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BriarCroft Christmas Eve

an annual tradition

Christmas Eve 2007  --Transformation

We are expecting snow on Christmas day.  For many, this is no big deal and nothing special.  Here in the Pacific Northwest, it is very rare to have a white Christmas: in my 53 years, I can recall exactly 3. The most dramatic was in 1996 when we had snow drifts over 10 feet high and were snow bound for several days.  We had to tunnel into our barns to feed the animals and the drama soon became hard work and effort.  So a few inches sounds just right. It is enough.

It isn't Bing Crosby romanticism about White Christmases I'm seeking.  It is the transformation implicit in a new snowfall.   All appears new under a blanket of snow.  The ordinary appears extraordinary and we see it with different eyes.  This is what Christmas morning is about and a little visual aid doesn't hurt.

I know it didn't snow that first Christmas morning in Bethlehem.  I know it wasn't even winter when Jesus was most likely born.  I know none of that really matters in this commercial craziness we call "Christmas" but which bears so little resemblance to what really happened at that moment when God became man.

The song "There is No Rose" profoundly illustrates with few words: 

Allelulia!  A wondrous thing has happened!  God and man become equally formed, made as one! Let us rejoice!  Let us be transformed as a result!

Today is our day for renewal--clean, extraordinary, transforming.   We're allowed to peer into the face of God...

There Is No Rose by Benjamin Britten
There is no rose of such virtue
As is the Rose that bore Jesu:
Alleluia.
For in this rose was contained
Heaven and earth in a small space.
Wondrous thing. Res miranda.
By that rose we may well see
There is one God in persons three.
Equally formed. Pares forma.
The angels sang; the shepherds, too:
Glory to God in the highest!
Let us rejoice. Gaudeamus.
Leave we all these worldly cares
And follow we this joyful birth.
Let us be transformed. Transeamus.

Christmas Eve 2006

Today was typical of most dark December winter mornings.  I am an early riser but procrastinate indoors, reading and responding to emails, fixing coffee, eating my breakfast, and making the walk to the mailbox in pitch dark to get the newspaper.  I don't like doing barn chores in the dark if I can avoid it, so I try to postpone until there is at least a little light peeking over the foothills to the east.  I keep one eye out the kitchen window as I sit reading at the table, watching for Mount Baker to slowly appear in silhouette as dawn approaches, knowing that is my signal to get dressed and go out to feed the horses.

I wasn't prepared for what this morning brought.  Given the number of things I needed to attend to today to prepare for Christmas, I was more than a little preoccupied.  As I sat with my nose buried in the newspaper, and my mouth full of oatmeal, outside the hills began to glow orange along their crest, as if a flame had been lit and was spreading from the shadows.  It caught me unaware, appearing in the periphery of my vision. I had to shake myself from my preoccupation to stop what I was doing and gaze awestruck at the spectacle.  I quickly realized I was missing the opportunity to capture this brilliance on my camera to save and share.  The orange paintbrush strokes were reaching higher in the sky, bathing the glaciers of Mount Baker and stretching down to the Twin Sisters peaks to the south.  It was startling transformation of the ordinary to the extraordinary.   By the time I'd grabbed my camera, exchanged slippers for muck boots and then raced outside in my bathrobe to capture it, it was gone.  In under 2 minutes the sky had faded to gray, the mountains snowy white again and the rain began to fall.  All was ordinary again.  It was as if it had never happened and I would never have any proof that it did. 

Yet I write about it because for a few moments glory shone right in my own back yard and it shone on me.  But I have no "proof."

We don't have photos of what the shepherds saw that night when the angel of the Lord came to them and glory shone all around them.  We don't know what the heavenly host looked or sounded like but we know their timeless words of  "peace on earth, good will toward men".  We know that the angels then left the shepherds to stand awestruck in their fields, and all became ordinary again.  Yet the shepherds themselves had been transformed.  They had experienced glory, compelled to tell others what they had seen and heard though they were neither gregarious nor articulate.  They were most unlikely witnesses of that first Christmas eve and we remain unlikely witnesses each subsequent Christmas.  The glory shines all around us but we tend to remain preoccupied, too busy to notice and therefore unable to appreciate what has been given to us. 

