A Christmas Story (for my children)

"Hey, were you born in a barn?!" 
It's a term hurled sarcastically at the last person in the house to close an outside door, especially during cold weather. 

But somehow, as I was growing, the idea of being born or living in a barn was at one time something quite appealing.

While I've seen marvelously renovated barns turned into homes, barns in their original form have always had a greater appeal. Ever since childhood they have been a place of mystery, simplicity, strength and structure. And a typical Midwestern dairy barn is a place that holds warmth in the winter and can be cool in the summer.

For me, the single most inviting sight during a Wisconsin winter is a dairy barn at milking time. So much so, that when I travel during that magic hour when the sun is hinting its morning return, about to throw back the blanket of darkness as the light turns from a cool blue to a warm gold, I will happen upon a barn warmly lit inside, and instinctively I'll stop along the road and grab a camera. And on those rare occasions when I am sans camera, I'll still stop across the roadway and see that an often lone farmer or herds person has just thrown a switch turning the big common yet unique structure into a lantern.

During a winter morning before first light, that golden illumination throws beams out the lower level windows, like buttresses of light that brace on the crisp surface of surrounding snow. The simplicity and contentment of bovine housed within is shared along with the heat they generate, shared as they telegraph an equally simple excitement at the start of a new day. They know that food is on the way, along with the other needs provided by their human's attention. Yet they have slept soundly without worry that those daily needs will be met, because the barn represents home.

For a decade we lived on a farm west of Watertown,Wisconsin and started a commercial dairy goat operation. You may have read about my early training in music that stressed opera. As it happened the area in that field proving my favorite style turned out to be Bel Canto opera. So it seemed the name Bel Canto Farm was appropriate.

A foundation herd of registered French Alpine Dairy Goats grew to be a comfortable, if not substantial, operation providing milk to a French cheese firm that had established itself near Watertown, because of Wisconsin's dairy state reputation.

And our young family grew. First moving there with our four-year-old son, our two daughters arrived during the decade we lived on Bel Canto Farm.

It was a time of learning and excitement for everyone, and a great time to be a dad. With mom working off farm, dad had the joy of raising both two legged and four legged kids. While a bucolic nature pervaded the experience overall, three two-legged kids and often more than 80 four-legged kids all frequently wanting to eat at the same time provided some feats of multitasking.

And like any dairy farm, the work was seven days a week year round.

It occurred to me that many farmers begin chores early, not only necessarily to be able to use the time when there is daylight to the fullest measure, but also as a built in oasis before unknown storms move across the day's landscape.

Moving to the farm after having traveled a good portion of the planet, the appeal of a lighted pre-twilight barn returned to me. It also occurred to me that an unlit barn was a little less appealing at 4:30 a.m. on a given Wisconsin February morning, so it didn't take long for me to put the lights on a timer set to go on at 4:20 in the morning.

One could think of this time of day - rising, dressing, and heading across a farm yard before daylight - as a lonely commute. But there is a joy in heading out as routine is turned into ritual, and the excitement of the pending day is as simple as that enjoyed by your livestock.

Clad in layers, gloved and capped you pull the door shut behind you, and exhale the air acquired within the house into a great cloud of vapor as you breath hits the clear air. Your next breath is the crisp unspoiled air of a new day before anyone else has had a chance to sample it.

You look up at what will be a cloudless sky. Perseus, Orion, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor greet you in a new position as those constellations perform their annual dance around Polaris. Stepping off on your daily journey from house to barn, the only things you hear are the crunching of crisp cold snow under your boots along with that sound each time you inhale and exhale.

The barn, with its incandescent glow, is like a guiding star, and while family is left behind in the house, there is a singular simple warmth that draws me to the barn. Under any other circumstances one would call a job that takes a person from a warm bed out into sometimes bitter cold weather before daylight to face the mechanical, structural or veterinary unknowns that lay ahead daily a potentially miserable experience.

But as Emerson said, "I like the silent church before the service begins, better than any preaching."

