Nooitgedacht

I always laugh when I pass the Nooitgedacht store outside Klerksdorp. I am convinced the store used to be called something else until Eskom came and ran their power lines through the area. Then the owner changed the name to Nooitgedacht, which is short for “Ek het nooitgedacht that I would end up with my shop straddled by two enormous Eskom pylon legs, with electromagnetic energy decreasing my life expectancy each day.” I am also sure that Eskom het nooitgedacht that the shop owner would refuse to close up and move on.

My parents het nooitgedacht that their grandchildren would speak Afrikaans. And Herman’s family in this part of the world het nooitgedacht that he would move back here with his Engelse vrou. When Nicolaas was born, my parents who cannot speak Afrikaans, out of respect to Herman insisted on speaking bad Afrikaans to their grandson. And Herman’s family who cannot really speak English, insisted on speaking bad English to him. So our son’s initial linguistic experience was not just a deeply bi-lingual one, but a deeply flawed by-lingual one.

There is a belief in this part of the world that if you are white and you cannot speak Afrikaans, then you must be fresh from England. So when my parents visit us here, the conversation between my father and the elderly locals goes something like this, “Jon! Welkom hier in Suid Afrika. Waneer het jy geland?” (1) Then my father, who het nooitgedacht he would be asked such a question, answers, “Nee, ek was in Joburg gebore.” (2) But the locals cannot really hear that bit. It is not possible. Not with that accent. Not with that Afrikaans. So they move onto the next question, “Hoe vind jy dit hier in ons land?” (3) And my father, second generation South African answers, “Nee, lekker dankie,”(4) while thinking to himself that although the gold rush bit back then was rather a hoot, things have gone a bit pear-shaped recently. He had nooitgedacht that he would be starting a neighbourhood watch in his area at the age of 70.

Ek het nooitgedacht that I would end up living in the North West Province. And while a part of me still longs for mountains, I am also coming to understand the words of my friend Adele, who said that she is sure that Heaven, when she gets there, will be lovely. But she knows already that she will miss this. And she sweeps her hand across the vlaktes where the grasslands are peppered with Soetdoringbome.

But of all the things that I nooitgedachted would ever happen to me, nothing surprised me more than what happened to me in town on Friday afternoon. My Volvo broke down. Ek het nooitgedacht that fancy-pancy cars could break down. So there I sat outside the chemist with a car telling me (because it is one of those cars that talks to you), that it would not start until I had unlocked the steering and then even after I had unlocked it, the car still insisted that I had not, and that I should “Try again”.

Eventually, tired of “trying again” and talking to a car that was very good at expressing itself but had bugger-all listening skills, I decided to contact our local mechanic. The news could not have been worse. “That,” he said emphatically, “is the most common problem with Volvo. No one can help you here, you will have to get your car towed to a Volvo dealer.” So I phoned Volvo in Joburg to tell them about the pickle I had landed in thanks to their argumentative car.

No problem, where in Joburg was I, as they would send me road side assistance. Nowhere near Joburg, unfortunately. In fact 285km outside of Joburg. Chris told me to hold the line while he chatted with the technicians. What model was my car? You mean other than the Volvo bit? Yes. It’s a …. XC… no…wait…it’s a V50! Was it diesel or petrol? Diesel (that was easy peasy lemon squeezy). How many litres? Don’t push your luck, Chris, the car is blue, okay? Where do I find out that information? It’s written on the back of the car. Does 20D help you Chris? It helped Chris. Is it a manual? Bad English, Chris, I thought as I rummaged around trying to find the manual. Okay, I have it. What page, Chris? No, Chris said gently, is it manual or automatic? Oh! Laugh and blush a bit. Manual. Chris and the technicians were pleased to hear that. Can you push start your car? Put it in second and drop the clutch. Are there people there who can push you? Are you on a slope?

Yes, there are people who can push me, and no, I am not on a slope. This is a very “unslopey” part of the world actually. Tabiso and Jim, who were both sitting resting at the side of the road, het nooitgedacht that they would be R100 richer within minutes. All they had to do was push start my car. Ek het nooitgedacht that they would manage it. The” unslopeyness” of the road, and the rate at which they coughed while they pushed me, made me think they had just left the hospital with their TB medication in their pockets and that we may never pick up the speed we needed. But they did manage. We took a few turns around the block, waving on each round to the Dentist’s receptionist, and after 6 attempts the car got going.

