Connecting

It was a warm Indian summer day, the sun shining off the cliffs that shot up from the strawberry river. We were at our family Ranch on the river and I was maybe five or six. The fields were browning preparing for the winter sleep and the wind was calm. I was on my sisters horse Delight riding through one of the changing fields. Along the fence were the large cottonwood trees, that were starting to shed changing leaves. The mares growing winter coat was soft and clean. We slowly meandered through the field toward the trail that would take us to the corral. The dry grass softly crunched below the mares hooves and the rock chucks chirped to warn of our coming. Time seemed to be frozen as each step brought me more aware of the natural elements and life all around me. I was safe, connect to the world through the lead lope that served to guide my horse, I knew we would reach our destination. The field fence passed as we hit the shale rock trail from there the memory fades.

This is one of my first memories and the first I have of riding a horse. The details run deep in my heart and I am starting to understand why almost thirty years later. This is the first time I connected on a deeper level with anything. The experience brought me closer to nature and all her wonders and as a result closer to the divine creator of all that surrounds us. It was very much a spiritual experience. At the time I am sure the boy only saw the chance to ride his sisters horse but it was a preparation for me to learn what is real.

 God is real, he is all around us in everything we see, touch, taste, and smell. He is in every man woman and child. He is in the things because he created them, he is in us because he his our Father. The giver of life through a sacred covenant between a man and a woman who come together and create life. He is the source of the very energy that makes us alive. He was there that day on a horse with me, I could fill him.

Somewhere in that red stuff that shows up when we get a cut is a strange strand of DNA. That strange strand somehow makes Stephanie, Sherrie, and Michelle, my sisters. Which is also the same strange strand that was in a bunch of amazing people who did all kinds of things before me. Family is as real as the blood in our veins. But its real not because of the science. Its real because of the way my little girls blue eyes look into mine when she is done riding her pony and she says " I love you dad". That is real, family is real.

In the garden of Eden God gave Adam and Eve something so powerful it has changed all of human history. It was not the fruit! God gave them freedom, the ability to act for themselves to choose and to live. Freedom is real and nothing can take it from us. People and governments may do all sorts of thing to limit it, intrude on it, steal it, corrupt it, and take it from us. Yet despite their best efforts they cannot take it away. We always have it and must always fight to expand it and allow it do work its miracles. Freedom is free, a gift from the creator no one can ever take away. We can always choose to be free cause freedom is real.

Thirty years ago I climbed on a little bay mare in a hay field, she gave me so much more than a ride that day. She gave me the opportunity to connect with God on a personal level. This connection has continued through countless rides when the Lord has been sitting shotgun on the back of my horse. She was in that hayfield because of countless hours my Father and Mother had spent working to buy the land. A land that was available because of my ancestors who paved a way west in a new country. A new country that gave them what every heart longs for, freedom. That day I connected with a few things that are real, God, Family and Freedom all from the back of a horse.

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