The Farrier

There was only one farrier in our community. He was the son of a bishop that lived in one of the neighboring church districts. Jake made his rounds through the five districts in our community with his little buggy and his farrier supplies taking care of everyone's horses.

He would show up every six weeks unless something happened that a horse lost a shoe a special appointment could be made.  LV always enjoyed his visits and more time was spent talking than actually shoeing horses. It was always interesting to hear everything about their visit when Jake left and LV and I started with the chores.

Jake had been there for even longer than usual this time and I couldn't help but wonder what subjects they were discussing this time. Once I finally heard his buggy clatter down the driveway I went out to the barn to start getting the milking equipment ready. Our dog was lying on the floor gnawing at the pieces of hoof that Jake had trimmed from the horses feet, and LV was in one of the silo's throwing silage down to feed the cows.

Once we started with the milking LV started talking. Jake had been talking about church things again, there had been an underlying growing rumble throughout his church district but so far it had seemed everyone was trying to ignore it. It really bothered him a lot that lay members weren't supposed to approach God too often. It was considered almost blasphemous to pray too often, by becoming so comfortable and familiar with God. That years ago before LV and I had become members of the church they had voted to allow members who weren't satisfied with only the prayer they heard in church to be able to pray once a day out of the little black prayer book.

We stewed about that for a while. How could anyone tell us how often we were allowed to pray?  Not that we did more than they allowed, but still.