It seems to me that as one thought leads to another, one nooitgedacht also does. And each thing that you had nooitgedachted, is so much more amazing, even if sometimes more unpleasant, than its predecessor.

_________________________________________________________________________

(1) welcome to South Africa.  When did you land?

(2) No, I was born in Joburg.

(3) What do you think of South Africa

(4) It’s great, thanks.

 

Ben 10 and Jesus

It’s Easter, and if you live near the coast, the gentle but oh so fresh mists come “puff the magic dragoning” off the seas in the early mornings, before the sun rises and takes over, taking the mists unto itself.  (It does not do that here in the North West, but I remember it does that at the coast!)

And it’s time for marzipan swans encasing Easter eggs to sit in windows of the Tuisnywerheid enticing the children who in turn nag their parents who may have all the money in the world but who come from parents who were war babies and who still try to save on the price of a can of baked beans. (And more importantly, to teach their children that although there may be money now, poverty herself may be lying in wait just around the next corner, ready to pounce, so best you know learn how to suffer!).  These parents still firmly believe that when it comes to Easter you may as well buy chocolate because all you are paying for in the bunnies is the wrapping. And the children want to shout, “Yes! Yes! Yes!” because it’s exactly that wrapping that they want.

I remember visiting distant family on Easter Monday.  She was an only child and where we had each been given a Cadbury bar to commemorate Jesus rising from the dead, she had about 17 gold eared, red jacketed bunnies, 10 blue tin foiled chocolate buses carrying chocolate bars instead of passengers, and dozens of candy coated hen shaped eggs.  She had so much loot from our Lord rising, that she had to clear a drawer in her wardrobe to accommodate all her gifts. She was clearly not a descendent of war babies. That night I wished upon Pinocchio’s wishing star that my brother and sister would find foster homes, so that the next year I too could be an only child and have to shift my T-shirts to make room for all my chocolate!

In addition to rearranging wardrobes, it’s also time to start awkwardly squeezing in some religious education for our children, as we do at Christmas when amidst the excitement of presents we are forced to remember the illegitimacy of the party as it is actually Someone Else’s birthday.

In this vein, my husband tried last week to expand our son’s religious general knowledge and make it all relevant to this day and age, by pointing out the similarities to him between Ben 10 and Jesus.  “You see, Nicolaas,” Herman said, “they both came to save the world.”   Nicolaas thought about this while watching his Superhero on TV and answered, “No, Dad.  They are not the same at all.  Ben 10 also manages to save himself.”   And we have to admit, this is true.

But even though the deeper meaning of Easter cannot hold the attention of a 6 year old boy, other facts about the crucifixion are gripping to him. The part that he is most thrilled by, the part that speaks to his violent streak is the detail of the whip with which Jesus was lashed. “Did you know Mom,” he tells me coming home from school where the Church youth worker has been at work, “that whip was made of a stick which had leather strips attached to it, and the leather strips were studded with bits of sharp bone! So what they hit Jesus with it, the bits of bone stuck into his flesh and they ripped his skin apart!” Now that’s worth remembering and dramatising for your sister in the bath.

My Aunt, like Ben 10, also tried and was successful in saving herself around Easter.  She was the organist at her local Anglican church, and each year, she naturally had to play in the traditional three hour Good Friday service when the parishioners go through the actions of the crucifixion.  Last year, exhausted by the duration of the service, she told the priest that she did not want to play the organ for that service anymore.  The priest piously and patronisingly said to my Aunt (who is old enough to call everyone including the priest “dear”) that if Jesus had been prepared to go through those three hours on the cross for our sake, that she should be prepared to do so too.

Through clenched teeth my Aunt answered him, “Jesus only had to do it once!  I have done it for 18 years! …  Dear.”  And the priest had to admit she was right.

And so dear reader, this Easter, I wish you the chance to be saved in any way that is meaningful for you, the chance to save yourself somehow in the footsteps of Ben 10 and of my Aunt, and the chance somewhere in your lineage for your children or your children’s children, to shift their T-shirts to make way for multiple chocolate bunnies.

It won’t be happening in my household though, as my genetic memory is still too strong, and goodness knows I am not going to pay that much just for a wrapping!

