Humanity – Back Country Thoughts

Hard times…

My mom told me often as a lazy teen: “…just because it hard doesn’t make it bad.” Now that l am the one with a lot of life experiences in my past, I see the issue from the other side of life. But relating that to the next generation is often a reality learned over time

Still I am confident that it needs to be said often, for there more to this motto “than just pushing through… and getten er done”. Of course there is a feeling of satisfaction in getting a hard job done right.

Once several years back whilst ranching in the southwest, I headed out a horseback on a warm late fall day, to gather the last of the strays out of a pasture along a sometimes little river. I know some winter weather was fixing to come in the next day and this could be the last day to get them out.

That big piece of country was rimed by steep rock walls and small rocky trails and cattle can get snowed and iced in down there. They got a fifty/fifty chance of making it through without looking after.

Or even worse, being looked after by someone else. In the big country someone may finding your lost stock and will just push them up a cannon pasture and start raisen calves off of you cows. I’d hunted for the runaways a few time with no luck,and had a feeling this could be my last chance for a while.

I was lightly dressed, just flees lined denim jacket, a neck rag… (which I alway put on the first of October and don’t take of till the last of April. If l got that silks neck rag on l can stay reasonably comfortable in most weather, but if not it doesn’t matter how many layers l got on.) …my regular high top leather riding boots, and of course my black wide brim hat. (A good black hat is good cool weather riding gear, cause it catches the sun and warms your head and keeps that same sun out of your eyes, kinda a win win piece of equipment. Honestly I have no idea how anyone can walk around bareheaded outside. Even with a ball cap it doesn’t keep the sun off your neck and ears in the summer and dang sure don’t help at all in the cold. And my leather leggings to keep perfectly good jeans from being tore up.

Well that’s enough of being stuck in a conversational gopher hole. In any case things didn’t go well, like they often don’t, and l found myself in a bit of a jackpot. I got to tracking those cows, that lead me through a down water gap (fence going over the river) and into an abandoned bit of range that went up river for about ten miles of no fences, covered in tall push narrow cannons and quick sand on the boggy place. You can trust me on this one cause it cost a good bit of blood and sweet a time or two.

Fortunately for me, my stud horse Drifty (awesome horse) and border collie Daisy (greatest dog in southwest), those cows hadn’t gone to far up river. But they had found themselves a bit of a honey hole, to wait out the pending weather. Wasn’t that cold yet, but thick dark clouds were rolling in and you could smell a hint of moisture. It became clear those cows weren’t much interested in going anywhere and we had several miles of tough country to get through.

We went to work and got them pushed through that down water gap and that’s when we started working up a sweet. Those dang cows (and I was calling them worse names than that at this point. ) would go up the river some distance cross over the river, back to the down to the other side into the river, through missing water gap, and travel back toward their honey hole. There was no way to cut them off and they just ran right over the top of Daisy getting to the river.

It was mid afternoon, and I had no desire to fixing that water gap till spring. But unless I did fixed it and put them through a wire gate half mile up the fence line, (which would add another half hour to getting these cows home) this little game of theirs would go on to eternity.

I did my best to get those wires pull across a horseback against a pretty strong current, and Drifty did his best to keep me dry, but there were some deeper spots that he needed to skirt around and it made for a tough pull. Let me just add that there are not a lot of horses in this world that will drag four strands of barbed wire across running water and hold it tight on a saddle rope, while I work at getting it tied off.

Getting it tied off to a big post set in behind a even bigger flat rock was hard hard work. And in the process of pulling the last two wires out of the current, I slide off the rock and went waist deep in real cold water. And that made me made .

I dang sure wasn’t given in now. In another 10 minutes I had that gap tight and out of the water. I loosened the cinch a couple holes on the best horse, God put life into, swung in the saddle and headed for where my dog had got them four leged demon stopped, few hundred yards off.