In an almost monastic nature it became a daily procession to a sense of purpose by working in the foundation elements unchanged for centuries. It was a matter of facing each day as a 'shepherd' of sorts, and realizing at some point how factual the formerly symbolic language was when speaking of that line of work, a shepherd,  in Psalms, the New Testament or even Heidi. It was a situation where an entire flock or herd is faithfully dependent.

Upon arrival in a barn each morning a farmer's intuition often tells immediately if something is different. Even before seeing what it may be, I could tell if new livestock offspring had arrived during the night, or a nervous yet faithful greeting would telegraph a problem such as an illness or injury.

Settling into what grew from routine into ritual, one day during the trip 'out to the barn,' without any provocation, I started humming the old Shaker hymn "Simple Gifts". (I don't have a Shaker background, but it is a familiar tune.) Shortly the words returned to me:

'Tis the gift to be simple,
'tis the gift to be free,
'tis the gift to come down where you ought to be.
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
't will be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gained,
to bow and to bend we shan't be ashamed.
To turn, turn will be our delight,
'Til by turning, turning we come round right.

There is a legend in parts of the western world that says at midnight on Christmas Eve animals are given human voice, because those animals present at the birth of Jesus were briefly given this gift to praise the new hope of the world. It's a nice legend, but I suspect it may have had something early on to do with getting younger members of farm families out to do chores the night before a holiday.

One Christmas Eve on our farm - no the animals did NOT speak - was a greater than usual learning experience. But that would be after church. It was an otherwise normal holiday as we were on our way to a Christmas Eve church service. As usual the obligations that church musicians have during the season, coupled with getting three children dressed and everyone out the door on time could be a hectic trial.

Upon our return, as the car swung into the driveway we noticed that someone had left the barn lights on after the evening milking.

After getting the children into the house, to bed and to sleep with all the excitement inherent to Christmas Eve, I volunteered to head to the barn to shut off the lights and to take that ubiquitous opportunity to 'check on things' one last time.

Heading out, the glowing warm light emanating from the barn was counter to the darkness that surrounded it and seemingly the whole world. But the surrounding snow seemed to emit a bluish glow from underneath, and as only this night of the year can provide, there was anticipation in the air that made the trip out to the old structure particularly welcoming.

Crunching through the snow until I stepped into its light, I immediately knew it was one of those moments when something was 'different.' I looked over the two loafing areas and noticed a group of old herd members huddled with their attention riveted directly below a hay feeding rack.

Unlatching the gate, I went over to see what was drawing their attention. Walking past others that didn't really acknowledge me, knowing it was too early for the next milking, they stayed comfortable in their carefully arranged mounds of straw. At most, one or two turned their heads toward me, eyes still shut, then as an afterthought started chewing their cud to an easy rhythm.

Approaching the group on their feet, I noticed that it was a group of the herd's old moms who were helping to clean up a newborn kid. Its mom was in the process of delivering the newborn's twin.

The first one was soaking up the attention of the half-dozen midwives as they licked it encouraging the kid to stand on its spindly legs. I walked back across the loafing pen, through the gate and into the milking parlor. I took off my jacket and laid my suit coat over a rail - still dressed from the earlier church service - I loosened my tie and rolled up my sleeves before grabbing a couple of clean old towels and heading back into the loafing pen.

I made it back just in time to catch the second twin and get it dried off and warmed up as soon as possible.

The midwife goats tried to push me out of the way, both out of curiosity and to remind me that those ruminants had been having babies for centuries without any help from humans. Satisfied that I'd done my best to get the twin off to a good start, I moved out of the way as the old moms moved in to inspect my work and again encourage the little new life to get on its feet.

At the sound of the first diminutive bleat the new mom was on her feet, ready for maternal duties and to show off the new family members to all of the aunts. I stood back, using the second towel to wipe off my hands and arms, and smiled at the scene. We went through it nearly 100 times annually, but it was still special.

