Spending Time

Sometimes I just like to walk up to the barn and sit with the chickens for a while. It is so quiet and calming and real. I usually refill their water dispensers with cool, fresh water. Often, I bring them a treat (my chickens love bananas). Then I just find some place to sit . . . and watch . . . and pray.

We have an old fold-up chair in the barn. There are also some left-over cinder blocks near the wood pile. And I keep a couple of 5-gallon buckets next to the chicken’s feed bin. Any of these make good seats for sitting with the chickens and watching summer go by. And for praying.

I sit with my chickens because I have them.

And because I have the time to just sit.

And because I enjoy it.

I pray because fellowshipping with the Lord is my pouring-out time . . . that fills me back up so I can live some more . . . and live more fully.

I just sit.

I look up at the clouds.

I wonder if it’s going to rain.

I listen to the bluebird in a nearby maple tree.

I pray for the people that are imprinted on my heart.

I am sure that it looks like I am doing nothing.

But I am truly not wasting time.

Really, I’m not.

I am, however, spending it.

Extravagently.

I have spent many, many years of my life doing things that absolutely must be done . . . and not really having enough time to do them all. Usually, they were things that I immensely enjoyed . . . raising 4 children, teaching school, helping my husband with his work, homemaking. Sometimes they were things that were not especially enjoyable.  But running-pell-mell through jam-packed days like a wildly screaming rollercoaster fanatic isn’t the way my middle-aged time is spent any more.

I don’t live life any less passionately than I did 20 or 30 years ago. Or with any less joy.

But I have stepped down from the rollercoaster now . . .

I amble more, instead of rushing . . .

I think more and scream less . . .

I definitely avoid dramatic dips in altitude . . .

And if I have my hands high in the air, 

it is to wave to friends . . .

or to feel the rain . . .

or to worship the Lord beneath a twinkling, starlit sky.

So I have decided to share some pictures of the chickens I sit with and the sky that I contemplate and the gravel road that I meander up and down on these long, hot summer days.

This is Eli, my rooster, enjoying the dappled shade of his favorite locust tree.

Here is Eli crowing . . . so loudly and with such complete abandon that he has to gasp for his next breath after such an effort.

Here are a couple of Eli’s girls. This particular patch of wood’s-edge foliage often has a rabbit napping in it. When chickens and rabbit meet, much flurry and scurry and squawking always occurs. However, the rabbit will probably be in that same place tomorrow. And the chickens will be surprised again. I love predictabilities.

Here are some pictures of Eli’s plumage. My Australorp chickens are officially black, but their shiny, soft feathers reflect iridescent greens and blues and purples in the sunlight. I think it’s beautiful.

This is the skyline I see as I look across the field.

 

This is the barn's gravel driveway I stroll up when I am finished sitting.

And this is my walkway back home on a summer afternoon.

 

Autumn will be here soon enough. The weather will grow cooler, the days will grow shorter, and the chickens will be free-ranging less in the shady places. But even in the nippy fall air, I will still be sitting and watching and praying.

I will watch soaring hawks float high above the bronze-and-golden maples that line our gravel road. I will listen to crispy breezes as they sweep through swishing leaves in the woods behind the barn. And I will pray as the huge, orange harvest moon rises early over Kirkhaven’s quieted eastern hillside.

I will watch.

I will listen.

I will pray.

But I won’t be wasting time.

Truly I won't.

I will be spending it.

Extravagently.

Because when you are in the company of the Lord of the Universe, every moment is precious indeed.

The LORD is my strength and song,

And He has become my salvation;

This is my God, and I will praise Him;

My father's God, and I will extol Him.

Exodus 15:2