I slipped in behind, hissed to the dog, gave out yelp, and we hit them hard and set them running to the river. They came to that water gap, looked back knowing they been beat and head up the fence line at a fast trot, stopped at the gate, and waited for me to open it. Daisy worked the back, whilst I turned them toward shortest trail to winter camp.

Now as you can imagine, the “mad was ware off”, and I was starting to feel the influence of that little swim I’d took. So I began take stock as to the situation l was in.

It was less than an hour till dark, best l could figure. The wind had shifted to the northeast, and pushing straight against us, I was soaked to the shirt pockets, and sweat through my hat. Which was now starting to freeze up, and felt like a metal helmets, rattled cold in the wind, on my head. My thin leather cloves were freezing to my hands, and my boots were frozen solid to my nume feet. I’dthought of getting down and walking to warm up but sure if I could walk any more.

I had to smile to myself a bit, because I didn’t know to many cowboys that had got themselves in a pickle like this and lived.I had heard a real story or two about cowboys that died of hypothermia, while trying to build a fire, and l didn’t even have any matches. I wasn’t really thinking about dying, I was thinking about how great of a story this was going to be when I made it through.

Normally it doesn’t take longer than an hour to break out on top, but luck was against us, and it started sleeting hard, and making the rocks icey,. About halfway up it was rough going. Where the rocky trail got narrow cattle were slipping and stopping. And the higher up the trail we went the harder that northeast wind pushed on all of us. The warmer air that was trapped in the valley, was far behind us.

Did l mention that l was getting pretty cold, and the only thing that kept any feeling in my bare hands, was that stinging icey sleet, my soggy leather gloves had frozen to my jacket pocket some time back, and all I could do was put one hand at a time between my saddle pad and my horse. I sure was glad my neck rag was dry, if it had not been for warm silk, I would have just fallen off my horse and died.

We were kinda at the “all in or done” spot on the trail, with those poor cattle slipping and crawling their way. We couldn’t stay there and wait it out. We all just keep moving forward. Every now then when thing got to slow, I’d give a whistle or daisy a bark, and off we’d go another hundred yards.

By the time we topped out, it was snowing so much, it seemed to be one huge snowflake going sideways. Normally when those cattle get out on the flat, they tend to just trail on out to the pens. But with hard snow and wind in our faces, those cattle just wanted to spread out and find a place to hide. It was like pushing rope and herding chickens, all at the same. And about now a desperate frustration set in me.

I didn’t blame much and thought about leaving them, knowing I was getting to cold, but with no real shelter for these wayward words of the ranch, that had wasted good time, and energy trying to stay ungathered. And now they were trying to kill me. I know l couldn’t leave them, they would need better shelter and water and rest from the days activities.

There is something a bit different about us cowboys that have truly chosen this life. For whatever reason we tend not have any “give up” in us. There is a weird sense of confidence about ourselves that gets us in some pretty tough places, but it’s that same confidence that gets us through too.

What is amazing, is that it becomes a part of those who work with us. Because that young stud and dog of mine, just keep work those “suldup” old cows, like it was a warm summer day.

So with the reality that it could be done, I let out a whistle and a howell, we hit them hard for a final push. Swinging the knotted end of my saddle rope to put a little sting in their cold hides. Drifty with ears back went to biting tales, Daisy hit another gear working the flanks.

As you can tell from the fact that I am writing this, we all did live, though it did take two days to get back to normal.

I wondered often about that time and many others when it was hard. It seems sometimes the harder you try, the harder it get, and when you’re sure it can’t get worse… it does. Sometimes life just seems to be against you, and it stays that way for a long long time.

I’m sure we all heard the phase “when life knocks you down…”,and in some of my darkest hours of depression, I’ve had some of the most well educated professionals say that to me. And I would just think, “you have no idea what has knocked me down”.

After much thought on why that phase makes me unsettled, I’ve found this bit of insight over the years.

