_The Story of babe Cow and Babe Pig, page 1
Babe Cow and Babe Pig Chapters 1 to 12
Chapter 1
It is morning. Babe Cow and Babe Pig are happily grazing and playing in the big field. The field is full of clover and green grass. Babe Cow eats and walks, and feels the gentle breezes. Babe Pig finds many interesting things to taste and smell, and he roots up apples half buried in the grass. Happy bees are buzzing in the flowers, and the beehives are full of honey.
It has always been this way, for as long as the animals can remember. In the innocence of their gentle hearts, they know that this is good, and the way life should be. They are not much given to analytical thought processes, but their knowing is still definite, and assured, and correct.
They do not remember life before the big field, or life before they came to know each other as playmates. They feel they have always been here, and will always be here, and life will be good.
And yet Babe Pig feels something, almost like a thunderstorm, a gathering of clouds above the animals' heads. He looks up at the sky, but only fluffy white clouds and a playful breeze are to be seen. What is this feeling of storm clouds and gloom? Babe Cow continues to eat and walk. Babe Pig runs around to break his mood, and Babe Cow chases him. They laugh and play.
Chapter 2
Babe Cow and Babe Pig are standing in the rain. They are not happy. The weather is not warm, and they are hungry.
The woman knows they need a barn. She is no genius at farming, but she is determined that they will have shelter. She loves the animals, because they remind her of the boy. They are innocent and playful, and she wants to make a good life for them.
The man doesn't understand about this. He is often angry, and he does not love the animals. He thinks they are a needless expense. He does not see their innocence.
The animals make the woman laugh. Life is better, when you can laugh.
Sometimes when things are bad, and she has been crying, she comes to visit the animals. They are always glad to see her, and they come and bump her with their heads, as if to ask what is wrong.
They are wet, and they ask for food. Food is easy, and soon their bellies are full, but a barn is harder. She knows next to nothing about this, but she will have to learn.
It would be easier, she thinks, if many neighbors had animals, and barns. Then she could learn from them, and ask their help on the hard parts, and having animals would be the customary thing. She wouldn't have to fight for everything she wants.The woman has many weapons she uses when she has to fight. Some are easier than others, but she can use them all when she has to.
She has her job, which gives her money. Without that, wanting animals and loving animals would not get her very far.
She has truth, which is a weapon that cuts both ways. To use it, she knows she has to speak the truth, but having done that, she can ask for the truth in return. Very often she can recognize the truth when she hears it. This is useful.
She has love, which is the softest of weapons, but sometimes the most powerful.
This is a very difficult weapon to use in the face of anger. Sometimes truth has to be used at the same time, and even with the greatest concentration, sometimes anger gets mixed in. But she has had years of practice.
The concept of using love as a weapon is a curious one. It requires recognition of the fact that a weapon is used not only against an enemy, but also in defense of that which is precious. In this role of defense, love is very appropriate, and should be used with all other weapons.
Chapter 3
As she looks at the animals, the woman is already designing buildings in her head, thinking about money, and trying to read the future to see how big the barn should be, and what it could be used for.
It is not easy, loving animals. What you love, you have to care for.
She could just love fish. They are easy. But they are not the same as Babe Cow and Babe Pig.
The woman has many animals. One dog, an indefinite number of cats, and too many chickens. She had tried keeping Babe Cow in the chicken house, but that did not work. The chickens did not like it, Babe Cow did not like it, and she did not like it. The man did not like it either, but that was no real change.
She often wondered what the man would like. When she could find out things, she would try to do them, and sometimes he would be pleased, and life would be better. But she had lived long enough to know, that if a person is always angry, you could give up everything for them, and they would probably still be angry, if that is in their nature. Then you would not even have your dream, and you would probably be angry too.
The woman would not give up her dream because of the man's anger. She would help him if she could, but she would not give up her self to do it.
Chapter 4
A sunny June day. Babe Cow is eating her way across the field. She cannot keep· up with the grass, it is growing so fast.
The woman knows this is a blessing. This is the North Country, and Babe Cow will need a lot of hay this winter.
As the woman looks at Babe Cow, she is looking at the reality of her dream. She wonders why other people do not see it. 'Another person would make that a lawn', she thinks, 'and then they would buy a lawn mower and ride around to mow it. I would rather have my cow.'
Chapter 5
The woman does not really remember when she began having the dream. (In this she is like Babe Pig and Babe Cow.) It seems the dream has always been there, unfolding as she lives it. It was not her mother's dream or her grandmother's dream. They had land, but they did not care to make the land produce. They did not dream of a land of milk and honey, a fertile land. Not a tidy land, but one of many species, of much richness and diversity. She dreams of an interconnecting web of plants and animals, earth and humans. She dreams of how God might want things to be. Not of how much money she might make, but of other ways to measure riches and security. .