The herd members didn't talk that Christmas Eve, in fact the majority didn't even wake up. But those that were awake acknowledging a natural instinct, along with this shepherd of the group, held a simple celebration with this early surprise.

Returning to the milking parlor and on to the milkhouse, I washed up and dried off, rolled my sleeves back down and buttoned the cuffs. After putting on my suit coat and winter jacket I went back out and leaned on the gate looking out at the loafing area as things began to settle back to a sense of normalcy.

The midwives had returned to a spot to sleep, each scraping some straw into some comfortable fluff before one by one they went down on their knees and their back half following, gently landing as they let out a sigh combined with a comforting moan. In a short while their eyes closed and in an almost hypnotic manner they began chewing their cud. The new twins, dry, soft and clean had enjoyed their first meal and were sleeping in the semicircle formed as mom's body and neck stretched around them. She appeared to enjoy a satisfied but alert and well deserved sleep.

I felt particularly privileged to be a part of the celebration in this oasis of light amid the darkness. It was joy in its basic and simplest form. The event happened in the middle of the night, and it was completely unannounced. But now the crisp air filled with the combined smells of good leafy hay and the earthy smells of the barn, as it emitted light out to make absent the immediate shadows, all had a basic energy. An energy that serves as that intermittent reminder that we are all given an adventure that is called life, and during that adventure the simplest moments can be the most exciting and rewarding.

It is something I never became glib or jaded about. A new life -- a kid, a lamb, a calf -- was always something to celebrate, especially under circumstances of such simple beauty. I think it may have been at that point that it became evident the significance of the beginnings of the Christian faith.

Earlier that evening my family and I took part in a very human traditional form of Christianity's celebration of its founder's birth. During that event we sang and played music written by some of history's greatest composers. We all dressed up, and the building was decorated, even though the building is always decorated with symbols of the faith that have developed over the centuries. Icons, paintings and statues have all been the result of artists inspired by faith.

But it dawned on me on that late Christmas Eve that all of the inspired music and art in the ensuing years came in an effort by those artists to express anticipation, excitement and joy of the promise and hope that child was bringing to the world. It is so strong an expression that their talent was inspired to create music played in the largest cathedrals, and art that is preserved in the world's museums, and over the span of time still honors the event and enhances the human condition.

Yet a celebration in that simple warm light amid the darkness made more sense, in the exhilarating crisp air perfumed with the natural scents of life's foundations. It is perfectly logical that the simplicity of this environment was likely similar to the birth place of the one who promised to be the Prince of Peace, a leader destined to feed the poor and heal the sick, bringing the message "Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward All Men." Such a new life would have to be born under these conditions. Conditions not 'like' the common people, but in humble conditions below the least of us and providing a warm unifying light for the world.

And that light is not exclusive, because the anticipation of good is the Spirit shared by believers of a multitude of faiths and traditions.

As I turned off the barn lights, and, remembering how I'd forgotten to douse them the last time I left, I said under my breath, "What? Were you born in a barn, Lloyd?"

I grinned as I headed up to the house.

There was home, where my family was sleeping briefly before that sleep which can no longer contain the excitement of Christmas morning. I sauntered to the house satisfied that I knew why a common barn illuminated at night had been so appealing all my life.

Stomping off some snow in the warmth of the old farmhouse kitchen, I took off my jackets, then walked through the house, poking my head in on each of our children. (I found that I often did this to assure myself that these young energy generators actually did sleep.) But opening the doors to their rooms and hearing their soft breathing rhythm was the end of 'Daddy Duty' for the day.

In our room, I sat on my side of the bed. A muffled whisper emerged from my wife. "Everything okay in the barn?"

"No problems - two new kids," I whispered back.

After it sank in through the veil of sleep, she mumbled back, "Oh, an early gift..."

Rolling under the blankets, sighing the last breath of the day, I quietly exhaled - "Yep...Merry Christmas."

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Best to all,

Lloyd