The ancestors and the rule of thumb

“Dit gaan nie hierdie jaar reën nie,” Muttering Darkly muttered darkly as she peeled the potatoes, confirming the fear of every farmer this side of Klerksdorp.  The farmers’ number one purpose of being connected to the internet is to be able to see the facts about upcoming weather on the meteorological website, which they keep as their home page.

But whereas the farmers’ fears are based on the facts brought to them in cyberspace, Muttering Darkly’s fears are more aligned with the ancestors who used to turn away from their sins in prayer for rain, “Ek sé vir jou, Missus,” she promised me waving the knife in the air, “Dit gaan nie reën nie!” Although I am not a farmer, Muttering Darkly’s fears also cut me to the quick.  If it doesn’t rain, then this Cape Town girl could start losing some of her marbles in this dust filled desert.

Muttering Darkly’s fears are connected to the goings on amongst the labourers in the area.  We live before the time of the old rule of thumb.  The rule of thumb established in past centuries said that you may not hit a woman with a stick that is thicker than your thumb.  Two unlucky women in the past six months were beaten with something bigger than a thumb.   Beaten, in fact, to death.  “Dit gaan nie reën nie!” Muttering Darkly muttered darkly.

And the farmers, looking at the meteorological internet sites, have to agree.

I have learnt if it does rain, not to go shouting with glee into town about the number of millimetres that fell on our farm. Although we have the internet to give us the facts, it still subtly implies that God loves and blesses us here more than He blesses people 30 km away.  “Julle bly in Kanaan!” Dareen says to me when I told her two weeks ago that it had rained softly and gently through the previous night.   “Kanaan?” I questioned her, finding it hard to believe that where I live where it is so dry that I have to rub Milko Balm meant for the udders of cows onto my cracking hands and feet, is considered the promised and blessed land.

“Ja, Kanaan, ” Dareen confirmed.  “julle word daar geseën met reën!”

“Magtig!” I have to say (as I sometimes I now do speak Afrikaans),”Then what is it like where you are?”

Muttering Darkly’s dark mutterings about the weather are not the only ones that upset me.  I was speaking to her last week about how tired I was of rushing.  Nicolaas going to Grade 1 has meant that we get up a whole hour earlier – bear with me as I feel sorry for myself and write “ 5.30am” here – in order to get him to school on time.

“Jag is nie goed vir ‘n mens,” Muttering Darkly confirms.  “Ek jag nooit.  Ek werk stadig en  stadiger.”

This is not really news I want to hear from the woman who is the only thing standing between me and a house of dust, a bathroom of germs and a kitchen full of greasy appliances.

“Ek doen iets, dan staan ek vir ‘n rukkie.  Ek dink, ‘Nou wat sal ek nou doen?’ en dan doen ek iets weer stadig.” Great!  So I am blessed not only with rain that doesn’t feel like rain, but a domestic worker whose idea of a hard day’s work is to fill it with a lot of rest. There is, I know, Buddhist wisdom somewhere in those words, but I cannot help feeling panicky about the implementation of it to our financial account.

The funeral for the second unlucky-wife was scheduled for the next weekend.  The mielies were visibly suffering and farmers stopped studying the websites and turned in supplication to the heavens, praying for a cyberspace override.  “Dit gaan nie reën nie!” Muttering Darkly muttered.

But it did.

On the Friday it started. It was a steady non-stop rain, just like a Cape Town winter but with much more show-and-tell.  It kept going all day. The mood in town was lighter.  No one minded getting drenched while leaping across gutters flowing full with whirling streams.  We ran through the small gate and into the school yard to fetch our barefooted children who were waiting in their classrooms. Clutching their small hands and their big rucksacks, we tore back to the cars dodging lightning bolts as we ran.  No one minded. It was raining.

Everyone was happy except for Muttering Darkly. She sliced the pumpkin in the kitchen with anger, for once working quickly in tune with her troubled soul.

“Hulle!” She said, pointing her knife to the sky, waving at the ancestors, “Hulle het dit laat reën omdat ons wil begrafnis hou!”

That’s ancestors for you.  They will wreck crops and spoil even the slightest bit of funereal fun.  They will fight posthumously until Justice herself is free to walk unhindered through our land.

Oomies and Idiots

My father’s maxim about teaching us to drive was that we were always to believe that that everyone else on the road was an idiot.   It’s a valid principle, and one that I practised last night as I drove home from JHB in the dark.  It was not the most sensible thing to do, and the fear of it was not made easier to deal with by the Tannies at the Wimpy in Potch wagging their fingers at me “Vrou alleen! Jy weet jy moet dit nie doen nie!” But I had already spent one night away from home, and my children cannot cope without me for two nights.  Or rather, I cannot cope without them for two nights. Herman says they cope just fine.

