Ben's Journey Home

This weekend I ended a journey.  A journey that could be counted as 9 hours, 5 months, or 23 years.  A journey to bring Ben home.  Ben (B.W. Bendigo) is my Arabian gelding, born and bred on our family farm in Ohio and recently rescued from horrific conditions.  Ben has been to hell and back, starved within weeks of his life, but has remained energetic, friendly and pleasant.  Many of my friends and family have been following this saga since April, when Ben was discovered among 23 other horses confiscated by the village of Pleasant Prairie due to severe neglect on the part of their owners.  I was able to care for Ben and adopt him over the last five months.  He has gained back his strength slowly but surely.  Now we began the final part of the journey, taking Ben home to our family farm to live out his days.

Home.  Home.  Home is where the heart is.  There’s no place like home.  The word holds a special place in our language and our cultural mythology.  I am a fortunate person, indeed, to have a true home of my heart.  To hold a place in my memory; to have a place written on my heart.  A place where the light grows a little softer around the surrounding hills, where sounds of wind, water and animals soothe the ears, where time grows a little less frantic and where neighbors are lifelong friends.  That place is my family farm in Ohio and it’s Ben’s home, too.  It’s time for him to join the friends of his youth and graze the pastures where his mother and other noble souls lay to rest.  It is time for Ben to go home.

Ben and I were both lucky to live out our young years in the same place.  I lived in that house on that farm until I was 18 and returned every summer between college years.  Ben was born where his mother had been raised from a yearling.  Other than a few months where he joined me at college, that was his only home until he was 13.  Places form a person (or a horse), if you spend enough time there, if you really get to know it.  While I learned the creeks, the good climbing trees, the good hiding spots and the best places to lie down and watch the clouds, Ben learned the best grazing spots, the best running paths and the coolest, breeziest afternoon snoozing spots.  And we both became who we are in those 50 acres of rolling hills.

After all the drama of his discovery and recovery, Ben’s journey home was singularly uneventful.  After a moment of wide-eyed snorting, he loaded into the wide slant-load trailer without a fuss.  He rode the 400 miles like a champ, under my friend Marsha’s careful driving.  It seemed that the longer we rode and the more often we stopped, the calmer he became.  We joked that he knew he was coming home, that he could sense it.  

We arrived at the farm around 10:00 pm at night, in a misty rain.  He calmly unloaded and began to graze while we chatted.  My sister, Amy, had his stall bedded deep with shavings and ready with water and hay.  He walked in calmly.  The other horses have their run of the 22 acre pasture and barnyard.  They came in near the barn to see what the commotion was.  Everything was just so matter-of-fact, as if Ben had just been gone to a horse show.  I was waiting for my Disney moment, my Black Beauty moment of recognition.  Then, Bantu came to the barn door outside Ben’s stall.  Bantu is our patriarch, my sister’s 30 year-old campaigner, a National Show Horse who won his stripes in saddle seat competitions all over the state.  Bantu and Ben shared many trailer rides together and brought home many ribbons.  Bantu came to the door and whickered a little.  Ben’s ears perked up, he snuffled and nickered.  They couldn’t touch noses but they caught a whiff of each other and the excitement was evident to all of us.  Tears welled in our eyes.

The next morning, we turned Ben and Bantu out together in our paddock.  Amy had a plan to integrate Ben into the herd with the least amount of commotion.  The two old boys sniffed noses, squealed and arched their necks, and immediately commenced to eating grass.  After a few minutes, we opened the gate for the rest of the herd of 9.  Bantu and Ben moved amongst them as old pros, not making trouble, not testing boundaries, just eating happily and giving lots of space.  We could see the two old friends were buddies once more.  It was as if Ben had never left.

I wish I knew what horses were thinking; I wish they could talk.  Of course if they could talk, maybe Ben and his companions would not have been starved, some to death, some to near death.  Maybe if they could speak, we’d have to listen.  I wonder if Ben remembered his idyllic home while he was waiting and waiting to be fed.  I wonder if he thought of me and wondered why I’d left him, or worried about his friends beside him in the stalls, some dying at that very moment.  I wonder if longed for his old, safe life.  Thank God, twenty-three of those horses are safe now and have wonderful, loving people caring for them.  Thanks to the Pleasant Prairie Police Department and Clawz and Pawz Animal Rescue and all the volunteers, they now all have bright futures.  Whatever horrible journey Ben and the others had been on, they have now come home.  