The man’s dream is to fish and hunt. 'Everyone must have their dream', the woman thinks.When he can have what he wants, it is a blessing, because he is happier, and things go better. But he is angry so often, No Hunting' signs make him angry. Too many fishermen make him angry. Housing developments make him angry.
The woman knows that, just as it is easier to love a fish than a cow, so it is easier to love a cow than a man. Each level is more complex, harder to understand, harder to see what is needed.
Maybe it would be easier not to love at all. 'But how do you not love, when it is in your nature?' She thinks, 'it would be like not breathing'. She knows it is in her nature to love.
Chapter 6
Sometimes (and this is a source of much pain), the woman becomes weak, and rather than loving with strength, she looks to the man for love. This causes many problems. To begin with, it does not seem that they even speak the same language. He uses the word, but his actions give a very different message. The woman is very in touch with her spiritual landscape (language is limited to similes, metaphors, and parables here, since seeing with the spirit is similar to but not identical with physical vision), and in most of her interactions, including loving, she knows she is on rolling plains, gentle valleys, 'and occasionally on the breasts of mighty mountains, where things can be cold and frightening, but also awesome and capable of evoking the strongest and most complex of positive movements in the spirit- much like hurricanes or symphonies. When her weakness is on her, and she looks to the man as a source of strength and love, she finds herself in spiritual pits and dungeons, deep, cold, awful, lonely places, and he does not hear her call out for help.
Make no mistake, the woman knows quite well how to call for help. This is another area where she has had much experience. She knows how to call out in the spirit, and with her physical voice. She knows how to tell the truth,. think logically and with passion, and form a coherent argument. Her communications skills are excellent. But whether she calls out with her spiritual voice or her physical voice, if she asks for help and for love the man becomes angry. He will not talk. He will not comfort. He builds walls to shut her out, and justifies this by saying she hurts him when she asks for help. It is as if her need is a threat to him, which he must defend against.
When this happens, she feels she has been labelled as the enemy, and left to stand outside his walls, naked and lonely, and defenseless.
Once, when things were very bad, she was determined to show him how it was for her in the spirit. She needed to talk about being lonely and in pain, and he wanted to play games and talk to other people, hug the dog, watch television, anything but hear her. So she knew what was happening in her spirit (it was very bad). And she decided to show him in the flesh how it was with her. She cut her arm, walked back into the room, and stood there dripping blood onto his pant leg, until he had to pay attention to her.(She felt quite foolish, since this was a thing that young people do, but older people usually know better.)
She knew, and he knew, that she was not trying to kill herself If that had been her intent, she would have gone about much more efficiently. And she certainly did not expect sympathy for her cut arm, since she had done it herself. But she really did need to communicate her feelings to him, to be heard, and to get some kind of help from him, since he said so often that he loved her. He would not look at her. He would not hold her, or ask her why she was hurting so bad. What he did was express anger that she would ruin his pants by getting blood on them,
He did not ask, but she told him anyway, that the pain of her arm, and the blood coming from her arm, were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what was happening in the spirit. He did not acknowledge this. He became more angry, and more withdrawn, the longer she talked. Finally she went away, in the same desolation as before, but at least with more information about what she can expect from the man and some measure of what he chooses to call love.
This is a tough place to be in. She can open her physical eyes, and see the same reassuring landscape of physical life, but this does not negate or compensate for what is happening in the spirit. So the naked and weak woman must summon her defenses, call for help from those who will hear her, get strong, put on her armor, and climb out of the pit.
She knows she has the same weapons as before, truth and love. They do not get what she needs from the man, But she remembers reading, many years ago, that to get water you must go to where the water is, and to get love, you must go to where the love is. Of water, there is plenty, She cries more often than not, in the physical world, and in the spirit. But where do you go in the spirit to get love?
Chapter 7
As she lies in the pit, suffering, the woman begins to smile. Then she begins to giggle a little. Then she finds herself laughing out 1oud. (Her physical self is smiling too.) In the spirit, the sun is coming out, and she is standing up, stronger with each movement and clothed in the best of armor, and surrounded by the source of all love and strength.
For she has remembered back to the first time she was in the pit. She had let another man put her there, with his cruelty and lies. (She seems to have this trouble with men.) Back then, she didn't know much about armor, or the spirit. She just knew pain, and loneliness, and fear. But in her physical life, sometimes people would come around to tell her about the Creator, and the Redeemer, and all the love that God has for his creation. The people who had come around with this message called themselves Jehovah's Witnesses, and many other people laughed at them, or said bad things about them, or said they didn't tell the truth. The woman has never had a chance to judge this for herself. She just listened to them, and read what they left, and thought about it. (Back then, she didn't know much about praying either.)
