Goosebumps!

Today at mass much of the homily focused on doing your best, being your best, in the small things of life so that they become something great for God. These small supposedly mundane acts will become extraordinary if we have faith, in spite of our doubts, and do our very best. Enjoy the common. Appreciate the everyday. Certainly words intended for my ears and heart to hear.
This weekend we visited the Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington Ky. They are gearing up for the World Equestrian Games to be held in 2010. The new facilities are simply amazing. The amount of construction underway is unbelievable. It will be the premiere venue for equestrian sports of any kind. While we were there the North American young riders were there competing. This the best of the best of young riders in various disciplines probably on track for the olympics. We watched dressage, show jumping, eventers on cross country and reining. The number of huge dark warm blood, thoroughbred, arabs and the like was astounding. You never looked at a horse and said oh, he must move well, he's really not that pretty. It was just one beautiful beast after another. There is so much money, work, miles sweat and tears tied up in these animals and the sport that they are involved in.
I love to watch cross country. It is simply thrilling. The reining is fun to watch but my ADD brain becomes bored after a while. I didn't really think that dressage was exciting until I watched free style. It is so beautiful. It's like ballroom dancing with a partner whose beautiful and graceful and not always willing or understanding. During the freestyle we saw one young girl hurt when a horse spooked and reared hitting her head. She had a broken collar bone, stitches in her lip and a concussion. After her fall, the horse took off. He didn't come back to the rider, he was out of there. We saw one horse obviously sour who tried on a number of occasions to lose his rider both inside and outside of the dressage ring. We watched stadium jumping and saw horses who would spook at various jumps or get really close before jumping so that it looked like they might refuse. There were many refusals too. A few riders whose horse would refuse would take the whip and really get after them to go over the jump. They would do this till the judge would eliminate them. I know that it's probably necessary to some degree to teach the horse to follow the rider. I guess I'm just not a great competitor. I like the relationship that I see between horse and rider. That's what gets me every time. There were so many breath taking rides but the last rider to compete in freestyle dressage is the one that gave me goosebumps. I don't know what so many of the movements need to look like to really appreciate. I can usually tell an obvious blunder, but a beautiful routine is a beautiful routine. The most beautiful site of all is a relaxed horse responding to his rider and a grateful rider. The last rider finished and immediately fell down on her horses neck in the most loving hug ever. She didn't stop loving and patting on this horse until she was well out of the ring. To me, that everyday love. That everyday trust, that everyday building of a relationship that is culminated in a show like that......well that's just the best. Maybe that lesson can be carried over into our children or work or any project. Maintain the relationship, keep doing the small things with love whether we understand why or not. Keep going in the everyday until you get.......goosebumps!