There were six of them. Beautiful, powerful, gentle. I couldn’t keep myself from sliding off the gravel road I had been running down to get a closer look. Just this summer I had decided to fulfill a lifelong dream and learn to ride. My decision had resulted in me being in close contact with my favorite animal several times a week, and now, three weeks into a road trip, I was beginning to go through “horse” withdrawal. These six fine-looking animals were just what I needed!

Two of them, a dark sorrel and a dark bay with a white patch on his withers, must have been watching me, for they jogged over to the fence as soon as I stepped off the road. Now that they were close up, I could see that they were absolutely filthy; but as they snaked out their velvety muzzles, gently caressing my hand with marshmellowy lips, brushing their smooth-albeit grimy-faces against my arm, I didn’t care.

After petting them for a few minutes, I stepped outside of the cloud of dust I had created and went in search of a few handfuls of grass. This was easier said then down, for evidence of the summer-long drought that had plagued this southwestern Montana town was everywhere. The best I could come up with was some yellow grass that grew along the road. When I turned back to the horses however, I was in for a surprise. No longer were there two dusty horses at the fence, but four. The sorrel had been joined by a dirty palomino, a dusty black with a white stripe down his nose, and a large, filthy gelding that looked to be a strange mixture of pie, palomino and appaloosa. But where was the dark bay? The one with the funny white patch on his withers?

I gave each of the horses at the fence a handful of the yellowed grass, but as I did so, I noticed that the other three gave wide berth to the pied-palomino-appaloosa. Then I spotted my dusty bay. He was eying me from a few paces behind the others. I clicked to him and held out my last handful of grass, but he wouldn’t come. Instead, the pied snaked out his teeth and took it.

I turned back for more of the yellowed grass, and when I returned, the sixth horse, the only mare in the bunch, a bright-but also dusty-bay, was sauntering over to the fence. As she arrived, the nearest horse to her, the dark sorrel that had first greeted me, stopped reaching for my handful of grass and retreated a few paces to stand with the dusty bay.

It was clear to me what was happening. This bunch of horses had a distinct pecking order. The bay mare and the pied-palomino-appaloosa were at the top, while the bay and sorrel geldings were quite obviously at the bottom! Because I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the outcast, I abandoned caution and did something that could have potentially been dangerous, something I would never have let my children do: I climbed over the fence! The dark bay immediately began to move my way, but as he did, the pied-palomino-appaloosa snaked out his teeth, ears plastered against his head, and snapped at the poor pony. It took me quite awhile to get far enough away from the mare and the pied to be able to give the two “outcasts” their grass!

It was as I started to leave the paddock to return to my run that I noticed my hands. They were covered with sticky, black grime that refused to rub off on the leg of my jogging pants. It seemed that the filth covering each of the horses had successfully transferred to my hands, mixed with the moisture from the foggy morning and the dewy grass, and changed into something with the consistency of tar! The position of each of those horses in pecking order didn’t seem to do anything to change the fact that they were all in desperate need of a good bath!

Throughout the rest of my run, I couldn’t get those dirty horses out of my mind. The fact that horses establish a pecking order shouldn’t have been a surprise to me, for if you think about it, most creatures have a pecking order of one sort or another. The term itself is derived from watching a flock of chickens. There is always a distinct leader in a pack of dogs, as well as one who is definitely at the bottom, hence the term “underdog”. And people are no different. In India it is formally called “the cast system”. The western culture may not proclaim it so openly, but it is there as well, for throughout history, the upper class has always looked down its nose on the less fortunate.

Then it struck me. God is the only One who doesn’t put us in a pecking order, for the Bible tells us: “God is no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34 KJV)! Instead, He sees us all just like those dirty horses: smeared with the filth of sin: “For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God . . .” (Rom. 3:23 NIV). We all are in desperate need of a cleansing bath, one that can only be effective if the “water” is blood: Jesus’s blood! “knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers, but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ.” (1 Peter 1:18-19 NASU)

If God has no “pecking order”, then why should we? Think about it!

Lyn Chaffart