But when the first man left her, she found herself in the pit, screaming with pain.
She had no defenses. It was then that the miracle happened. It was as if a strong hand had reached down, and caught her up, and held her with love until the pain stopped, and then set her down gently, out of the pit, and on safe level ground.
Words are so inadequate to describe how that was. Imagine the spirit as wounded, with the cut surface a mass of pain. And imagine someone touching that pain and taking it away, or pouring a healing medicine over the hurt. It was like that.
Of course, she didn't have much sense back then. She kept getting back into the same pit, and she kept having to be hauled up out of it, until she began to imagine that the Redeemer must be getting very tired of her being so stupid and slow. But each time she learned, and each time the bond between them became stronger, and she trusted it more, until it felt like a lifeline, and she began to be able to reach out and grasp it, and pull herself out of the pit.
As this was happening, she continued to read the books of help, and read the Bible, and she saw that much of her trouble, and much of her spiritual journey, was outlined in the Bible. Finally, she realized that the Bible was like an instruction book. She laughed a lot the day it occurred to her that many people (especially men) got into trouble because they tried to use something without reading the instructions first. She knew that she had gotten into trouble here because she hadn't bothered to read the instructions.
Part of the instructions were to go and get Baptized, and when she realized that, she went and did it. In fact, the people she asked to do it saw her need, and saw that she needed to get it done that night, so at 10PM, they dipped her in the Buckhannon River, and they hugged her when she came out, shivering with the cold and covered with leaves and mud.
And her bond with the Savior became stronger, til she realized that what the book said was true, that nothing could separate them.
Chapter 8
As the woman progresses in her relationship with the Savior, she can not help but contrast it with her relationships with men.
Unlike her times with men, the relationship with the Savior is pure delight. She feels awe, she is constantly humbled, but there is no fear of meanness of spirit. 'This is the Creator', she thinks. 'He made me'. She realizes that the glow she feels, the joy, the goodness, is the experience of worship. Before she knew the Savior, she had reached for that goodness with men, but had found much cause for fear.
So now she knows the Savior, and now she has the lifeline, and now she knows she does not have to stay in the pit. But the woman still has the same problem with her weakness, and with the man, and it is slow going, trying to find a solution. She prays a lot, and she cries a lot, and she isn't afraid to ask for help. She tries to see how the man really is. She begins to realize that she wants the man to be strong and loving like the Savior is strong and loving, that she wants that same comfort and safety from the man that she has found in the Savior. There are hints at this in the Bible, and it seems that is how things are supposed to be.
But it isn't working. And she realizes she can't make it any better by being weaker, or pretending to be weaker, so that the man will seem stronger. He might like it, but it would not be right. It is not what the Creator meant for her.
And he does not mean for her to stop loving. She is fortunate to have a loving nature, and that needs to be encouraged to grow. She should not build walls. Armor is OK, but it has to be the right kind of armor, to let the sunshine in.
She realizes, and actually she is not very happy about this, that by having the task of loving and trying to understand the man and his angry nature, she is gaining in spiritual strength. 'Oh swell', she thinks. 'Just what I needed. Maybe next year I can practice loving ax murderers'. (The woman is no saint, that is for sure.)
Chapter 9
It is November in the North Country, and winter is reaching out to grip the land.
The ground is starting to freeze. Babe Cow has a baby of her own, a young bull calf, fat and almost as big as his mother.(We will talk about Babe Pig another time.) The woman still has no barn, and half the chicken house is stuffed full of hay to the rafters. It looks as if Babe Cow and young Bull Calf will have to coexist with the chickens after all. 'No one will like it, but maybe they can remember how it was on Noah's ark, and at least they will be warm' thinks the woman. This little world is like the ark, she thinks, in many ways. No one thinks it is practical. It is overcrowded with animals. Decisions have to be made from necessity, and conditions are far from ideal. But animals are living where they would not otherwise live. And love of the Lord, and prayer to the Lord, is in every decision.
When she can forget the troubles with the man, when she can free her mind from his negative perceptions, she can feel the joy rise up in her. Then she sees the land, the trees, the animals, God's Creation manifest, and the privilege to be a part of it all and hold it safe, feeds the need in her heart for goodness.
The trees stand tall. They sway with the breeze. (Sometimes they fall over, but that is another story.) Since she was a child, the trees and woodlands have been her refuge. These very trees sheltered her when things were bad. That was before there was all this grey in her hair. The trees, and she herself, were a lot younger.
'Now this is my battleground', she thinks. To be able to buy the land, pay the taxes, pay the bills, keep the acreage out of the hands of developers, is one giant battle. To maintain her concentration on her goal and on her perception of good in the face of the man's negative perceptions and criticism, is another giant battle, and one that is far more draining. There are slow, small successes in the first battle. It is not over, but it is not lost. Her resources are helping her to hold her own, and she knows she has the support of the Lord. For each victory she gives thanks.