Nothing will be ordinary again as we are transformed.  For unto us a child is born and a Son is given.

Christmas Eve 2005

Readying the Stable

As is my routine on Saturdays, I spent part of this day in the barn, filling water buckets, then going from stall to stall to clean out manure and wet spots, and finally adding fresh bedding. Then I climbed high in the hay stack in the barn and rolled hay bales down to load into the wheel barrow to push into the stable for the next day's feedings. It is preparation for Sunday, which we try to treat as Sabbath, a day of rest, as much as we are able on a farm. There are always chores to do every day, but they can be abbreviated on Sunday thanks to the work accomplished the previous day. This is the nature of farming-- preparing and readying for what is to come.

Farmers, by nature, are a hopeful lot. We plan ahead, plot out our next year's crop, choose our seed in advance and plant it with anticipation. We prune and we plow and we store up mountains of feed far in advance. We evaluate pedigrees and scrutinize genetics carefully. And we wait patiently. As I clean their stalls, I watch my mares' bellies roll with the movement of their unborn foals and I picture the new life in my mind's eye. There is a harvest of hope in those bellies.

Unlike many modern horse barns, my decades old stable is a particularly plain and humble place with dirt floors, and as the support beams have settled over the years the door hinges don't hang balanced and true any longer, so the stall doors are sticky and sometimes hard to open in the wet weather. Despite the lack of fancy design though, I haven't heard the horses complain--their meals taste as good, they are warm and dry in the cold wet weather and cool in the hot weather. Their needs are met there and amazingly, so are mine.

Christmas began in a stable--probably a dark cave that served the purpose of housing animals. It most assuredly was plain and humble, smelling of manure and urine, and animal fur. Yet it also would have smelled of the sweetness of stored forage, and there would have been the reassuring sounds of animals chewing and breathing deeply. It was truly the only place a group of scruffy shepherds could have felt welcomed without being tossed out as unsuitable visitors-- they arrived at the threshold dirty and terrified and left transformed, returning to their fields full of praise and wonder, telling all they met what they had seen.

There could not have been a more suitable place for this birth that was to change the world: the promise of cleansing hope and peace in the midst of filth that must be removed so as not to overwhelm us as we stand knee deep in it. Despite our sorry state, we are welcomed into the sanctuary of the stable, sown, grown, pruned and harvested to become seed and food for others.

If the shepherds became a harvest of hope, then surely so should we.

Christmas Eve 2004

Feeding at the Trough

If I recall correctly, the first catalog with holiday theme items arrived in our mailbox in late July. The "BEST CHRISTMAS ISSUE EVER!" magazines hit the racks in September. Then, with the chill in the air in October and Halloween past, the stores put out the Santa decorations and red and white candy, instead of the orange and black candy of the previous 6 weeks. We have been inundated with commercial "Christmas" for months now and finally, it has arrived, after considerable fanfare and folderol. I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted, beat to a "best ever holiday" pulp.

All of this has little to do with the original gift given that first Christmas night, lying small and helpless in a barn feed trough. I know a fair amount about feed troughs, having daily encounters with them in our barn, and there is no fanfare there and no grandiosity. Just basic sustenance-- every day needs fulfilled in the most simple and plain way. Our wooden troughs are so old, they have been filled with fodder thousands of times over the decades. The wood has been worn smooth and shiny from years of being sanded by cows' rough tongues, and over the last two decades, our horses' smoother tongues, as they lick up every last morsel, extracting every bit of flavor and nourishment from what has been offered there. No matter how tired, how hungry, there is comfort offered at those troughs. The horses know it, anticipate it, depend on it, thrive because of it.

