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The far corner of the barn is glowing; the red of the heat lamp bravely fighting the enveloping, freezing dark. The shepherd hands me a lamb and her head flops in my arms. She is limp and weak. I hold her away from my coat. She is still slick from the womb. We feed her but the shepherd is grim. She will not see daylight again. We pipe the milk right into her tummy and make her a last bed on the straw in the pen. Her mum stands by, tending her. She is such a good mum. Her teats are swollen with that milk the baby so desperately needed but didn’t manage to find.
I clamber into the pen next door. The orphaned twins are getting stronger. Feeding them with a bottle is easier tonight than it was the first time. That was more of a wrestle than you might expect from a rescue. I had to straddle them to stop them stumbling back, holding their mouths open with my fingers. Don’t they realise their mum has gone? This is the only dinner they’ll get.
My children announced the death of the twin’s mother to everyone who didn’t already know, pointing matter-of-fact at the trail of blood across the concrete. But the lambs are looking good, despite having entered the world to such instant loss.
In the morning the shepherd invites me back. Back to the corner of the barn. Light falls through the wall-less windows, the straw golden in the morning sun. The shepherd has done something clever. Each twin is wearing little woollen clothes, tied with orange string. One tied to the front, one to the back. It is an experiment. This is the dead lamb’s coat and the shepherd is hoping the mother will accept these two as her own. I’ve seen rejection before. When the mothers refuse to know their own lambs, turning from them constantly, or worse, butting them off. The twins are dirty, foreheads spotted with iodine from their mother’s intervention. They had such a short time with her, but they remember what to do. They are immediately at the teat, tails twirling as they catch mouthful after mouthful. This is the good stuff. Mum is not sure. She edges round the pen, trying to get a good sniff of their sweet little bottoms. But the shepherd knows what he is doing. The borrowed coat is enough. A new family.
We went to some lovely places last week. I saw carpets of blue bells and paths lined with blackthorn blossom, watched sparks from a bonfire darting like fireflies into a purple sky. But it is this place that is stirring my soul now I am back home. The far corner of the barn.
A conversation
“Is it about the secret place Jesus?” I ask him as I sip my cup of tea in bed. “Is that why I can’t get it out of my head? Do you want me to write about the place of healing in the deepest parts of us?”
“Or is it a picture of your sacrifice? The place where death and life collide?”
No, neither feel quite right. So I give up. I’ll leave this beautiful place as a page of scribble in my notebook.
The answer when it comes is quiet.
“It’s the church.”
The church?
My reaction is unexpected. Apparently I don’t want to write about the church. Not pretty enough? Too difficult? A place where there is mess and weakness everywhere? Where there is rejection, confusion and pain? Where blood runs in trails across the floor. Oh yes. The church.
A place where the weak are brought in to be fed and held. Where death tears us apart and we are put back together again. Where the shepherd puts us in families.
The church.
I have wrestled with church. I have attended reluctantly or not at all. I have been hurt and disappointed by people often oblivious or well-meaning. Scarred by lack of care and baffled by people so determined to be loving they forget to love, people so determined to be good they are mean. It is a mess. We misunderstand each other, fail each other, reject each other.
And now I read in the news that the church is shut.
Problem is that you can’t really close a place that doesn’t have any doors. A place that exists because the shepherd is looking after his sheep and he always will. It is the place where he works. Where he is. Through the night and at first light.
“He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.” Isaiah 40:11
I watch my children in that far corner of the barn. Uninhibited. Their self conscious bragging falls away like an old skin as they feel the warmth of the lambs in their arms. They are humanised. Something deep inside them connects with this meaningful place. My children are needed and valued here. There is work to be done. But best of all they are blessed by the ones they are loving. Isn’t this what church is supposed to be like?
When will I learn that those who are serving receive the biggest blessing from those they are supposedly serving.
“Ministry is, first of all, receiving God’s blessing from those to whom we minister. What is this blessing? It is a glimpse of the face of God. Seeing God is what heaven is all about.” Henri Nowen
And in that far corner of the barn we get to see him work. We get to see him in the face of those we learn to serve, and those who serve us.
It is a place where earth and heaven meet, in a chaotic twist of mess, magic and mystery.
I am sorry Jesus for so often taking for granted, or worse still, rejecting your church. What a profound and beautiful thing to be brought into the place where you work, where you strengthen and tend us, where you put the orphans in families. I see her now Jesus for who she is. A place of refuge and healing, where death and adoption collide. A place of the deepest significance, too fundamental to name. I want to be part of this beautiful mess. Arm deep in colostrum and afterbirth, lambs chewing on my fingers. I want to see your tenderness first hand. I will sit at your feet shepherd. In the corner of the barn.
“Father to the fatherless, defender of widows — this is God, whose dwelling is holy. God places the lonely in families; he sets the prisoners free and gives them joy.” Psalm 68:5-6
Katy x PS Shout out to my wonderful brother in law and sister in law who live on this beautiful farm. Thank you to Harry (real life shepherd) for sharing the far corner of the barn with me just for a few short moments. What you do really is profound and beautiful. Thank you both for sharing your deck, your view and your lives with us. I love you a lot. X
(c) Words, Images and Recordings, Katy Durdant-Hollamby, 2021