Life doesn’t knock anything down, Life is the one thing that raises us up. We tend to blame the very thing that well get us back up. We have been created by divine design, with His life breathed into our spiritual humanity. Losing the influence of this reality, exchanges our best to become our worst.

What knocks us down is simply the rhythm of our existence, it is a designed resistance that brings great worth to Life. We are often influenced by social and physical notions of speculations. We habitually label a circumstance with a moral value.

Hard is not bad or wrong. We are created to be in hard and tough places. One of the greatest trip ups for me was a notion, that pushed me to the edge, was thinking: “at my age it should be easier now! “At some many years of marriage l shouldn’t be having a divorce.” “after all my hard work and experience, I shouldn’t lose my business, and be in debt”. And this was the greatest one of all, “l don’t belong here”! “I dont deserve this!”

Almost all of our religious and professional council is directed at a superficial concept of choice. If you choose to change the physical action, the “bad” feeling will go away. And that somehow you responsible for the for the spiritual realm of influence.

We avoid sadness, and loneliness, those dark and anxious places, but they are The reality of true life. Our greatest troubles comes from trying to escape, it is my personal adherence that all addiction are rooted in the effort of escaping something. Instead of feeling the reality of life, we run faster and faster for a peace that can only come when we are overwhelmed by that which is unwelcome to the superficial view of life.

We in the realm of being human, think we need to choose our feeling, if it doesn’t feel right, it is wrong and I must choose to change it. We can change what emotions we have, but the feelings are a part of our created spiritual nature. They are not meant to be changed, they are designed to be lived in.

There isn’t always someone there for us, or the one that always was, is gone. And as I’ve experienced there isn’t all a reason or answer. But as I sat on the porch of a little cabin as a stay in the journey, in a place of great saddness, loneliness and sorrow. I once heard in still small voice, “if I left you just as you are now, would you love. If this were all I had give, would want me”. I said no at time…

The peace of life is not for getting through or above the sorrows that surrounds our existence, but realize that our created spiritual nature is our first reality, when we feel the experience of our existence as we where created to. We are alive.

The humanity of being human and the horse that could Go. Part two.

“We don’t need to see all of that. Just get on and ride it. “. Now folks when I heard him say that, I’m not near as big as this fellow, and I didn’t know if I could take him in a fight, but I do know I was mad enough to try.

But being the *christian* that l was. I made a choice to hold my anger in, and looked up and said to all three of them “If you want to ride this horse you best be watching what it takes”. All the time letting King move around and having him change directions every half circle or so.

There is eternal conflict when being human interacts with a human beings.

There was a bit low toned talking going on between the three of them, but when nothing more was more said from the big fellow. I went back to focusing on the horse,. But I stopped talking as much because I wasn’t going to waste my breath on stupidity.

(I did feel some bad for those ladys, seeing how they seemed genuinely interested in what I was doing, but this comment had killed any excitement in me to share my thoughts with them).

All I needed to do is show that the horse could ride around and get paid. So I just focused on old King and set him up for success. It wasn’t ten minutes to get him relaxed and willing to be saddled and rode. With Tom close by on another good saddle horse, I stepped up and swung my leg over.

I moved him around in all directions and gates. I was sure to let them know that he did not have much of a stop by just pulling straight back on the reigns. I could tell King was bored with all this fooling around in the arena, and would have rode best outside.

After about ten minutes there wasn’t much left to show them, and so as nicely as l could, I rode up to the women and asked if one them wanted to ride him, seeing how it was their horse.

They talked to each other for a bit, but before they had come to a conclusion, this big fellow pipes up and declares he’d ride him, and before I could turn my head, he was long striding back to his truck and drags, what must have been a good saddle at one time over the fender, and long strides it back.

At this point I didn’t care, and just stepped down and pulled my saddle off Kings back and handed the bridal reigns to one of the girls. Walked to my other good saddle horse and swung in, mostly because I just dislike standing around in the dirt when there’s a perfectly good saddle horse to be set on. And would also give me a bit more mobility if things went array.

