The Parable of the Renegade Calf

Ensconced in my prayer window this morning, I saw a parable enacted out in the field before me.

Two huge tractors driven by farmers, father and son, roared up the road and parked, blocking the quiet road from either side to make a corridor between fields. Then the son zipped into the field and called and whistled until about a dozen cows and their calves paraded, in a line, to him, past him and across the road into the field of greener grass. 

I didn’t have a view of the entire field, as we sit in the middle of it, but I saw one calf break ranks and head for the far corner of the field. There was much lowing and mooing and bellowing and one of the farmers leapt into a tractor and drove at a triangular angle to the calf. I thought I would see it circle back and ‘herd’ the frightened beast from the one field to the other.

But instead the tractor disappeared round the back, and within minutes, a couple of dozen more cows, calves and the white bull came into view, moving along quite smartly in a fairly orderly line towards the son beckoning to them from the gate. The renegade calf, encouraged by the sight of more of her kind, dashed across and joined the queue headed for the other field. 

The farmer didn’t need to go after that calf on its own. He just needed to gather the rest of the herd and she happily joined in.

I said it was a parable but I feel a bit like the disciples with Jesus, asking him what it meant. Because I feel like there is deep meaning to be gleaned from this, but I’m not entirely sure I know what it is.

Could it be that some of us are like the renegade calf, refusing to join the others initially but then racing to join up when the rest of the group seemed ok with the plan? Perhaps we hesitate to follow Jesus, unsure that he is leading us to greener pastures, but when we see a ‘critical mass’ of others following we take courage and fall into line. 

Could it be a picture of God, like the farmer, who has lots of tactics for encouraging us to choose life, to choose sustenance, and will not give up on us until we make the right choice? God, like the farmer, has our welfare in mind but God, unlike the farmer, has no ulterior motives (fattening up the beasts for market) and just wants us to come into relationship with him and enjoy the benefits of tasting heaven even while living on earth. 

I will mull over this picture today and see if anything else is to be gleaned from it...

Trees of the Field

Our summer weather continues to amaze and wilt us. Today it is in the 80’s – 30degrees C – which is unheard of in this corner of the globe. Loving it.

So Dusty and I opted for the ‘wet walk’ at Crathes Castle around 11 this morning. Or the ‘swimming for sticks’ walk – both names are recognised by Dusty who eagerly races to the car. Only today, with the summer weather we’ve been having, the wet walk was rather dried up! Well, only the big loch, really. The burns still gurgled, though less full than normal.

After several stick throwing diversions, Dusty and I headed on towards the Castle and I suddenly noticed the trees. Not that I wasn’t aware of them – they provided the canopy of cool which Dusty especially was loving. What I noticed, though, was how many broken-off branches there were lower down, before the leafy bits at the tops. I wondered how many of the branches were casualties of the weather – wind or lightning perhaps – and how many were pruned off? I wondered if any had just withered and died, malnourished from the centre somehow. 

Our lives are a bit like that. How many branches budded forth in my life, promising fulfilment perhaps, only to wither and die as I neglected to feed them? Ideas I’ve had for writing projects, for instance. Intentions of visiting shut-ins, perhaps. 

How many branches were growing strongly and then suddenly got broken off by external forces? Relationships which were broken – perhaps because someone died, like my sister Judy. Relationships which just withered because I didn’t nurture them. Relationships which became diseased in some way and were allowed to die.

Does my life have all the branches it is supposed to, or have i let God and myself down by allowing some to break off or wither?

There’s something so wonderful about tall trees. So majestic. So strong. Some, so ancient. We celebrate the bits we see, and forget about the branches that may have once given shelter to birds, shade to cows, but which are no longer there.

There’s a verse in the Old Testament about the ‘trees of the field clapping their hands’. Strange verse. But it refers to the days when heaven will be re-established on earth. When earth will once more be all it was created to be. Joy will be the norm, not sorrow.

Something reminiscent of branches in the clapping of a tree’s hands. I pray that on that incredible day when earth is once again 100% the Lord’s, all my branches will be restored, and I’ll be clapping them in jubilation.