I believe Ben knows where he is.  He didn’t sniff and explore his surroundings, he didn’t look for the gate or spook at the barn door.  He moved through the farm that is his home as if he never left it.  Maybe that is the message in this story, the message of hope.  For in Ben’s case, someone was waiting for him, with a place prepared and friends to welcome him.  He may have been through hell, but that’s not keeping him from enjoying heaven.  He’s not angry, vengeful or victimized; he is just a horse.  A horse who wants to have his pals, a pasture field and a quiet place to rest in the afternoon sun.  For in Ben’s case, the home and the people that had formed him were still there waiting to embrace him.  And he was ready to embrace it, with grace.  If only we were all as lucky and all as wise as my special horse.

To the horses I've known... an apology

Recently, I’ve had the unique pleasure of reuniting with a horse that I started under saddle twenty years ago.  Ben was not my first green horse; my family raised Arabians and I was very hands-on with the starting process.  But, he was the first one that was ALL mine.  I had supervision from my trainer and my dad, but I did the groundwork, the riding and the showing.  I sold Ben ten years ago and recently adopted him back.  He had been in a terrible situation and starved within inches of his life.  He is now recovering and I felt like climbing on him again, just for old times sake.  As I sat on this horse, with which I have so much history, whom I left behind for so long, I want to apologize.  I want to apologize to all the horses I’ve worked in my life.

Not because Ben is a bad riding horse or has been trained poorly--no, quite the contrary.  Even after all he’s been through, Ben still responds to light seat and leg cues, picks up a rhythmic trot and softens his neck and back to the rider (even without a bit in his mouth).  Ben is a lovely riding horse.  I want to apologize because I didn’t enjoy him enough when he was mine.  

I didn’t see the horse he was because I was so wrapped up in what I needed him to be.  There was always another show, another movement, another level to master.  I was never good enough, so my horse was never good enough, either.  Ben and all the other horses I’ve owned, I wish I could have enjoyed your gifts a little more and pushed you a little bit less.

As I write this, I need to clarify, I was not an overly tough trainer.  If horse trainers were rated on toughness from 1-10, I would probably fall around 4.5.  I probably would have been more successful if I’d pushed my horses and my clients just a little bit harder.  I often erred on the side of caution and I did not always produce the results that my clients and I desired.  Still, now that I do not make my living by riding, I can see more clearly the mistakes I made.

I am sorry, Ben, and all the other horses...

I am sorry when I pushed too hard, when I didn’t notice your frustration, when I didn’t credit your effort with a break.

I am sorry when I wasn’t clear enough with my aids and you were confused.

I am sorry when I punished you for my own mistakes.

I am sorry when my ambition blinded me to your needs, even for a few moments.

I am sorry when you weren’t enough for me.  Honestly, no horse could have filled up the pit of my ambition when I was twenty-one years old.  I was driven, focused and determined to be a professional dressage trainer.  I am sorry when I looked at my horse as a vehicle for my career, instead of seeing what the horse needed.

Every successful rider is driven, there is nothing wrong with that, as long as that drive does not overtake horsemanship.  There is a fine line between demanding much and losing sight of the best interests of the horse.  The best trainers live on that line.  Their horses work towards their highest potential, with healthy bodies and happy hearts.  The rest of us, well, we struggle to find the balance between our goals and our horses’ needs.

You horses have an incredible burden when a person mounts their back.  You not only carry our bodies, but our dreams and ambition.  You are not only our partners, friends and pets, but our vehicles.  Vehicles, literally, across space, and figuratively, forward into our riding ambitions.  No horse ever asked to be a national champion, a Grand Prix horse, a stakes winner.  You have no goals beyond your next meal, your next friend, your next romp in the pasture.  You never asked to be ridden, and we expect you to fulfill my dreams.  

How heavy I must have been to carry, Ben, with the weight of my future on your back.  How I hope you know how much you meant to me, even though I kept pushing for more and better.  How I hope I can appreciate my now and future horses for the gifts they offer, without demanding more so quickly and so often.  How I hope I can enjoy the ride.

To your credit, my horses and teachers, you did fulfill my dreams, in so many ways.  Although I was the trainer and worked to mold you into the competition horses I needed, you also molded me.  You molded me into a more patient, more kind, more determined, more responsive, more aware person.

