Out Our Way: Spiritual saddle sores

Out our way, the first few hours or days of riding can be pretty painful. I didn’t work the cattle in the winter and seldom rode Doc after November. In late April or early May I would go out and saddle up. Both Doc and I had usually put on some girth over the winter and and I often it took a lot of pulling and kneeing him in the gut to get his cinch secure. The looks he would give me! But then, I found I had trouble getting my foot in the stirrup as my own tummy had spread a bit and got in the way. Even when I finally got my foot in the stirrup, I found I couldn’t swing up so easily — gravity taking hold and all. And when I finally did manage to step up and fork Doc’s back, the look he gave me then was even sterner.

Both of us found we were stiff and needed to warm up a good deal before we really began to settle down to business — and even then — it wasn’t too long before my hind end began to complain that saddles don’t come with cushions. Stiff legs and sore rear were the norm for the first few times out with Charlie on the Tiger Ridge. In one of my Westerns, I smiled as I read of an old cowhand who had trailed cattle into Montana years ago complained about having to regain all his aches and pains after he had stopped riding for a while and even he had saddle sores for a time. But, as I discovered, he also noted that saddle sores don’t last if you stay with it. And that’s the key — stay with it.

No one who rides a great deal is going to escape aches and pains — especially at first — and I have yet to meet anyone who seriously rides who has not been thrown and added bruises, sprains and even broken bones to the price of becoming a decent rider. But once you start to get your seat and keep it, even the occasional “launching” by a clumsy or sometimes just irritated horse is worth the price of admission to the club. Granted, a good many of the aches and pains sustained riding Doc and pushing cows with Charlie flare up from time to time — especially when I am engaged in heavy physical labor. The first few weeks of hauling carts at the store awakened a good many memories of times I went sailing over Doc’s head as he tossed me into cactus, rocks and hard-packed dirt. But while the body shares old memories of being tossed and stomped, the heart also has memories.

So often, tourists driving the Hi-Line will call the area boring. And I admit, U.S. Highway 2 — the longest two-lane road in the USA — doesn’t offer much scenery until you get to the Rockies and then to Glacier. But get off the highway. Ride on horseback pushing cows out of an arroyo and over hills smelling the sage, hearing the meadowlarks, watching the hawks and occasional eagles, and chuckling over the antics of young calves running, skipping and just playing around — well, you won’t see that at Glacier or Yellowstone. And sit your weary bones atop a horse who is now a part of you — and that took years for me and Doc, but we made it — and just feel the hand of God in a cool wind on a hot day as you sit smelling the perfume of the prairie and a good horse’s sweat as you gaze from a hilltop over the vast grasslands that stretch from the Bear Paws to Canada. Those gifts were worth the price of admission, and I am glad I stuck to it and gained entrance into that unique world of sights, sounds, smells and comradeship with Charlie and with Doc. It cost some pain and effort — and yes, I did have to deal with saddle sores — but saddle sores don’t last if you keep going. Charlie encouraged me that it would be worth it,and he was right.

The prophet Isaiah — like Charlie — spoke words of encouragement. Through him, God called to the faithful, but also the mere “wanna be faithful” to saddle up and come along. Of course, it isn’t easy and yes, we will surely all have to deal with “Spiritual saddle sores,” but He tells us it will be worth the effort. Like the tourist who just drives and Highway 2 and never realizes the incredible beauty and majesty hat lies over the ridge, so many of us are content to just get by and exist from day to day, but seldom ever actually come alive and live. God speaks through Isaiah — and later through Christ — to come and see.

It may be a bit uncomfortable at first — certainly different — and a variety of obstacles — spiritual saddle sores — are going to arise. People may laugh or scoff at you for taking God seriously. No one, not even the holiest of believers has a continual spiritual high, despite what some religious hacks may say. Everybody gets bucked off now and then. Even the greatest and holiest of believers — Isaiah, Jeremiah, the Apostle Paul, Francis of Assisi, Teresa of Avila, Milton, Luther, Calvin, Mother Teresa, Billy Graham, C.S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, etc. — experienced that dark night of the soul. “There is a God and I am not Him” is one of the most painful “spiritual saddle sores” we all have to endure in the beginning.

But when you finally get to the top of Tiger Ridge and discover what those folks on the Highway cannot even imagine — you know two things: saddle sores don’t last; and it was well worth the cost to get here.

Blessings,

Brother John Bruington