County Fair

Mother Hildegard and 4-H Lama’s heading to the fair

“You’re always busy,” said my husband. It’s true. I am busy most of the time. There are so many things I want to get done. But a week like this, when I go around in circles or backwards with constant distractions and interruptions and the computer loses all that I worked on for a day, shows me that life is very much more than just getting things done. So we took off a day and went to the San Juan County Fair.

Two days before, I headed down to the ferry dock on fair entry day see the entries and wish them well. A long line of cars and trucks waited with excited, dressed up 4-H’ers and their projects and animals. In the overflow lane were Mother Hildegard’s lama mobile filled with lamas, and more trucks and trailer with alpacas and Cotswold sheep. Mother Hildegard, with a doctorate in child an adolescent psychology using animals in therapy runs the 4-H Lama club.

I was excited to get there myself to see how they fared with ribbons galore. We watched the animal trials as each 4-H islander showed their animals with much patience and connection. It was fun to visit the live stock tents and talk to our island children
We sampled the fair food, listened to the music and performers, checked out the vendor stalls and visited booths of vegetables, flowers, arts and crafts and fiber arts, sheep to shawl. But the most fun was the daily 3:30 pm chicken and rabbit races. They were started many years ago by a former WSU extension agent Burrell Osburn. People just show up with their rabbit or chicken, a race or two for each, huddle in the inner circle and when the race starts, let go. The object of the race is a prize for the first, second third bird or animal to go over white chalked line of the outer concentric circle. The chickens or rabbits did not know about any prize. They had no goal except what rabbits and chickens always do, obedience to God's call to be fruitful and multiply. It was very funny to watch.

I think the chicken and rabbit race was much like my week, from the human prospective not fruitful. I would just get an inch away from the goal and give up or get shut down. I would end up going backwards and starting over again from where I began. I would wander around, get distracted and again never get to the goal or sometimes just sit there stuck, frustrated, not going anywhere. But then, perhaps this is just what I needed to see this week, to look at myself from a broader perspective, rabbits, chickens and crowd. I ask God to change my goals and instead to trust His rule over my life especially when frustrated. I ask him to help me be His idea of fruitful (in dependence on Him receiving the fruit of the spirit, patience and joy being two of them), and to continue to enjoy life, the perspective that going to the fair provided.

Galatians 5:22-23