I kind of like this whole ranch rodeo craze that’s sweeping the western world lately. With events like the stock saddle bronc riding, it’s about as close to the roots of rodeo as we’ll ever get. I like the team branding, team doctoring, trailer loading, and stock horse events, too. However, I think ranch rodeos get it wrong to some extent. Take the whole team concept, for instance. On most ranches I’ve worked around, teamwork is reserved for a very few times during the year. Think of all those times you’ve been trying to put Powder River panels together by yourself, and you’ve got no one to lift up on the other end of the panel so you can get the pin in the clevis. Or maybe those times when you’re trying to get one lump jawed cow up an alley and into a chute, so you can lance her jaw. We’ve all got to admit it’s easier to get her in, through, and caught when you’ve got some help, but that’s not always the case. Another thing ranch rodeos have wrong is that all their events are kind of fun and romantic. I want to see the calf pulling event. Each team is assigned a first calf heifer experiencing dystocia, and the quickest live calf on the ground wins. Of course the mother’s survival is paramount, as well. Perhaps that event could lead into the prolapse replacing and stitching contest. There’s some fun for you. I think another event that would be spectator friendly is the cattle feeding event. For that one, a flatbed pickup is stacked four tons high, and one ranch hand climbs to the top without pulling a bale down. When he gets to the top and gives the signal to the driver, the guy behind the wheel must negotiate an obstacle course made up of rocks, frozen cow turds, circle tracks, furrows, and irrigation ditches, all at a speed of at least ten miles per hour while not losing the feeder on top of the stack. Any feeder who goes two hands down is assessed a ten second penalty. Calf tagging would be another crowd favorite. A team of two contestants drives a pickup into a herd of the hookiest cows in the county and finds the one who has just calved. One cowboy’s job is to distract the cow while the other one tags the calf. It would be judged like the cutting. A 70 is kind of the baseline. If either cowboy is touched by the cow, the judges dock them ten points. If they execute the run smoothly, they leave with a 90. If a cow enters the cab of the pickup, they are disqualified. It should be a rule that one team member has to show up halfway through an event. Another one needs to have an arm in a sling. The other two are allowed full range of motion. The horseshoeing event is a one man event, and so is the gate-closing. That one requires the tightest wire gate possible with loops on the gate post made just about an inch too short. The futility will be hilarious, but I guarantee it will get shut. I suppose the real ranch rodeo events are cooler. They are much more spectator-friendly. Most of them don’t gross anyone out, and most contestants will survive. In short, those events offer a little romance and glamour, the stuff that cowboy lore is made of. My events are too real. They’re not very cool, and they can get gross. Christianity is like that. Too many times we get convinced that a life following Jesus is going to be romantic and glamorous. We think that mission trips to exotic places will be our path, that they’ll write stories about us that glorify a God whose triumphs include us doing amazing things that look great in pictures. The truth is that most of us will be like Paul, wandering from town to town, getting beaten and imprisoned and making some tents to pay our way. Or maybe we’ll be like Peter, who was crucified upside down for his faith. That’s romantic. Hey, maybe we’ll be as glamorous as Stephen, and we’ll smile while rocks are breaking our skull bones and knocking us over the threshold into eternity. I don’t know. I kind of like John’s story. He was simply exiled to an island where he had crazy dreams. Life with Jesus is not necessarily glamorous. But the cool thing is that even through all the junk and the unromantic hell, God is working on our behalf. As long as we’re following him, he’s making sure all the sewer and viscera is being pulled together to become good. It’s a beautiful thing. Romans 8:28 tells us, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” That’s absolutely true, even when it doesn’t seem like it. There are those who will say that our faith isn’t strong enough, if we’re not healed right now, or if God hasn’t provided us with a mansion on a hill. The examples in the Bible show us differently. There’s a lot of junk we’ll have to go through, but for believers, the promise is that he’ll work it all for the good. That’s pretty romantic and glamorous, after all.
Posted on: Tue, 06 Jan 2015 05:27:57 +0000
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