Chapter 10
But the battle with the man does not seem to have any successes. The very fact of the conflict is failure in and of itself. She wearily retreats to ground she is sure of, spiritual principles and weapons that it is right to use.
Sometimes the only good weapon, when her back is to the wall, is truth. And it is more than a choice to use this, it is a necessity. When someone who claims to love you is doing things that hurt you, you have to tell them. Even if it makes them angry to be told, you have to do it. She can get that far. But that leaves much ground uncovered.
She prays one day. She knows she should be more humble, and say 'please', but when despair pushes her, she reaches out for that lifeline and holds on with all her strength.
Give me territory I can defend. A rock to stand on.
A refuge and a fortress. Land that does not shift beneath my feet.
A place to stand and gather my strength.
So that from your wholeness I may be whole
And from your strength I may be strong
To fight my battles.
She calls on the Lord and realizes that in having the sense to ask for help in the first place, she has one strength.
As the woman reviews the progress of the battle, she must ask herself what it is she is fighting for. You cannot fight for love. It is either there, or it is not. And beyond a certain point, no amount of fighting will make another person change. Either they are willing to change, or they are not. Some things cannot be altered, and it is sensible to spend your energy on things that will make a difference. But she knows that many, many things can be changed, and that she has power to accomplish many changes.
Chapter 11
She knows that in some very significant ways, she is fighting for her freedom. And she has spent enough time in pain to have learned quite a lot about freedom. There are several degrees of freedom, each a different level, all profoundly important. It seems to her that the most basic level is freedom of perception. If another person has become part of your life, and has become important to you, then you share how things are with them. And one of the places where she feels chained to something very bad is in her perceptions.
She wants to see the good in things- things in the past, things in the present, people, landscapes. And the man keeps telling her how things are bad, bad, bad. Bad in the past, bad in the present. If she lines her mind up with his, or lets him tell her how things are, she is progressively drained of all her joy and all her hope. It is deadly. She is sucked right down in the pit. And she refuses to stay there. It is a waste. So she has been fighting this basic battle, and learning as she goes.
The day she realized about the degrees of freedom, and how basic this first struggle was, it seemed to her that there were two higher levels of freedom- freedom of identity, and freedom of action. The second degree might just be a variation of the first, but it is very important, and deserves some acknowledgment. Just as you can let another dominate your perceptions, so you can let them tell you who and what you are, and assign you a value according to their perceptions. She realizes she needs to see herself as a child of the Creator, and as good- not perfect, but at least good, and trying to be better. If she does not have this fundamental identity, then she is paralyzed in her attempts to act.
This has been a major battle not only with the man, but with his church, which seems to delight in seeking out Bible verses emphasizing the evil nature of man and the desperately wicked nature of the heart. The man calls her hateful when she protests this view, but she believes that a person must have the conviction that they are able to do good with heart and hand before they have the strength to attempt to do it. 'People have bad in them, and good in them. But if they call on the Savior to help them hold fast to the good, they should have faith that he is helping, and not then fall back into the same old rut of moaning about how they are evil'.
So she strives to see the good and the hope in life and others, she strives to see the good and the hope in herself, and then she tries to stand tall on the rock of her faith, and reach out to do good. And then he reaches out and sacks her, pulls her down and buries her face in the mud, and tells her things are bad, bad, bad. Sometimes she wants to punch him, he acts so stupid. She wonders what on earth he finds useful about all these thoughts of badness. She thinks they may be some kind of protection. 'If you expect the worst, then you are not disappointed when you get it'. She has heard that said before, but she has never tried to live with it. or had someone try to enforce it on her as a way of perception or a way of life.
Chapter 12
She wonders which of the two of them is seeing things as they really are, and which way of seeing and living is closer to what the Savior wants-. She searches her heart and the Bible, and she prays for help. It can be quite a subtle process, this sifting for clues, and sometimes she must act blindly (which is to say in faith), and only afterwards look back and see how she did. So far (she has to laugh) it is not a complete loss. The gains are steady, and the feeling of strength in the Lord is a source of joy. And sometimes there is a cease-fire in the battle, as she can find common ground with the man, and they can nurture each other instead of being at each others' throats. This is a hint of one possible outcome. Times of peace like this are precious. At times she had wondered if she can find a short-cut to this by giving up her perceptions and her identity to the man, and letting him dictate her actions. It feels good to have someone’s approval. But to buy this at the price of the death of hope, of enslaving herself- she is unable to do it. It would be like trying to wear a shoe too small, or cutting off her arm. She does not want it, and she believes that the Savior does not want it for her. It is her job to find the right path and walk it, whether in the company of the man or alone. She has the strength to do this and the will to move forward. She continues to search for truth, for understanding of what the path is to be.