That horse could feel this guy from a mile away, but he allowed this fellow to put that wearnout saddle on his back, with his head high and legs straight. Nothing good comes from a high headed horse. And I was a mite surprised that King hadn’t taken off and kick this guy in the belly on the way out by now.

That young horse let this fellow crawl up in the saddle, like an old lady climbing up a step tool, and reach for the gravy bowl at thanksgiving. But when he had made sure this gentleman was settled in that poor saddle. That colt did what God had created him to be.

That colt took off like he was shot out of a cannon, and keep running like he was in the Kentucky derby. This poor man in his broken down saddle was set way back, grabbing at what had been a saddle horn years back, with his bridal reigns pulled straight back to his to his chin, and his long legs straight out in front of him trying to keep his big feet in those sturps.

Just when you would’ve thought King couldn’t go any faster. he hit another gear as if he was trying to break the sound barrier. That fellow made a lap and half around the big arena, before the ride came to it abrupt conclusion. That young horse never bucked a jump, he just ran faster than this fellow could ride, simply fell off the back of a perfectly good saddle horse.

And that finally brings us to where we started in part one. And the great timeless truth of who we are as a created being. As I rode to the scene of the crime, things going through my mind, most of them are a part of being human. I was thinking about how arrogant…, disrespectful…, foolish…, stupid.., and most importantly justice… “I was glad he got what was coming to him.”

( I’m sure you can up with a few while reading this story as well)

As human beings, we all think on a very shallow plain of existence. We think that if we can label “it” we can understand it. If we can give it a name we can fix it. We call it good or bad, right or wrong, and then we can choose the appropriate emotion to “it”, happy or sad, anger or not angry, hatred or loving. And then life is the way “it” should be. We can then justify the bad emotion we have from being disrespected.

But even though I can now justify my emotions , my religion and social morality require that I must choose a different emotion for the sake of another human being, or perhaps to get the money he owes me, for the physical work I have done.

Now this is where the real conflict is. We are not created to live or be motivated by this shallow experience. It is in fact why ,in our human nature, we are never satisfied.

Our Creator breathed more into us more than the oxygen of this superficial world as wonderful as it is. Our first nature is our created spiritual humanity. A breath of relationship and fellowship with another with the same created nature, just as our Creator is full of this life.

The power of our humanity, does transcend the circumstances of the superficial. That is why there is first conflicted with ourselves and then with other human beings, being human. Because the life in us lives bigger than the physical ability of choosing emotions. This breath of life is constantly superimposing our created great value. This is our existence, be chosen though superficial mental reason and lived out, but revealed and naturally live in.

(It’s kinda like your house you don’t normally choose to go home every night, it’s a natural response. Why ?, because it is where all your good stuff is. It is natural to our physical existance.) If you do have choose by reason you to go home there something wrong with where you live, and you need to reason away that emotion.

This foundational truth is who our Creator is! This is what He creates everyday, like it is the very first day of creation. This what He feels, and thinks about all day long. Our only responsibility is revealed in our humanity in a natural ability to respond.

The superficiality of being humans lives in realm of Need.

We need love therefore I need to love.

We need respect so I need to be respectful.

We need to eat so I need to feed.

I need comfort and security therefore you need to obey the law.

We need salvation so I need Jesus.

You need salvation even more, so I need to get you saved. LOL.

We need to happy so you need to be happy, and make me happier.

I know you get the point and can come up with even better ones than me.

The great reality is that our humanity is created to naturally want.

We want to have relationship with something greater than ourselves, so we have families, churches, groups and gatherings of all kinds.

We want to have fellowship (to being, have intimate connection), so we marry, date, have ball teams, and bars. Game night and movies night, and church socials.

We want to know our Creator, so we search for the meaning of life.

We want to know our Creator’s creation, so we go to the bottom of the oceans, in plastic bubbles. We fly to the moon in an oversized coffee can, with less computer power than my toaster.

