Farm Fresh Blog

On my desk is a greeting card that I've framed.  It shows a black and white photograph of a man lifting up a little dog so the pup can drink out of a water fountain.  At the bottom of the card is a quote from George Eliot that reads:

 "What do we live for,

 if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?"

There is a profound wisdom in that quote. We are all an army of angels.  I hold firmly to the belief that God puts us where he wants us. Sometimes being in the right place at the right time means good befalls you, but other times, being in the right place at the right times means you are there to help someone else.

One of my favorite quotes is from an old Clint Eastwood movie, "Bronco Billy."

"A hand-out is what you get from the government,
 a hand-up is what you get from a friend."

(I only saw that movie once, but I never forgot that quote.)

Each and every one of us can be an angel for someone else. No matter how great, or how small they are, everyone can use a little "hand up" from time to time.  Today while walking the dogs in the bird flight pen, I happened to run across this little Neighbor In Need:

A dragonfly had gotten caught in the netting. He buzzed and buzzed, but he was caught fast.  I noticed him, even the dogs noticed him, it was simply a matter of time before he became an unhappy participant in the Food Chain's Circle of Life on the Farm. So I decided to help him. There was a problem, however. God had sent him an angel, but my little neighbor was probably 12 feet off the ground, and this angel is only 5'5" tall. 

I also firmly believe that if "God sends you to it, He'll send you through it," and I wasn't the only angel that God sent to this little dragonfly.

Just about the time I wished I was 12' tall, the dogs just happened to find this really cool stick.  (Huh! Whodathunkit?)

 So I asked them to bring me the stick.  And they did . . . (eventually it got to me.)

"Let go, Stupids!  I'M bringing it!"

So I freed the dragonfly and he went off about his little dragonfly business. It got me to thinking about the chain of events leading up to his unlikely rescue and how God would use a human, a stick, and five dogs to rescue a dragonfly.

Perhaps there's a lesson in all that.  Maybe it's this:

Maybe, just maybe, if we all slowed down . . .

. . .  and took a look around,

 just maybe, we could help "make life less difficult for each other. . . "