It is morning. Babe Cow and Babe Pig are happily grazing and playing in the big field. The field is full of clover and green grass. Babe Cow eats and walks, and feels the gentle breezes. Babe Pig finds many interesting things to taste and smell, and he roots up apples half buried in the grass. Happy bees are buzzing in the flowers, and the beehives are full of honey.
It has always been this way, for as long as the animals can remember. In the innocence of their gentle hearts, they know that this is good, and the way life should be. They are not much given to analytical thought processes, but their knowing is still definite, and assured, and correct.
They do not remember life before the big field, or life before they came to know each other as playmates. They feel they have always been here, and will always be here, and life will be good.
And yet Babe Pig feels something, almost like a thunderstorm, a gathering of clouds above the animals' heads. He looks up at the sky, but only fluffy white clouds and a playful breeze are to be seen. What is this feeling of storm clouds and gloom? Babe Cow continues to eat and walk. Babe Pig runs around to break his mood, and Babe Cow chases him. They laugh and play.
Chapter 2
Babe Cow and Babe Pig are standing in the rain. They are not happy. The weather is not warm, and they are hungry.
The woman knows they need a barn. She is no genius at farming, but she is determined that they will have shelter. She loves the animals, because they remind her of the boy. They are innocent and playful, and she wants to make a good life for them.
The man doesn't understand about this. He is often angry, and he does not love the animals. He thinks they are a needless expense. He does not see their innocence.
The animals make the woman laugh. Life is better, when you can laugh.
Sometimes when things are bad, and she has been crying, she comes to visit the animals. They are always glad to see her, and they come and bump her with their heads, as if to ask what is wrong.
They are wet, and they ask for food. Food is easy, and soon their bellies are full, but a barn is harder. She knows next to nothing about this, but she will have to learn.
It would be easier, she thinks, if many neighbors had animals, and barns. Then she could learn from them, and ask their help on the hard parts, and having animals would be the customary thing. She wouldn't have to fight for everything she wants.The woman has many weapons she uses when she has to fight. Some are easier than others, but she can use them all when she has to.
She has her job, which gives her money. Without that, wanting animals and loving animals would not get her very far.
She has truth, which is a weapon that cuts both ways. To use it, she knows she has to speak the truth, but having done that, she can ask for the truth in return. Very often she can recognize the truth when she hears it. This is useful.
She has love, which is the softest of weapons, but sometimes the most powerful.
This is a very difficult weapon to use in the face of anger. Sometimes truth has to be used at the same time, and even with the greatest concentration, sometimes anger gets mixed in. But she has had years of practice.
The concept of using love as a weapon is a curious one. It requires recognition of the fact that a weapon is used not only against an enemy, but also in defense of that which is precious. In this role of defense, love is very appropriate, and should be used with all other weapons.
Chapter 3
As she looks at the animals, the woman is already designing buildings in her head, thinking about money, and trying to read the future to see how big the barn should be, and what it could be used for.
It is not easy, loving animals. What you love, you have to care for.
She could just love fish. They are easy. But they are not the same as Babe Cow and Babe Pig.
The woman has many animals. One dog, an indefinite number of cats, and too many chickens. She had tried keeping Babe Cow in the chicken house, but that did not work. The chickens did not like it, Babe Cow did not like it, and she did not like it. The man did not like it either, but that was no real change.
She often wondered what the man would like. When she could find out things, she would try to do them, and sometimes he would be pleased, and life would be better. But she had lived long enough to know, that if a person is always angry, you could give up everything for them, and they would probably still be angry, if that is in their nature. Then you would not even have your dream, and you would probably be angry too.
The woman would not give up her dream because of the man's anger. She would help him if she could, but she would not give up her self to do it.
Chapter 4
A sunny June day. Babe Cow is eating her way across the field. She cannot keep· up with the grass, it is growing so fast.
The woman knows this is a blessing. This is the North Country, and Babe Cow will need a lot of hay this winter.
As the woman looks at Babe Cow, she is looking at the reality of her dream. She wonders why other people do not see it. 'Another person would make that a lawn', she thinks, 'and then they would buy a lawn mower and ride around to mow it. I would rather have my cow.'
Chapter 5
The woman does not really remember when she began having the dream. (In this she is like Babe Pig and Babe Cow.) It seems the dream has always been there, unfolding as she lives it. It was not her mother's dream or her grandmother's dream. They had land, but they did not care to make the land produce. They did not dream of a land of milk and honey, a fertile land. Not a tidy land, but one of many species, of much richness and diversity. She dreams of an interconnecting web of plants and animals, earth and humans. She dreams of how God might want things to be. Not of how much money she might make, but of other ways to measure riches and security. .