We are created to want. That is why it is natural to sacrifice in the physical. That is why we naturally give of our time and money. That’s why we naturally have faith, can believe, and do trust. We naturally have the passion of forgiveness.

We are compassionate. This is the greater reality of our existence. No matter where we are in the physical world or what has happened to us life. That is who we are because our Creator is that.

You may be asking yourself, what does any of this have to with a fellow falling off his wife’s horse? I guess the upshot is. What we think is reality, is the shallow presence of human beings, being human. Needing to control for the sake of the need to be of value,

And whats even worse, is when they don’t get what they deserve, when humans can Go through life arrogant, controlling, and in the end abusive. Taring down other human beings in thought and emotional actions. So we pray to a god of judgment and wait, hoping we will get see their demise, and when it doesn’t seem to be happening on this planet, we sleep in peace knowing they will burn in Hell.

Human beings so unnaturally cling to a shallow contention, with those we want a relationship and fellowship with the most. Believing this how it is. The reality is: our Creator is not in contention with our nature of humanity, He never was.

I was being very human that day. I was giving a lot thought to my money that was in his back pocket. But in the revelation of compassion (relating in my nature of our humanity), I see that there are so much more than who was the better horseman that warm summer morning.

I often wonder what feeling of insecurity, about money or marriage, job, health, that by his need, in thought, justified this big fellow’s emotions of arrogance, pride and control. Knowing now that the natural power of look through the shallow things of being human, is what see who we are created to be.

Thanks for stay with me. Tell me what you think. I am not interested in debate, but trust we can relate.

Creative consistency and consistently creative. Or Controlled confusion and confused control.

My wife and I have a small outfit on a mesa with a beautiful view of the mountains to the north. Every day, all day, and even at night, the view is there. It is a constant reality. Yet depending on the time of day, week or month, the view is different. It i a created reality. Which I am confident is intended to create feelings (spiritual influence that is intended to motivate a physical response).

Every morning as I’m out doing chores. Filling water tanks feeding horses, doctoring on something sick or hurt. Not to mention it may be in the snow or cold, wind or rain, mud or dust and heat. (Often all at the same time! ).

And on any different time day or season, the reality of a leaky water tank, a hay tarp frozen to the ground or blown away, no gain and or the wrong kind of medicine. (Oh and the dogs got into trash, and we had chickens for a while, but that a whole nether story). This reality I am also confident it is intended to create feeling.

You may be wondering why I am confident that difficult physical views on life create feelings. Because: and this may come as a shock to some people (mostly *christians *) , we are created to feel spiritual influences . This is who our Creator is. He is the spiritual reality that we are created in the likeness and image of. We are therefore spiritual being first.

It is no different from physical feeling. Touch your spouse on the shoulder is something she feels, that will create an emotion (motivation of a physical response). Our feelings are our spiritual connection to our Creator and our created humanity.

Like it or not we are in a world of spiritual existence. Living in this reality (truth), opens us, not into a simpler way of living, but in a more full way. It’s a lot like coming to my house. When first entire you come in through the closed in porch. It has roof and walls some rugs, a bunch to sit on and even some places to hang coats or other clothing. We appreciate our the porch, it is a very useful room of house.

But now if you were to come to our house to for “acoupleadays” ( a couple of days). And we ate and slept on the porch, you’d not take long to find this is wrong. There is something wrong with the house or me and my bride. We could feed you the finest food ever cooked, and give you silk pillow cases to sleep on. You might even stay, you may even have a good time us while you’re here. But you will ways have an uneasy feeling about that visit. And it will change how you feel about me.

Why? You may ask. Because it’s a part of our physical nature to know that is not what the porch was created for. My wife simply told a carpenter she want a simple porch a certain size and he built us porch. We did not come home one evening and open the screen door to a living room .