The shepherds in the hills that night were starving too. They had so little, yet became the first invited to the feast at the trough. They must have been overwhelmed, having never known such plenty before. Overcome with the immensity of what was laid before them, they certainly could not contain themselves, and told everyone they could about what they had seen.

We're told his mother listened to the excitement of the visiting shepherds and that she "treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart". Whenever I'm getting caught up in the frenetic overblown commercialism of modern Christmas, I go out to the barn and look at our rough hewn feed troughs and think about what courage it took to entrust an infant to such a bed. She knew in her heart, indeed she had been told, that her son was to feed the hungry souls of human kind and he became fodder himself.

We are at the trough, sometimes stamping in our impatience, often anxious and weary, at times hopeless and helpless. He was placed there for good reason: a treasure to be shared plain and simple, a meal without end for all.

Who needs Christmas cookies, pumpkin pies and the candy canes?

Just kneel alongside your horses at the manger.

Merry Christmas everyone.

Emily and the Gibsons from BriarCroft

Christmas Eve 2003

Do Not Be Afraid

We've had a very blustery Christmas Eve, with strong winds from the south, blowing branches off trees and anything not tied down. Our Haflingers were out in their winter paddocks today, as usual, and due to the busy-ness of the day's activities, we didn't get out to do chores until after dark to bring them in one by one.

The wind definitely changes everything once it is dark out, for us and for the horses. The familiar walk along the dark path from the paddocks to the barn, past several buildings, suddenly becomes spooky and more epic adventure than evening stroll. The wind whistles between the buildings, so everything sounds different than usual, and the blowing branches and goodness knows what else can appear threatening and menacing. The Haflingers' eyes are big and bright with white as we walk in, and they jig and trot, glancing this way and that, clearly unnerved by the familiar becoming unfamiliar. They are uneasy and frightened, breathing hard and fast, and the younger ones are frankly terrified when a branch blows across their path, coming out of nowhere in the dark, and disappearing just as quickly. I talk to the horses as we walk, reassuring them, telling them there is no reason to be afraid, thatthere is nothing out here that will eat them or chase them, and they cock their ears back and forth, listening to me, then back to listening for that unknown "thing" out there that just might be ready to get them. If they had their 'druthers, they'd be racing for the safety of the barn at full tilt, but that is not acceptable Haflinger behavior, so they cope with being asked to stay close and walk alongside me.

Once in the barn, with muzzles into the feeders and eating their evening meal, their eyes soften again, and they relax, settling, knowing that they are safe and cared for and protected. A roll in the fresh shavings, a good shake and a huge snort of relief, and all is well. I can be easily unnerved too by the familiar suddenly becoming unfamiliar. I like to think I cope well with the unexpected, but it isn't always the case, so I often need plenty of reassurance, and a steady voice beside me so I don't get "catastrophic" in my fear.

Sometimes, as a president so wisely implied years ago, our own fear becomes the thing we fear the most. And it need not be.This type of fear in the face of the unexpected happened years and years ago, to people who were society's cast-offs, relegated to tending flocks as they had no other skill of value. They were the forgotten and the least of men. Yet what they saw and heard that Christmas night put them first, allowed them access that no one else had. Within the familiarity of their fields and flocks came this most unexpected and frightening experience, terrifying in its sheer "other worldliness", and blinding in its grandeur. They must have been flattened with fear and terror. And so the reassurance came: "Be not afraid". In the same way we whisper to our frightened horses and hold them close to us, so these shepherds were picked up, dusted off and sent on their way to the safety and familiar security of a barn, to see with their own eyes what they could not imagine. A baby born in so primitive a place, yet celebrated from the heavens. The least becomes first, and the first becomes the least.

Sometimes, in these dark times, our terror is for good reason, and we need to know where to seek our reassurance. It is there for us and always has been, walking beside us, speaking to us from a manger bed, feeding us when we are hungry and tending to us when we need it.