The man’s dream is to fish and hunt. 'Everyone must have their dream', the woman thinks.When he can have what he wants, it is a blessing, because he is happier, and things go better. But he is angry so often, No Hunting' signs make him angry. Too many fishermen make him angry. Housing developments make him angry.
The woman knows that, just as it is easier to love a fish than a cow, so it is easier to love a cow than a man. Each level is more complex, harder to understand, harder to see what is needed.
Maybe it would be easier not to love at all. 'But how do you not love, when it is in your nature?' She thinks, 'it would be like not breathing'. She knows it is in her nature to love.
Chapter 6
Sometimes (and this is a source of much pain), the woman becomes weak, and rather than loving with strength, she looks to the man for love. This causes many problems. To begin with, it does not seem that they even speak the same language. He uses the word, but his actions give a very different message. The woman is very in touch with her spiritual landscape (language is limited to similes, metaphors, and parables here, since seeing with the spirit is similar to but not identical with physical vision), and in most of her interactions, including loving, she knows she is on rolling plains, gentle valleys, 'and occasionally on the breasts of mighty mountains, where things can be cold and frightening, but also awesome and capable of evoking the strongest and most complex of positive movements in the spirit- much like hurricanes or symphonies. When her weakness is on her, and she looks to the man as a source of strength and love, she finds herself in spiritual pits and dungeons, deep, cold, awful, lonely places, and he does not hear her call out for help.
Make no mistake, the woman knows quite well how to call for help. This is another area where she has had much experience. She knows how to call out in the spirit, and with her physical voice. She knows how to tell the truth,. think logically and with passion, and form a coherent argument. Her communications skills are excellent. But whether she calls out with her spiritual voice or her physical voice, if she asks for help and for love the man becomes angry. He will not talk. He will not comfort. He builds walls to shut her out, and justifies this by saying she hurts him when she asks for help. It is as if her need is a threat to him, which he must defend against.
When this happens, she feels she has been labelled as the enemy, and left to stand outside his walls, naked and lonely, and defenseless.
Once, when things were very bad, she was determined to show him how it was for her in the spirit. She needed to talk about being lonely and in pain, and he wanted to play games and talk to other people, hug the dog, watch television, anything but hear her. So she knew what was happening in her spirit (it was very bad). And she decided to show him in the flesh how it was with her. She cut her arm, walked back into the room, and stood there dripping blood onto his pant leg, until he had to pay attention to her.(She felt quite foolish, since this was a thing that young people do, but older people usually know better.)
She knew, and he knew, that she was not trying to kill herself If that had been her intent, she would have gone about much more efficiently. And she certainly did not expect sympathy for her cut arm, since she had done it herself. But she really did need to communicate her feelings to him, to be heard, and to get some kind of help from him, since he said so often that he loved her. He would not look at her. He would not hold her, or ask her why she was hurting so bad. What he did was express anger that she would ruin his pants by getting blood on them,
He did not ask, but she told him anyway, that the pain of her arm, and the blood coming from her arm, were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what was happening in the spirit. He did not acknowledge this. He became more angry, and more withdrawn, the longer she talked. Finally she went away, in the same desolation as before, but at least with more information about what she can expect from the man and some measure of what he chooses to call love.
This is a tough place to be in. She can open her physical eyes, and see the same reassuring landscape of physical life, but this does not negate or compensate for what is happening in the spirit. So the naked and weak woman must summon her defenses, call for help from those who will hear her, get strong, put on her armor, and climb out of the pit.
She knows she has the same weapons as before, truth and love. They do not get what she needs from the man, But she remembers reading, many years ago, that to get water you must go to where the water is, and to get love, you must go to where the love is. Of water, there is plenty, She cries more often than not, in the physical world, and in the spirit. But where do you go in the spirit to get love?
Chapter 7
As she lies in the pit, suffering, the woman begins to smile. Then she begins to giggle a little. Then she finds herself laughing out 1oud. (Her physical self is smiling too.) In the spirit, the sun is coming out, and she is standing up, stronger with each movement and clothed in the best of armor, and surrounded by the source of all love and strength.
For she has remembered back to the first time she was in the pit. She had let another man put her there, with his cruelty and lies. (She seems to have this trouble with men.) Back then, she didn't know much about armor, or the spirit. She just knew pain, and loneliness, and fear. But in her physical life, sometimes people would come around to tell her about the Creator, and the Redeemer, and all the love that God has for his creation. The people who had come around with this message called themselves Jehovah's Witnesses, and many other people laughed at them, or said bad things about them, or said they didn't tell the truth. The woman has never had a chance to judge this for herself. She just listened to them, and read what they left, and thought about it. (Back then, she didn't know much about praying either.)
But when the first man left her, she found herself in the pit, screaming with pain.
