Todd Pierce returned last weekend for a Riding High event in Omak. If you haven’t heard of Todd Pierce, he is a born-again Christian who, in about an hour, prepares a horse who has never been ridden to accept a rider on a saddle. And he does it while preaching a sermon.
You can find him on YouTube, which is where I found him last year when I had to miss the event in Twisp. I didn’t see a positive analogy between the rider (God) and the horse (man). The idea of God riding someone around like a horse didn’t sound appealing to me.
Despite my interest in spirituality, I haven’t found a home in Christianity. I go as a means of challenging myself spiritually, but I’m not able to adopt Christian beliefs. During a church service this past Easter, a worship leader commented that Jesus dying on the cross was the best thing that ever happened. I couldn’t help thinking, this is the worst thing that ever happened. I guess that’s the chasm between me and Christianity.
Pierce’s ministry didn’t make sense to me. The horse is supposed to be free. Who the heck wants a saddle on their back, even if the horse is broken gently?
I didn’t have high hopes for the event.
We live the life that kings lived a long time ago.
That’s how Pierce began the event. We’re so rich compared to the way our ancestors lived. Today, we can buy wine at 7-Eleven that kings would have gladly served at their tables, said Pierce. Our lives are more comfortable, so why do we have so many problems?
Pierce begins with authenticity.
“My number one challenge is not to have any agenda except being authentic with the horse,” he says.
Pierce appears to practice what he preaches. He doesn’t put on a show. Watching and listening to Pierce is bearing witness to his own journey with God. He appears connected to something higher than himself, so much so that his sentences are sometimes non sequitur. He goes this way, then that. Isn’t that what it’s like with a horse?
It’s his second night, following a father and son event the night before. I’m in the fourth row, close enough to see the action, but the sun is beating on me. Only my baseball cap provides relief at the hottest point of the day. My water isn’t cold, but at least it isn’t warm. Pierce is in a long sleeve shirt and jeans. I found out later he was also working with an injured right hand. Looking at him, you can’t tell what temperature it is or what he has battled through. His cowboy hat a true signature of the man wearing it.
If servant becomes your identity, you’re going to have a hard time with the joy that comes with being a son.
My initial impulse was one of moral indignation. I like being a servant. If there’s one thing that bothers me about Christianity, it’s wallowing in the love of God and the forgiveness of sins. How about actually doing something to make the world a better place? It’s interesting to hear some Christians blame secularism for the state of the world when their dominant message emphasizes personal salvation over external affairs. Deeds are scoffed at. We might as well have “sucker’ written across our foreheads.
I can’t help thinking, if Paul was alive today, what letter would he write to the church?
It wasn’t until my drive home that I realized I have a complete black out shade when it comes to me and any understanding of God’s love. That was never part of the equation. Perpetual service, or work, is my comfort zone.
“Rest,” Leslie Pierce, Todd’s wife, said to me the following day. “I feel like you need to rest.”
She had no idea.
There are other versions of me.
Pierce talks about his own journey and relationship with God. His family is his barometer.
“It’s important for my wife and son to be here. It’s a huge battle to stay authentic because I know I’m speaking above my pay grade,” Pierce tells the crowd during a sermon the following day with a different horse.
He’s not afraid to share how much he has hurt his loved ones.
“There are other versions of me. My wife and sons have seen it.”
I ask Leslie if it doesn’t get exhausting trying to be right with God, then failing and falling again. I can tell Todd does spiritual workouts. If he’s that far ahead and has failures, what does that bode for the rest of us?
Leslie says they have a spiritual mother and father in their lives and God gives them everything they need. She’s open minded but secure in her belief, a kind of person you can have a conversation with.
There’s a dead cow stuck to me. I can’t get it off.
I watch Todd get the horse used to him. He hasn’t met the horse until tonight. He rubs the horse’s legs with his boot. He jumps to place his torso on the horse’s back, both feet dangling to one side. He’s aware of the horse, his own authenticity, and the audience. With the help of his son Tanner, who is holding the horse’s halter, Todd puts a saddle on the horse. Everything is going according to plan. Todd mounts the horse, then dismounts to get the horse used to him. And then, the horse starts bucking with just the saddle on its back.