Merry Christmas and do not be afraid.

Christmas Eve 2002

On a night long ago
The two travelled far
After days on the road
Sought rest beneath a brightening star.

Yet no room was found
As they asked all they could
Instead they were bound
for a cave in the wood.

In a barn dry and warm
Farm animals welcomed them
Safely sheltered from harm
And the closed doors of Bethlehem.

Where else can the birth be
But deep in a cave?
Where the heart is set free
Our lives and souls saved.

My barn, like my heart
Should always have "room"
For the Word had its start
In a manger assumed.

As your Haflingers welcome you
To their barn home today
A heart is shown what it must do--
Always give Love and Peace a place to stay.


From Emily and family from BriarCroft
Christmas 2002
where the wind is gusting to 50-60 mph and the bit of snow we had
yesterday is gone with the wind!

Starlit Christmas Eve 2001

I walk to the barn tonight as I do each year,
Counting my blessings, knowing my flaws,
Praying for family and friends so dear,
And for each precious creature with hooves or paws.

Each horse is content and a witness to peace,
And I wish every person could know,
Sadness and worry for a moment can cease,
While patting noses down a stall row.

For once I see the sky is clear
And stars are shining bright
The northeast wind is coming near
And briskly chills this special night.

For weeks stars hid behind a cloud
Of doubt, of fear, of weeping rain,
Explosions at once so horrid and loud
The whole world instantly felt the pain.

Like stars that glow through blackest dark
Good overwhelms bad with barely left trace
All owed to a Child who left His mark
By giving Himself in infinite grace.


May you all find peace in your homes, your barns and yourselves this
Christmas.
God bless you all, my friends. Emily from BriarCroft

2000 Christmas Eve

Finding Peace in the Barn

Sometimes it seems time flies too fast
Amidst our daily work and play
We want to make each moment last
and value in every day.

A place we've found that time slows
Is the Haflinger barn on our farm.
As we listen to the chewing among the stall rows
We know each horse is safe and loved and warm.

Years ago, such peace was found
In a Baby lying in a manger.
Sung a lullaby of animals' sounds
Sleeping protected from earthly danger.

We can know that peace apart
From the rest of our worldly care
The Baby's found within our heart
A knowledge we gladly share.

Merry Christmas from the Gibsons of BriarCroft
Dan, Emily, Nate, Ben and Lea
and our Haflingers

Blessed in a Haflinger barn

1999

Growing up as a child on our farm,
I remember the magic of Christmas eve night,
Bundling up in layers to stay warm,
To the barn to witness an unbelievable sight.

At midnight we knew the animals knelt down,
And spoke in words we could all understand.
They worshiped a Child born in a tiny town,
In a barn such as theirs held in God's hand.

They were there that night, to see and to hear,
The blessings that came from the sky.
They patiently stood watch at the manger near,
In a barn, while shepherds and kings came by.

Yet my childhood trips to the barn were always too late,
Our cows would be chewing, our chickens fast asleep,
Our horse breathing softly, our cat climbing the gate,
In the barn there was never a peep.

But I knew they had done it, just too quick to see!
They were plainly so happy and at peace.
In the sweet smelling hay, and no longer hungry,
In our barn, though so humble, a miracle had taken place.

I still bundle to go out each Christmas eve,
In the hope I'll catch them this time.
Though I'm older now I still must believe
In the barn, birth happened amidst cobwebs and grime.

Yet our horses nicker as I come near,
They tell me the time is now!
They drop to their knees without any fear
In our barn, all living things bow.

Imagine the wonder of God's immense trust
For the loving creatures who were there that night.
Now I know why this special Child must
Be born in a barn, it was only right.

From Emily
and everyone at BriarCroft- Dan, Nate, Ben, & Lea
And 15 talkative Haflingers (have you ever known them to keep anything a
secret?)
Merry Christmas Everyone!

emily@briarcroft.com