It is just wrong to deny, devalue or simply reason way the feeling (environmental influences) that exist in our existence. And honestly it doesn’t work. We are spiritual being, and many of us are sleeping on the spiritual porch. Some of us as good human beings are trying to choose by reason (of insanity) only the good ones. But this like sleeping on the porch with the door to the main house open but not going in.

By now you might be wondering what about the chores? Just get them done. Doesn’t matter how you feel, you wanted a place with some land and livestock, just get the fences fixed. (Have you ever been on fence line with a person sleeping on this spiritual porch? )

I lived a long long time believing that this was the way we as individuals were created to exist . It was a fight to get things done. A struggle to choose the right attitude. Life just becomes a world of conflicting emotions, actions and choices from with in our selves and other human beings.

Life is exhausting and become a world of controlled confusion when we are sleeping on the spiritual porch. The sad reality of this way of living, is that we believe our human being character, of mental reason and choices will is created for us to navigate through a spiritual existence. And live in a waste land of need.

This mentality of the choice *free will * is a lot like playing a game of rock, paper, scissors. No matter how smart you are you have a 66.66666666 % of losing ever time. The mind and the body were not created to be the controller of our spiritual existence.

When we live in our true nature, as a spiritual being first, we find a greater reality of who our Creator is. We see that He is energetic excited and pleased with what He creates. That He is a constant Creator. And the creative constant in our existence. It is the ship in how He relates to us. Because we were created in His likeness, to respond to the nature that is our DNA to create and be creative constantly. The energy to respond is natural to our total existence, because it is His nature to respond to His creation.

Let me comment here, before we run off down another religious rabbit hole, that this not some magical truth for the sake of simplicity and ease. There is a huge difference between physical compilation and spiritual complexity. (But that is for another blog)

Two nights ago I came to this little place of our, and saw the dark sky filled with bright red and orange smoke, at a very close distance. My personal existence was overwhelmed with feeling. Fear and anxiety and anger were the big ones. To simply over ride those feels and started making choices was my physical desire. Yet living in a deeper reality allows me recognize that those where not the only feeling influencing me.

The energy to respond to what is created in me by our Creator, allows me to do more than just suppress the feeling of panic. It allowed me to be creative in putting a plan of action to work. I simply gathered all livestock to the pens where a fast-moving grass fire would burn around them, if I didn’t have time to get them hauled out. Hooked up the tuck to the trailer and maybe the greatest feeling to respond to was wait.

It allowed me to feel confident in our humanity, knowing that the people fighting the fire had the same creative desire in them. Live that reality I was able get my place in order and then seek to help others, knowing that it would be easier for others if I needed help.

It all worked out and no porches were lost to fires while writing this blog.

The richness and fullness of life is in the experience of feeling. Our Creator’s nature is of constant creativity that may seem to us, in our individuality, as complete chaos. It may feel like He doesn’t care or even exist. But that is not reality. Our humanity was created for change to new and fresh experiences.

Our mental capacity to reason through and choose the right and wrong, good and bad is a shallow existence that we where never created to experience. We where created to feel, recognize and respond. You may think I’m just playing with somatics. But there is a huge difference between choice and response as to the type of ship we create to relate with.

My wife and I where on the couch watching tv and she said to me, “I’m cold can you get me a blanket.” To recognize her feeling of desire for comfort, and my feelings wanting her comfortable, I naturally respond to her request. I am relating to her humanity through feel. I’m not cold but I have been, and l know what it feels like for someone to care about my comfort and the feeling of a soft blanket. (And yes l do this every time because I super husband).

Sometimes I feel tired stiff and sore from the day, and will respond with irritation thinking “I’m not cold, why am I getting a blanket, if I was cold I’d get one, but I’m not… it’s not even cold in here . Boy just wait till January… she will know what cold feels like. I remember last winter fix the tractor in ten below weather. Now that was cold and I still got my own blanket “. But then over ride my feelings and choose to get all the way up from the couch, walk all the way over to the blanket, pick it up, and walk all the way back to the couch and hand it to her. I have chosen to do this task out of *love and sacrifice*. Right? Not!

