuit spirit to rise up in me so that I might follow where I am led by Love. There is too little time left to dilly dally. Today I will sing the old spiritual “Rise Up Children and Follow” then get my head swinging as I move on down the road towards Bethlehem.