 

So I drove slowly amongst all the idiots, ready for every truck that could have swerved onto my side of the road and every fool who may have overtaken carelessly.  I was also on the lookout for Oomies and Shepherds, and the reason for this, I will tell you in this tale.

 

In the North West, I think there is a pedal- and- steering- wheel- test that parents put their children through each year. While the rest of us still have our offspring standing up against the wall on the Winnie-The-Pooh growth chart, saying, “My look how you have grown! You are past Tigger’s nose now,” our neighbours put their children in the driver’s seats of their bakkies to see if the feet can reach the pedals and the eyes can look over the steering wheel.

“Maria, you are now ready to learn to drive”.

“But Dad, can’t I wait till I am in high school? “

“You want to wait until high school before you learn to drive?” Shock.

I have even seen children who quite clearly have not yet passed the pedal-and-steering-wheel-test driving around on our farm roads.  The problem of not being able to see the road is overcome by the addition of a younger sibling, who stands on the seat next to the little driver.   As the driver copes with the clutch, accelerator and the steering wheel, the little chap next to him deals with rigting.  “Bietjie links, bietjie regs…”  He pulls the dummy out of his mouth, “ek het REGS gesé!”

And back seat driving is not only reserved for toddlers.  Herman remembers visiting the farm in 70’s when he was a boy, and getting a lift back from town with Oom Dawie, after a dance in the town hall.  As they travelled, Herman found himself wondering why on earth Abraham the shepherd, had driven with Oom Dawie into town for a dance in the evening.

Very soon he worked out why.

Oom Dawie headed into the darkness, and Herman found if he listened very carefully, he could hear Abraham speaking softly out of the corner of his mouth the whole way home.  “Bietjie links hier, Baas… nou reguit… ons ry nou verby Uitkyk… Baas weet van daardie gat in die pad… stadiger nou… om die gat.. nou weer reguit…”  And so it went on for 25km.  As they approached Strydpoort, Herman heard Abraham whisper, “Baas moet nou stop.”  Oom Dawie blind as a bat at night did not know whether Abraham meant, “Stop because we have arrived,” or “Stop because there is a bees in the road”.  So he slammed on brakes. The tyres screeched and Herman hit his nose on the back of the front seat.  Ouma San up at the house could hear that her grandson had arrived home.  Safe in the hands of Oom Dawie and the good shepherd.

So as I drove the three and a half hours home last night, I knew that the toddler drivers would not be a threat, as they were more than likely tucked up in bed.  The only dangers I had to look out for were my own imagination, the idiots and the Oomies and the Shepherds who may slam on brakes in front of me.

As it was, I crossed non-existent rivers that washed under the road in shadows. I drove around mountains that I would never have found there in the day time. What I thought were car lights coming towards me turned out to be farmhouse lights kilometres away from where the road actually curved.

Occasionally lightening flashed on the horizon lighting up the entire hemisphere in pale egg blue, revealing that contrary to popular belief, the heavens are a dome and the earth is flat.

And thankfully despite the fact that the roads are peppered with idiots and Oomies and Shepherds, and that I was the fool to be driving so far in such darkness,  vrou alleen, I arrived home safely.  Back to the peace, the clapper larks, and to my husband and children.  And they indeed, were all coping very well without me.

 

Stirring worry into coffee

I had a Dylan Thomas Under Milkwood moment last week.

It was the night before school started, and as I tucked my children up and kissed their foreheads in the orangey red glow of the night lamp, I felt that if one could have peeled back the roofs of a hundred other farm and town houses right then, one would have seen one hundred other mothers leaning softly leaning gently leaning over their soon to be in big school children, mothers who were only just keeping their nerves and anxieties at bay about as they worried, worried, worried about whether the children would be alright as they sat on the chairs in front of the old wooden desks that children had sat in front of for centuries.

The mothers trained these anxieties like dogs, reining them in behind a mask of cultivated excitement, the starved creatures only breaking free when they drank coffee with another mother who that night would also lean softly lean gently lean over in amazement that this was the last kiss of not being in big school.