Now she may the value of my choice of sacrificial love and just be happy she didn’t have to go through all that just to be comfortable, but this ship in our marriage of relating (which is designed to be big and able the sail over deep and stormy waters), is a shallow, leaky row boat, with a broken ore. The action of choice don’t add anything to design of the beauty of marriage.

In the end our personalities are more often drawn to the superficial and shallow things of life to created a sense of self worth and purpose. Much like walking on the beach as the waves roll in and say “I’m swimming “. Our desire to control the perceived confusion of earthly living is not what our humanity was created for. Our humanity was created for the feeling of experience of change.

The ship of relating.

From the moment I saw this tall, young, handsome bay gelding. Who had good dark feet, strong cannon bones, great muscle in the shoulder and hip, and not to short in back, I sure was I hoping I had enough money to buy him.

I was A young wannabe horse trainer, looking for something to train and do my cowboy work off of. In hopes of making a profit in the fall or next spring. And this good-looking son of a gun was going to fit the bill just right.

As I watched him being rode out back my hopes rose, he wasn’t very broke at all. This should keep his price down, because the big money was in finished horses that you could do days work on and still trot back to the pens in the evening and still be in one piece.

By the time he came in the auction ring my heart was pounding. I stood close to the rail and looked hard at his legs and feet as he moved around to make sure I wasn’t missing anything. I just watched that horse and listened to the biding.

Now at this stage of my life and for a long time, I just lived on my dreams and not on a lot of money. I had what I needed and not much more, so with only a the little extra cash I had in my shirt pocket, I was going to need some Devine intervention, if I had any thoughts of taking this colt home.

My idea was a simple enough one: buy a good horse cheap and with some time and hard work sell high. Just simple American capitalism. I’d had a bit of success with this business model to this point. (Until I got to the part where you are supposed to save the profit to grow the business)

In any case, I was a prayen man at the time, and standing there at the time, I did a bit of it. When the biding slowed down and he was still fordable, I waved my hand. He went up another 50, (and biding again for me would empty my shirt pocket) I waved my hand again. And in thirty seconds I was the owner that colt.

I will never really know how I got this vision of being horseman. But by the time I was 15, I just wanted to be around them and on them. There was this fascination with the concept that you sit on their backs and they would go places with you up there. And even go places that you wanted to go, if you communicated with them in the right way. (Which of has become a life long obsession).

The fact that with their size, power and intelligence, they could just as easily bucked a person off and stomped you 6 feet under, (which of course has been an obsession to avoid this situation from occurring), and don’t is amazing.

Now I’ve come to learn over these many years that the ultimate goal of a good riding horse, no matter what you do with them , is to create a relaxed and willing disposition. When you have that, you have a pattern. And having a pattern helps a lot when tough times come at you.

At twenty-five, I had worked with and for several good horsemen and a few not so good, and had learned from them all. But the truth is: where knowledge stops, frustration starts. And after a week of working with my new horse/partner, I became frustrated. This big handsome bay, just wouldn’t relax. He was fearful at very thing. He would jump, buck or run away from anything I tried to do with him. And when I tied or hobbled him to limit his extreme reactions, he pull back, bit and kick.

I couldn’t even saddle him with out a huge wreck every time. All my hopes and dreams of becoming a high dollar horse trainer where on the top of his back and he had no interest in me being up there. Needless to say I began to feel insecure about by human/being powers (my physical abilities), and become impatient and angry.

So one cool spring morning, I drew my line in what I assumed was a battle of wills, put on my “bronc stompen” hat, and set to ride this horse. I’d rigged myself a set of hobbles to immobilize his front his feet so that when I get on I could jerk them lose and we could have at it,

(Now to set this scene, and to be in compliance with full disclosure mandates of camp fire story telling requirements. Let me add, that I was working on an outfit all by myself, there just wasn’t any one else there but me my dog and a string of saddle horses. All I had to train in was a large pipe corral, which didn’t matter to me much at this point, because I’d have ridden him out side if wasn’t for all the trees.)