“That’s a lot of work,” Pierce says compassionately.
The horse puts on a show, but Pierce remains calm and gentle. By the end, the horse is visibly more relaxed and even stands behind him while he talks to the audience. The horse doesn’t do everything Pierce wants it to, but from my vantage point, everything is going swell.
“I care more about this horse than getting my point across,” he says. “Being fathered or being mothered is a whole lot better than being coached.”
Pierce compares the horse’s fear to his own, back in the day, when it came out as anger. He doesn’t condemn the horse’s behavior.
“Whatever I’m afraid of, I can be honest about it,” he tells the crowd.
I begin to see parallels between the horse and myself. I don’t trust new things. I don’t like things I don’t understand. Why is there a saddle on my back and what possible use can it have?
Pierce sees it differently.
“He’s not going to need fences anymore,” says Pierce. “He and I will run free. Our culture is looking for that, but they’re looking in the wrong spots.”
He points out that this experience is activating parts of the horse’s brain that hadn’t been activated before. The horse could live in the wild, but it would never have the experiences or the relationship it could have with a rider.
And then there was this analogy. “They didn’t know what to do when Jesus wasn’t in front of them leading the way.”
Suddenly, there are firecrackers in the distance. The horse reacts.
“Just what we need,” said Pierce. He wants the horse to feel safe.
“In this life we’ll have troubles, but you’ll overcome this. I know the end of the trail.”
Embrace the mystery as much as you embrace understanding.
Pierce ends the sermon with, “You can find just as much peace not understanding, actually more peace, than with understanding. Embrace mystery as much as you embrace understanding.”
I realize this must favor a certain personality type. This is beyond my comfort zone. Then, I realize I’m the obstinate horse, the one that doesn’t trust the rider.
I wait to talk to Pierce after the sermon. A line of people want to talk to him. Some embrace him. I’m the last one. I ask him to explain Riding High mission in his own words.
“The horse becomes a metaphor. The beauty of a horse is that a horse that is actually being treated well and learns how to partner with me is going to do things that it never was capable of doing out in the wild,” he says.
I ask if the horse wants to have a rider on its back, and Pierce affirms, “yes.”
“Someone’s peak performance is when they’re doing what they’re created to do. It’s when they’re the best forms of themselves,” he says.
He compares riding a horse to parenting. There are both good and bad variations.
“Is parenting a good idea? We’ll all agree yes. Is all parenting good? Nope. [It can be] quite tragic and sometimes irreversible damage gets done because of poor parenting. It’s the care of the animal that we’re actually talking about. It’s not whether they are better off away from a person than with a person.”
Pierce is the first to say that horses buck to protect themselves, but he wants to develop a different relationship.
“When they have something on their back, they want to get it off their back. The instinct would be what you saw. I want to negotiate with him. I understand the instinct. I get it. I understand that fear is a real thing and it causes us to want to protect ourselves. I want you to experience love at such a level that fear isn’t going to be the only thing that tells you what to do. The instincts are going to protect you, but sometimes that protection is going to keep you isolated.”
His voice resonates with patience, compassion and humility. It’s the resigned voice of a man who has walked, or ridden, on a long journey. You may not know his life story, but you can hear it in the vibration of his voice.
It’s completely dark by the time we’re finished. The event organizers have started praying for the night. I return the next day. Pierce works with another horse, this one easier than the one before, probably a relief for him.
“I’m done,” he says at the end. He said everything he needed to say. He has come full circle.
He invites people to be baptized in the Okanogan River. It’s 104 degrees. Two groups of two pastors baptize attendees. People on the shore clap after each dunk in the water. I see Leslie and we talk for an hour and a half during the baptisms. She talks about their ministry and her own journey with God. The sun beats down on us, but the conversation somehow makes it bearable.
As I walk past the shore, I want to jump into the river, but not for the same reasons. I decide to think about things differently and to take a slower approach. I’m reminded of the ending of a poem by Robert Frost which, oddly enough, also involves a horse:
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
