Today’s Word from Deacon Amy…
When I was a teenager, I loved James Herriot’s books about being a veterinarian in the countryside of Yorkshire, England. He is, in my opinion, one of the best story tellers around. His books were hard to put down. I was drawn to the characters and the frequently bizarre situations that the doctor would find himself in. I’m seeing his name around a lot lately because of a new series on PBS. Honestly, I’m hesitant to watch because I find that movies are rarely as good as the books – a story, when read, is so much fuller! If you’ve seen the show, let me know how it is.
One of my favorite stories of his was when he was a young vet. All of the old farmers, of course, wanted to see his boss, the vet who’d been around for years. They didn’t want this “young kid” seeing to their animals. I can’t remember the exact circumstances, but for some reason, Dr. Herriot was the only one available – he was thrilled to have an opportunity to prove himself. The farmer, of course, was less than welcoming, but did show Dr. Herriot to the barn where a rather large draft horse was in some sort of distress – again, I’m lost on the details. Dr. Herriot and the farmer both knew that this was an emergency, but not too complicated – the old vet had always been able to remedy the situation with a steady treatment over a week or so.
Dr. Herriot, however, had a new medication that he assured the farmer would be more effective and faster acting. The farmer was doubtful, but allowed him to inject the medication into the horse. Within seconds, the giant of a horse began to tremble and quickly collapsed to the cobbled floor of the barn – apparently dead. The young vet stood there, jaw hanging open, searching for words. His mind raced, trying to figure out what had gone wrong – this should not have happened. The farmer, of course, was just as surprised, and quite irritated.
To their great shock, the horse soon held his head up, gave a great shake, and rose to his feet. The old farmer turned to Dr. Harriet and said something along the lines of, “a bit drastic, aye?” All Dr. Harriet could do was shake the farmer’s hand, collect his things, and be on his way.
I love this story for the humor in it, of course, but even more so for the surprise factor. We’ve all had those moments in our lives where things didn’t go as expected – maybe not quite as drastically as this scenario though. We’ve all had experiences where we have questioned what we were so sure of only seconds before. Perhaps these are the experiences that best teach us humility; reminder us that some things are simply out of our control.
In this instance, Dr. Harriet was somewhat lucky in that the horse did recover after his drastic treatment, but the situation really could have gone either way. Sometimes we need to remember to let go of the outcome and remember that not everything is ours to know.
Maybe we could all take a lesson from the horse, too – just shake it off, and get on with life.
Deacon Amy