I’d rode some bareback and saddle boncs in rodeos and I was petty confident that he couldn’t buck as hard as those horses. And so with angry determination I slipped myself in the saddle. To this day I do not remember if I jerked those hobbles lose or not, but I do recall seeing the curvature of the earth, because him took off like a rocket ship and landed harder.

Being the professional that I know myself to be in my mind, I stayed with him more jumps than most cowboys I knew would have. It’s interesting how quickly my angry determination turned into a determination to survives, or that best minimize the hurt coming my way. Just as I was prayen he would level out he took a hard jump to the right and crashed into the ground.

To make long story short… He broke his leg and never got up. The feeling of that experience has never left me to this day. The sadness, grief, disappointment, and overwhelming longing to have time go back 5 minutes, is still very real in my memory.

The timeless truth of all this, is fear is a destructive feeling. Creating fear in others will not ever… give any individual a relaxed and willing disposition. This young colt didn’t want to be insecure, which in turn created fear and fighting, no more than I wanted to feel frustration, which likewise created angry. Forcing that colt to be willing, relaxed and respond to my leadership with greater fear was never going to work.

We all live with insecurities and we all find ways to cope, adjust and escape. We all feel pressures of life with in use as individual human beings. Yet the spiritual reality is that we were not created to be fearful, nor were we created to create fear in others.

We were created with limitations which when viewed from the reality of my personal human being, will in fact cause insecurities. But the desire to challenge the insecurities of another person, instead of being connected to the limitations of our created humanity, is not who we were created to be.

We as created humanity were made (fashioned) to feel and be secure, at peace, relaxed. why? because we were created in His likeness and image. He breathed His life into our humanity. God’s nature is that He is restful, so it is in our spiritual DNA as well. This reality never changes.

Fear in all reality, is felt in absence or disconnect with our Creator and our created humanity’s true nature. It is not naturally what is in our created spiritually DNA. That is why we feel uncomfortable when we are influenced by the fear.

The conflict of our naturel humanity and our individual human being character, have everything to do with relationship. Our Creator’s nature is one of relationship. In all reality God created us not because He needed to, but because He wanted to. It is who He is, right now in this time and space. To often we focus on forcing our personal human character to do what our humanity was created to do naturally. Nether I nor that bay colt, were created naturally for that moment. We were created to be at peace, but in my unnatural response to the feeling of fear which emoted (emotion), cause me to act in anger… to the inevitability destruction.

Now I’m not a linguistic expert, nor am I very knowledgeable about water craft and nautical navigation, but I do find it interesting that the word ship is connected to the concept of relating. I am confident that the whole idea behind the boat is the desire of not drowning. Our bodies were not created to be in water for long, so we created the boat. The more water the bigger the boat and soon you have the ship.

The nature of the ship is to coexist with the water that then allows us to survive. It is by its very existence ment for a fluid on going experience. I not nuclear physicist but I believe that is why rocks don’t flout.

I think we can all agree that there is a big difference between relating and relationship. And that most coexistence breaks down, when we simply relate. And just like taking a trip on the water, and though there are risks and dangers, there is a natural desire to take care of the boat, knowing that it is up to forces out of our control that will determine the length of the journey.

The experience of horsemanship is even more blessed than sailing, in that it is another living creature, that you relate with. Horses like us, were created for relationship. Given the right ship in relating, they will carry a person though any challenge in the journey. I’ve ridden good horses through blizzards, floods, and fire, over mountains and through deserts just because we had the right ship in relating to each other.

In truth the horse man relationship is created for both of us because without each other, neither of us is as good as we were created to be. We are filled with negativity, fear and ultimately destruction, when we respond to a different reality.

We will not know our individual personality, until we realize our created humanity. We will never live in the experience of our created humanity, without responding to the nature of our Creator who has created the same nature in our humanity.