She had no defenses. It was then that the miracle happened. It was as if a strong hand had reached down, and caught her up, and held her with love until the pain stopped, and then set her down gently, out of the pit, and on safe level ground.
Words are so inadequate to describe how that was. Imagine the spirit as wounded, with the cut surface a mass of pain. And imagine someone touching that pain and taking it away, or pouring a healing medicine over the hurt. It was like that.
Of course, she didn't have much sense back then. She kept getting back into the same pit, and she kept having to be hauled up out of it, until she began to imagine that the Redeemer must be getting very tired of her being so stupid and slow. But each time she learned, and each time the bond between them became stronger, and she trusted it more, until it felt like a lifeline, and she began to be able to reach out and grasp it, and pull herself out of the pit.
As this was happening, she continued to read the books of help, and read the Bible, and she saw that much of her trouble, and much of her spiritual journey, was outlined in the Bible. Finally, she realized that the Bible was like an instruction book. She laughed a lot the day it occurred to her that many people (especially men) got into trouble because they tried to use something without reading the instructions first. She knew that she had gotten into trouble here because she hadn't bothered to read the instructions.
Part of the instructions were to go and get Baptized, and when she realized that, she went and did it. In fact, the people she asked to do it saw her need, and saw that she needed to get it done that night, so at 10PM, they dipped her in the Buckhannon River, and they hugged her when she came out, shivering with the cold and covered with leaves and mud.
And her bond with the Savior became stronger, til she realized that what the book said was true, that nothing could separate them.
Chapter 8
As the woman progresses in her relationship with the Savior, she can not help but contrast it with her relationships with men.
Unlike her times with men, the relationship with the Savior is pure delight. She feels awe, she is constantly humbled, but there is no fear of meanness of spirit. 'This is the Creator', she thinks. 'He made me'. She realizes that the glow she feels, the joy, the goodness, is the experience of worship. Before she knew the Savior, she had reached for that goodness with men, but had found much cause for fear.
So now she knows the Savior, and now she has the lifeline, and now she knows she does not have to stay in the pit. But the woman still has the same problem with her weakness, and with the man, and it is slow going, trying to find a solution. She prays a lot, and she cries a lot, and she isn't afraid to ask for help. She tries to see how the man really is. She begins to realize that she wants the man to be strong and loving like the Savior is strong and loving, that she wants that same comfort and safety from the man that she has found in the Savior. There are hints at this in the Bible, and it seems that is how things are supposed to be.
But it isn't working. And she realizes she can't make it any better by being weaker, or pretending to be weaker, so that the man will seem stronger. He might like it, but it would not be right. It is not what the Creator meant for her.
And he does not mean for her to stop loving. She is fortunate to have a loving nature, and that needs to be encouraged to grow. She should not build walls. Armor is OK, but it has to be the right kind of armor, to let the sunshine in.
She realizes, and actually she is not very happy about this, that by having the task of loving and trying to understand the man and his angry nature, she is gaining in spiritual strength. 'Oh swell', she thinks. 'Just what I needed. Maybe next year I can practice loving ax murderers'. (The woman is no saint, that is for sure.)
Chapter 9
It is November in the North Country, and winter is reaching out to grip the land.
The ground is starting to freeze. Babe Cow has a baby of her own, a young bull calf, fat and almost as big as his mother.(We will talk about Babe Pig another time.) The woman still has no barn, and half the chicken house is stuffed full of hay to the rafters. It looks as if Babe Cow and young Bull Calf will have to coexist with the chickens after all. 'No one will like it, but maybe they can remember how it was on Noah's ark, and at least they will be warm' thinks the woman. This little world is like the ark, she thinks, in many ways. No one thinks it is practical. It is overcrowded with animals. Decisions have to be made from necessity, and conditions are far from ideal. But animals are living where they would not otherwise live. And love of the Lord, and prayer to the Lord, is in every decision.
When she can forget the troubles with the man, when she can free her mind from his negative perceptions, she can feel the joy rise up in her. Then she sees the land, the trees, the animals, God's Creation manifest, and the privilege to be a part of it all and hold it safe, feeds the need in her heart for goodness.
The trees stand tall. They sway with the breeze. (Sometimes they fall over, but that is another story.) Since she was a child, the trees and woodlands have been her refuge. These very trees sheltered her when things were bad. That was before there was all this grey in her hair. The trees, and she herself, were a lot younger.
'Now this is my battleground', she thinks. To be able to buy the land, pay the taxes, pay the bills, keep the acreage out of the hands of developers, is one giant battle. To maintain her concentration on her goal and on her perception of good in the face of the man's negative perceptions and criticism, is another giant battle, and one that is far more draining. There are slow, small successes in the first battle. It is not over, but it is not lost. Her resources are helping her to hold her own, and she knows she has the support of the Lord. For each victory she gives thanks.
