Wow, I haven't posted anything in six months. I can't really
identify any particular reason; things to write about are plentiful, and I have
not lacked for time. But that inner voice has been silent.
Trying to review those months brings a sense of oppression,
a sense that there is an outside influence at work but that I stand too close
in time to identify the source. It seems
simplistic to point to the dire world situation as either the cause of a depression,
or the evidence of Evil at work and the approaching end of the world. I know at
times I felt all of this.
But another possibility exists, the hopeful perspective,
gained from experience and a considerable distance in time. I have both when I think of my youth and
young adulthood. I had no idea how I
made the choices I did, I simply reacted to one crises after another.
Situations caught me unaware and unprepared. My memory of those years is that
they were deeply infused with insecurity and general fear. Good things
happened, which I greeted with relief, but I felt always that something
terrible would happen next. How did I survive?
I find the answer expressed in scripture, particularly the
23rd Psalm and the image in the Gospels of the Good Shepherd and the one lost
sheep. All the depictions of that show Jesus as the Shepherd carrying the
no-longer-lost lamb. But I imagine what happened before that moment: the one
sheep, alone instead of with the dozens of companions in the flock; in the
wilderness, night coming, nothing familiar, nothing comforting, an environment
it is completely unprepared for.
I think of the shepherds I've seen (mostly on TV). And I
think of the sheep dogs that work with them. The Good Shepherd might well have
his trained herd dogs, who follow the scent of the wandering sheep.
When those dogs locate the missing sheep, they might find it
approaching danger - perhaps a cliff. The dogs would rush forward, come between
the sheep and the danger, barking, perhaps nipping, to drive it back towards
safety.
And now the sheep's perspective: out in the wild, unknown
smells and sounds, sudden movements glimpsed to the side, behind a bush or
rock, every step moving into a new uncertainty. The sun sets, twilight grows.
And suddenly from nowhere, a growling threatening fanged menace confronts it. A
monster! The sheep jumps and runs away from it, stumbling blind with fear,
staggering on until suddenly, He is there and somehow the world is safe.
Sheep are not smart. Nor was I. I look back on my earlier
years and believe now that my guardian angel was hard at work, the Lord's sheep
dog, and that He wanted me not only to be safe, but to be found, and brought
back Home. I don't imagine I am there yet, but at least He is by my side, with
His rod and His staff.