The mothers stirred their worry into their coffee cups – worry about the heaviness of the suitcase compared to the fragility of their children, worry about the strictness of the teacher whose angry words would ring out and leave vibrating paper thin ear drums and penetrating not yet hardened hearts. Worry about the playground bullies finding the soft skin of the newly uniformed on their radars and doing unspeakable things that we may never even hear about.

The worries of the mothers were transferred like an infectious disease behind hands covering mouths trying to keep the dark side, the underside, the fearsome side away from the minds of the little beings whose greatest excitement was the tantalizing opportunity to become regular traders, entrepreneurs and small business men at the tuck shop. Fantasizing about how they would gleefully fill their faces with sugar straws and black balls and glucose suckers, free at least, away from the nutrition police unto whom they were born.

So the mothers and the fathers and the worries of the mothers and the worries of the fathers all walked together towards the school hall for the first assembly where they would say their devotions and pray as they had to let go, even if they had not prayed for years.

On the way, they were captured in a photo, five of them uniformly clad in collared and in buttoned grey shirts and grey shorts, short shorts, oh such sweet short shorts that led to little legs, but oh such fast little legs, which led to little feet bare feet. With their arms around each other’s shoulders they smiled at their uncertain parents who were thinking of the past five years that were filled with littler boys, years that had disappeared into Slippery Slides and Water Worms and Jumping castles and Treasure Hunts where those smiling and fresh little faces had shared birthdays, ketties and childhood diseases.

And during the devotions in the school hall that followed, the photo that was captured on 10 different cell phones, was sent around the town to sisters and brothers and copied around the country to aunts and uncles and grandparents who could not bethere and mms-ed around the world to friends who have left and friends who won’t come back and friends who are missing out and whom we miss.

And the photo scared away the scavenging worrying and worrisome dogs that had been the mothers’ constant companions ever since the beginning of term had loomed. The mothers looked at the five boyed five smiling ten eyed photo and forgot that they had ever been anxious, forgot that they had ever troubled their coffee with concern. With ridiculous and unjustified smugness about having done something right brush your teeth greet the adults don’t steal be kind to others get into bed now because it is late don’t pick your nose, the mothers collectively burst with pride.

Because the photo like a lion roared, “We are ready!”

The Magic of my Taxi

I always consider it my South African duty to give women and children waiting at the side of the road, a lift into town. If I can save them the R15 taxi fare it costs, I don’t see why I should cruise past in my air conditioner. And it is safe enough here in the North West on our farm roads. I don’t pick up men. Men, I drive past awkwardly. I pretend not to see them or if eye contact is unavoidable then I mime some hand gesture that says, “Turning off before town!” or else, “Sorry, car is full!” What I actually mean with both of these is, “Sorry, I don’t know you and you could be a murderer or a rapist!”

Once I have the children and mothers in my car, I see it as my duty to engage them in conversation. “Which farm are you from? What is your name? Who is your mother? Where are you going to in town?” If I can ask the children in particular questions and if they can overcome racial prejudice and cultural limitations about talking to their elders instead of casting their eyes to the floor, and answer me, in English or Afrikaans, then I believe I have done my bit to encourage them to enter the Best Speaker’s Competition at school, pass Matric, get to University and complete their MBAs. And all because of that seed of inspiration that I planted in my SUV!

So today I slammed on brakes, and my heart went out to two perhaps ten year old girls, and I set about changing the course of their lives with my taxi magic. After three attempts at conversation in both English and Afrikaans I gave up. Their eyes were not fixed on any Best Speaker’s Cup. They could not converse in either language. “Where do you live?” was answered by a mutter in Tswana that could have meant “We live in the township,” or “We live on a farm”, all depending on what they thought I wanted to hear. Oh well. No English, No Afrikaans, NoFfuture. I reflected sadly on their plight as we drove into town.

At some stage one of them kindly put my gym towel back on my handbag which was sitting on the arm rest just next to me. It must have slipped off. I noted their considerateness, and almost thanked them, but the No English and No Afrikaans issue exhausted me. I just nodded at them.

When they got out of the car they were both beaming. “Sank you Missus!” “Sank you!” Bless them, I thought, listen to them trying. They must have at least picked up in our conversation that my mother tongue is English and they are making the effort to thank me in my own language.