Chapter 10
But the battle with the man does not seem to have any successes. The very fact of the conflict is failure in and of itself. She wearily retreats to ground she is sure of, spiritual principles and weapons that it is right to use.
Sometimes the only good weapon, when her back is to the wall, is truth. And it is more than a choice to use this, it is a necessity. When someone who claims to love you is doing things that hurt you, you have to tell them. Even if it makes them angry to be told, you have to do it. She can get that far. But that leaves much ground uncovered.
She prays one day. She knows she should be more humble, and say 'please', but when despair pushes her, she reaches out for that lifeline and holds on with all her strength.
Give me territory I can defend. A rock to stand on.
A refuge and a fortress. Land that does not shift beneath my feet.
A place to stand and gather my strength.
So that from your wholeness I may be whole
And from your strength I may be strong
To fight my battles.
She calls on the Lord and realizes that in having the sense to ask for help in the first place, she has one strength.
As the woman reviews the progress of the battle, she must ask herself what it is she is fighting for. You cannot fight for love. It is either there, or it is not. And beyond a certain point, no amount of fighting will make another person change. Either they are willing to change, or they are not. Some things cannot be altered, and it is sensible to spend your energy on things that will make a difference. But she knows that many, many things can be changed, and that she has power to accomplish many changes.
Chapter 11
She knows that in some very significant ways, she is fighting for her freedom. And she has spent enough time in pain to have learned quite a lot about freedom. There are several degrees of freedom, each a different level, all profoundly important. It seems to her that the most basic level is freedom of perception. If another person has become part of your life, and has become important to you, then you share how things are with them. And one of the places where she feels chained to something very bad is in her perceptions.
She wants to see the good in things- things in the past, things in the present, people, landscapes. And the man keeps telling her how things are bad, bad, bad. Bad in the past, bad in the present. If she lines her mind up with his, or lets him tell her how things are, she is progressively drained of all her joy and all her hope. It is deadly. She is sucked right down in the pit. And she refuses to stay there. It is a waste. So she has been fighting this basic battle, and learning as she goes.
The day she realized about the degrees of freedom, and how basic this first struggle was, it seemed to her that there were two higher levels of freedom- freedom of identity, and freedom of action. The second degree might just be a variation of the first, but it is very important, and deserves some acknowledgment. Just as you can let another dominate your perceptions, so you can let them tell you who and what you are, and assign you a value according to their perceptions. She realizes she needs to see herself as a child of the Creator, and as good- not perfect, but at least good, and trying to be better. If she does not have this fundamental identity, then she is paralyzed in her attempts to act.
This has been a major battle not only with the man, but with his church, which seems to delight in seeking out Bible verses emphasizing the evil nature of man and the desperately wicked nature of the heart. The man calls her hateful when she protests this view, but she believes that a person must have the conviction that they are able to do good with heart and hand before they have the strength to attempt to do it. 'People have bad in them, and good in them. But if they call on the Savior to help them hold fast to the good, they should have faith that he is helping, and not then fall back into the same old rut of moaning about how they are evil'.
So she strives to see the good and the hope in life and others, she strives to see the good and the hope in herself, and then she tries to stand tall on the rock of her faith, and reach out to do good. And then he reaches out and sacks her, pulls her down and buries her face in the mud, and tells her things are bad, bad, bad. Sometimes she wants to punch him, he acts so stupid. She wonders what on earth he finds useful about all these thoughts of badness. She thinks they may be some kind of protection. 'If you expect the worst, then you are not disappointed when you get it'. She has heard that said before, but she has never tried to live with it. or had someone try to enforce it on her as a way of perception or a way of life.
Chapter 12
She wonders which of the two of them is seeing things as they really are, and which way of seeing and living is closer to what the Savior wants-. She searches her heart and the Bible, and she prays for help. It can be quite a subtle process, this sifting for clues, and sometimes she must act blindly (which is to say in faith), and only afterwards look back and see how she did. So far (she has to laugh) it is not a complete loss. The gains are steady, and the feeling of strength in the Lord is a source of joy. And sometimes there is a cease-fire in the battle, as she can find common ground with the man, and they can nurture each other instead of being at each others' throats. This is a hint of one possible outcome. Times of peace like this are precious. At times she had wondered if she can find a short-cut to this by giving up her perceptions and her identity to the man, and letting him dictate her actions. It feels good to have someone’s approval. But to buy this at the price of the death of hope, of enslaving herself- she is unable to do it. It would be like trying to wear a shoe too small, or cutting off her arm. She does not want it, and she believes that the Savior does not want it for her. It is her job to find the right path and walk it, whether in the company of the man or alone. She has the strength to do this and the will to move forward. She continues to search for truth, for understanding of what the path is to be.
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