Over the years, breaking colts in my free time resulted in a few broken bones and a damaged spinal disc. Recently, a chiropractor recommended certain exercises to alleviate back pain. Among these exercises are The Mad Cat and The Old Horse.
            Each routine requires hands and knees on the floor. The first involves arching the back, hence the name, mad cat. The second entails swooping the back toward the floor, hence the reference to a sway back horse. Each exercise, repeated several times, is quick and easy and soon forgotten. But the animal images tend to linger in my mind.
            I love animals. Not in a sentimental way—I was raised on farm, after all—but in a theological way. As when wonder and fascination collude to culminate in the question, “How did God come up with that idea?” For example: Wolves that smell their prey a mile away. Giant squid with eyes the size of soccer balls. Alligators with scales as sensitive as a baby’s fingertips.
            This list is printed on the jacket of the book, An Immense World. Its author, Ed Yong, provides a jaw-dropping array of amazing, little-known facts about the animal kingdom. His sense of marvel makes the secular work good spiritual reading, a worthy companion to the morning psalms that give praise for God’s creation.
            My appreciation for nature runs deep. I have three brothers who, though retired, have each remained living on their farms and helping with chores to the extent that they can. I have admired these fine men my entire life and I continue to emulate them in my own retirement. The satisfaction I experience from living in the country with my dog and a couple of mama cows, as well as a pack of coyotes, a few bobcats and numerous snakes, wild hogs, armadillos and barn mice provides ample proof for the adage that says you can take the boy off the farm but never the farm out of the boy.
            The patron saint of animals, Francis of Assisi, once tamed a wolf in the forest and would preach to birds on the wing. I can’t claim those credentials but I can testify that, when it comes to critters, grace flows both directions. St. Francis proclaimed God’s glory to the animals but, on my ranch, it’s the animals that proclaim God’s glory to me.