He will not go. No amount of corn, sweet grain, fresh grass or coaxing will make him take one step any closer to that trailer.

Samson, our beautiful bull, has outgrown our farm. While we love him and the calves he sired, we worry about his aggression. And the cost of his healthy appetite.

The Mister has tried twice, in vain, to get Samson loaded in a trailer. It’s heartbreaking for all, as we really don’t want to see him go, and we know as we coax and plead with him that the end game isn’t a pleasant outcome for the bull in question. We aren’t exactly taking him to some other farm.

He will not go in the trailer because it is unfamiliar. He has only ever been in a trailer once. He did not go willingly then, either, and he was only five months old at the time. The memory of wrangling him with great difficultly when he was much younger leaves us certain there is only so much coaxing we can safely do at this point.

The unfamiliar leads to fear. Samson was calm and somewhat cooperative as we got him in the shelter several yards from the trailer. But when we were finally able to get him close, he was no longer in a cooperating mood. His whole demeanor changed in the vicinity of the unknown metal space. Mine, too. He is afraid of the big metal box. He has no idea what it is or why it is suddenly at the gate and he is, quite naturally fearful of the addition.

The fear led to destruction. It didn’t take long at all for things to escalate from calm to violent. He jumped the gate, breaking the wood barriers as he did so, just to get away from the unknown trailer. Despite standing outside the electric fence, he scared me so badly I fought back my tears and had to stand with hands on knees to even catch my breath and slow my heart.

What Samson needs, is time. Time to experience the trailer’s presence on his own terms. Time to acclimate to the addition. Time to investigate at his own pace, in his own way. Time to see the trailer as a treat-dispenser and not the transport to the end times as it actually is. Unfortunately, we don’t own the trailer and so time is something we cannot literally and figuratively afford to give him.

The idea of something unfamiliar leading to violence is not foreign to those of the human species, either. We all know how the unknown can lead to fear, hatred and destruction as well. It’s been all over the news. It’s been all over the country. Heck, I jumped sky high and screamed like the proverbial girl when a walking stick landed on my shoulder the other day. A walking stick bug. It wasn’t going to hurt me in the least, but it wasn’t something I was familiar with and so I reacted with fear and dashed the poor, harmless creature to the ground.

Perhaps what we could all use a little more of in this world is time with the unfamiliar. We need to build trust with the things we do not know. We need to investigate, familiarize and experience the unknowns in our lives in a calm, safe environment. This takes time. And it feels to me, as a nation, we are running out of time. We are jumping the gates, destroying the barriers and turning to violence to avoid the unknowns and unfamiliars.

In the case of our country, though, these unknowns and unfamiliars are often just people. People. Human beings. People with hearts and souls and dreams and wishes and families and jobs and fears just like us. People.

What would happen if we all took the time to get to know someone unfamiliar, someone different than us? If we were to pause in between facing an unknown and reacting with fear to take time to breathe, listen, love and learn, — ah, what a world we might live in.

Samson remains in the pasture. Blissfully unaware of the endgame he avoided by his refusal to load. He reminds me. He reminds me of the dangers of what can happen when we let the fear turn to hatred and destruction. He reminds me of how quickly we can turn away from something unknown out of nothing more than fear, and how we can be destructive in our nature, our words, our beliefs because we let that fear consume us. He reminds me to take the time. People deserve our time. Our country, I fear, depends on it.