What I found in church

I have some family and friends who are clergy and I love reading their blogs and facebook posts.  Lately, I’ve been directed to a few articles about what young people want in church.  And, I feel like I’ve got something to say about it.  OK--confession time--I’m not really “young” anymore.  I think I’m what you call a Gen-X-er, and I don’t mind owning up to my age of 37.  So, I have only a vague idea of what a “millenial” is and no idea what one would want in church.  I know I’ve got friends who are millienials, but I’ve never asked them about it.  However, I am the kind of person who can walk into most churches and be greeted enthusiastically.  I seem young, I am middle-class, white, straight and married, I look pretty "normal" and somewhat put-together and I have two cute little daughters.  On the surface, I am the kind of person that churches tend to want to attract.

That’s a problem to me, the idea that churches want to attract someone, instead of want to be the body of Christ and to embody the gospel.  The idea that churches are selling something, or marketing something to would-be clients.  Maybe we can’t put away our consumer culture long enough to stop treating parishioners as consumers.  Maybe we sell things all day long, our businesses, our products, our talents, ourselves, so we keep trying to sell The Church.  Jesus didn’t sell, he acted, he taught, and people followed him.

I know churches need people and wonder why they can’t get more people through their doors.  After reading a couple of articles about what people want in church, I don’t know any answers.  I don’t know why they leave.  I wasn’t even sure what I wanted in a church when I started looking.  I do know what I have found, though.

In the last two years, I found a church home in a small Episcopal parish near my house. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for when I walked through the doors.  In hindsight, I can say I was looking for the most wide-open, liberal message of universal, catholic grace and the love of God in Christ I could get, all wrapped up in the most traditional, most “high”, most “smells-and-bells”, most mystical liturgy I could find.  Or at least, that is where I ended up, where my soul is finally being fed.  I wasn’t 100% sure I found it, but I looked at finding a church as beginning a relationship.  I decided to continue dating the church (and only one church, not “dating around”) until it didn’t work anymore.  Well, 18 months later, it works pretty deep for me.

Here is what I found:  I don’t remember ever being treated as a commodity.  I don’t remember being pigeon-holed by my age or by my having young children.  I do remember being embraced and supported when my kids were loud in the service, or when I needed an extra hand to get my coffee.  I do remember challenged by readings and discussions in Sunday School.  I do remember a few well-timed phone calls from the priest to make sure I was doing OK.   I do remember being expected to participate in church life and challenged to serve. I do remember being offered a place to lead and the freedom to find my own way to do it.  I do remember glimpsing moments of people in my community being the body of Christ.

Recently, I was involved in our Vacation Bible School program.  I can only say the Holy Spirit must have been at work because on a caffeine-induced Saturday morning whim, I sent a text to our priest:  “Do we have VBS?  Can I help with it?”  The answer the next morning was, “We would love to have it.  Can you lead it and write the curriculum?”  Whoa--hold on there!  Who am I to do that?  What the heck do I know? That’s what I wanted to say, but those words did not come out of my mouth.  Instead I said, “I like projects, maybe I could do this one.”  A few months later, I was the fear(ful)l leader of VBS (although I did not write our own curriculum).  As usual, there were a few moments of sheer panic throughout the process, but in the end it all came together.

Vacation Bible School is probably the perfect church project for someone who likes working with kids.  No one expects to make any money from it, no one has any strong opinions about how it should be done, everyone is willing to help out a little, and it’s adorable.  I mean, if you aren’t charmed by 18 kids singing and dancing to Jesus Loves Me, there’s not much to charm you in this world.  So, it’s probably the best thing I could do to get my feet wet in a new church, get to know some people, share my talents, and hang out with my kids and others’ kids.

Here is what I found at church through this project:  I found many, many talented, energetic people who work together for the joy of it, without hope of gain, without attachment to results, without ego and frustration.  I found people who bring the message of God’s love in Christ to children of all ages, through music, art, acting, set design, storytelling, food, fixing boo-boos and playing Rainbow Tag.  I found energetic teenagers taking care of toddlers.  I found myself, worn down by the minutiae of life, being energized by children’s laughter.  In short, I found a little bit of the Kingdom, in the eyes of my friends, my children and our priest.

I don’t know what other people want in a church.  I might not have known even what I wanted or what I needed, but I know what I have found.