I said good bye to them and watched them walking off. As I passed them seconds later in my SUV I leaned forward and waved an extra special wave. It was a wave that said, “Look after yourselves, my dears. (Because I am 42 now and old enough to call everyone “dear”). Look after yourselves in this wicked world and grab every opportunity to lift yourselves out of poverty! God knows with No English and No Afrikaans, my air conditioner and I are not going to be the ones help you with your future!” I considered blowing them a kiss as I do for Pippa when I leave her at home, but in retrospect I am glad I held back. It must have been St.Jude, the patron Saint of Lost causes intervening on my behalf.

Because it seems I need not have worried about No English, No Afrikaans and No Future. I also need not have encouraged them to grab every opportunity to lift themselves out of poverty. They did not need my help at all. They were quite capable of helping themselves. When I got to the hardware store and tried to pay for my purchase, I realise that the little dears had fleeced, lifted and Oliver Twisted every note from my purse on our 30km drive into town.

It took me a while to get over my shock. “I promise you I had wads of notes in this wallet a minute ago!” I said to the man in the hardware store as I stood unable to scrounge together R5 for my pop rivets. He laughed at me when I told him where I thought it had gone. “You should never pick up anyone,” he said to me.

The man in the hardware store was, I am sure not the only one laughing. I can imagine the little dears laughed the whole way to the township. It took me a while, but eventually I was laughing too. As they were poor enough to laugh at their fortune for the day, I found myself rich enough to laugh about it too.

“Sank you, sank you (stupid) Missus!”

“Pleasure (you little shits)!”

A cowboy is born

It was not quite holiday time when we got the message from the teachers that if we kept our children at home for the next week as well, they would be more than pleased with us. Oh yay! So holidays arrived a week earlier. Oh yay! No more driving 60km a day to town and back anymore. Oh NO! Still got writing deadlines to try and meet in between domesticity. Housework is easy to do while caring for children. Computer work, as any mother who has tried to work from home would agree with me, is impossible.

Herman and I tolerated the tent pitched in the playroom, but only because the children enjoyed it so much. We moved irritably beyond the bruises on our shins which we got as we tripped on the poles on our way to the bathroom. “Can we please watch TV, Mom?” NO YOU CANNOT! I mean, “No, not now … you live on a farm, go outside, find something to do, enjoy the space!” “But MOM…”

As the deadlines floated away out of my reach because domestic missiles flew at me incessantly, things become all very emotionally imperfect. I shouted, they shouted, we all shouted… The mood of the day comes from the top and the top was stressed.

I tripped on the tent poles for the fourteenth time. “SOMEONE MOVE THAT TENT OUTSIDE NOW!” I mean, “Come, let’s all move the tent outside now,” and before I could stop myself, I found myself saying, “… and we can all sleep in it tonight.”

Group Yay!

So we did. And despite it being my suggestion, I started crying inside at the thought of the sleepless night ahead of me. I knew I would spend it tossing and turning on blankets that didn’t really keep the hard ground away from my hip bones and my back. So the following day I would be sleep deprived, chasing deadlines and juggling children’s needs. And then a few days after that I would have an outbreak of cold sores from lack of sleep. I suddenly felt immensely sorry for myself, and regretted choosing to live where we have no family nearby to help us.

And then, within seconds, the edges around my anxiety started fraying as we piled the tent full of blankets, and the clouds blew away and the moon shone down on us. And Nicolaas quietly and calmly with deep self knowledge lay down on his side of the tent with his hat over his face. Because he had watched, and he knew, that was how Clint did it. I lay next to him listening to the frogs outside and watched him search for sleep. And then, “Mom, my nose is sore.” Pause. “Mom, it’s this hat that is hurting it.” Longer pause. “Mom, if I sleep like this a lot and my nose gets sore a lot, will it change the shape of my nose forever?” “No, boy, your nose will be fine. You can go to sleep.” “But Mom, this blanket is too short.” Let me tuck you up properly, Clint. And I pulled the blanket straight so it covered his feet, and pictured Clint travelling across the prairies with his mother at his side to assist wherever needs be.

Herman and I barely sleep that night. But not because the ground was too hard. We barely slept because once again, as it did for humanity 2012 years ago, and as it did for us 6 years ago, and as it does every Christmas in some small way, the space between heaven and earth opened up momentarily.

We spent the night, lying in adoration, drinking in the image of the six year old cowboy who had been born unto us.

“When I climb up to my saddle, I’m gonna take him to my heart, there’ll be a new world beginning from tonight!”

Happy Christmas everyone!