Shepherding My Sheep.

"How do I shepherd that!?"  my friend remarked, referring her daughters' smiley confidence, whimsey, and fearless approach to life. This phrase nestled in me, sitting so perfectly in its context.  

I picture sheep: soft, fluffy, white.  Spotless and calm.  Slowly meandering the hillside.  Add lush green grasses and lightly streaming sunlight and the picturesque vision is set.  

Or recall Jesus in the artistic, Renaissance to modern portrayals, him holding and caressing the docile creatures.  The lamb are cuddled in his arms or submissive at his heels, peaceful smiles snuggling from their lips.  Gingerly tended, eloquently displayed, and all is at rest.

Yet the images of the ages are warped, skewed.  The role of the Shepherd downplayed and the behavior of sheep distorted.  The relationship between the shepherd and the sheep discrepant.

To shepherd does not mean to quiet; doesn't ask for serene.  It isn't a formula to mellow, a desire for docile, or a wish for waning sunsets over serene pastures.   Its instead an eclipse of endurance and energy, guidance and boundaries, closely held and loosely free.

A few months ago we watched an episode of Amazing Race where contestants had to corral sheep.  We laughed hysterically watching these crazy, running sheep darting here and there, and anywhere but near.  They frolicked and jumped, scattered and skittered, bounced and boinged in all directions like scurrying, startling kittens or fat men on po-go sticks.  It was hilarious, crazy, and eye-opening all at the same time.

As I watched those sheep, and as I chewed my lips about it hours later,  I thought about the artform and sermon portrayls of shepherding and the juxtaposition of that which I had now seen.  I thought about Christ, the Bible, shepherds and sheep.  I thought of Jesus, and his words and actions, depicting shepherding as a constant pursuit of sheep, always finding the scampered and tending to His flock.  

Then I thought about my Camilla-Bear, and my friends words:  "How do I shepherd that?!" and God's use of shepherding as a parable, a model, and a reference made so much more sense.  She's the boingy, frolicking, flitting, scampering sheep.  She's pep, pizzaz, vitality; surging curiosity and sparkling zeal.  She is zest and joy and this bounding lamb that loves life. Constant motion, always jostling for the next adventure, and protesting, steering clear of corrals or anything that might contain her energy.  

Shepherding this spunky little blue-eyed lamb looks differently than tranquil, artistic images.  Just as the Good Shepherd knows me, tends to me, and guides me, so I care for my little lamb.  I chase after her, guide her, and train her steps.  I give her boundaries but allow room to roam.  My role isn't to squash, to squander, to squelch, to scowl at her energy, but to set boundaries with room to roam.  It's to allow hamlets of safe pasture, with mountains to adventure, and waters to dip in.  It's to encourage her curiosity while setting borders; to keep guard for danger while herding forward.  It demands my attention, persistence, patience.  It requires courage, strength, and endurance.  Yet this is the joy, the calling, of Shepherding my Sheep.

"He tends his flock like a Shepherd.  He gathers the lambs in his arms 

and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young."  Isaiah 40:11

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Amazing Race Recap 

Amazing Race Episode Season 25; Episode 3 (start at 25 for the whole sheep segment, or at 31 to get a second viewing; it goes til almost the end of the episode)  -

Verses on Sheep from the Bible 

You're Not Done.

Stark gray chairs lined the building; all centered around the minimalist platform, hanging screens dark above.  He buttoned black, of course, and preached to the masses, each bending forward, hungry and curious with a listening ear.  Different words, phrases, churned within the chorus' of those sitting, peering, listening to this church, this pastor, this emerging.

Then, he made them stand.  Stand and be honored, revered; proudly risen.  The retired.  The grayed, the balding, the sun tanned, color-dying; each sixty-plus individual halted and honored before the crowd.  Ready to hear their pat-on-the-back from this young pastor, this blooming crowd.

But instead, his words called out like a chime, a command, a calling, a clear purpose, as he challenged the aged:  "You're not done!  We need you!"

The air felt stiff with surprised; his forward words catching many off guard.  They had stood to be acknowledge for a life of work, of values, of now-earned reward, but instead were challenged to press on, to persevere, to keep purposing forward.

He spoke about the needs; their gifts, their time, their purpose.  He begged them to continue, to offer themselves to the church, the orphan, the organizations.  

I sat there, roughly eight years ago, among them and burned inside.  Yes!  Yes!  Yes!  We need you!  I felt the strength of the burden burn within my soul, lists of needs piling one-by-one, all scrambled, unfiltered. The church needed them.  The schools needed them.  The urban kids needed them.  The young mothers needed them.  The tradesmen needed them.  The nursery homes needed them.  The squatter villages needed them.  We all needed them!

Retirement is portrayed in American society as golf carts and plane tickets and book clubs and fishing poles.  These are good things; very good.  And earned!  Very earned!

But that is not the whole story.  That is bubbles that fill the void.

Many look at retirement as a badge to be worn, a paycheck to be complete, a labor to be final.  It is a date, a marking line, a hurdle.  To some, sweetly dreamed of, like licking cool ice cream on a steamy, weary day.  To others, greatly feared, like blank black space, fiercely shouting emptiness and void.  Like Columbus and the ocean; the end of the map, the falling of the sea.

But perhaps there is a different worldview, a perspective not from society but from the Bible as a whole.  Perhaps there is a plan from Genesis to Revelation that says God wastes nothing, from beginning to end.  Like the newness of Genesis to the completeness of Revelation, everything has a purpose, a meaning, a reason, a season.  So too then, perhaps each life from infancy to mortality, God designed with something to offer, to steward, to grow from start to finish, beginning to end.

I've had the privilege of watching my grandparents grow old.  And when I say "grow old" it is with vagueness, for their years do not detract from their youthfulness, their purpose-ness, their fullness of days.  I've watched with take-for-granted eyes, learning eyes, with reverence eyes, with challenged eyes.  I've lived under their roof and taken notes from their days, grace from their table, and freshness from their spirit.  Silver lining shines more hopeful than silver hair.

I started noting their lives, gathering tid-bits and time slots like pearls on a string. As years rippled into years their days stood set-apart, a contrast to other grandparents I started to meet.  Their hours were filled, from dawn to dusk, with purpose and people, fulfillment in giving life and aid to the needs that they'd meet. In the years of nursery and Sunday School and grandchildren to oversee, they mixed in  disaster relief trips - kitchen duty and construction sites and week-long labor for the least of these.  To the elderly, they delivered meals and offered rides to church. With Marv, the giving continues, caring for refugees, babysitting at MOPS, tutoring at an elementary, and befriending the special needs through Friendship -- every week for 30 years!  At 84 and 86, respectively, they are still the warm home that opens when I travel, and their legacy, their years of "retirement", blooms with purpose and peace, a proud heritage for me.

These years after "work", after the books close, the children raised, the final hammer stroke, still billow with Biblical purpose, with bounty, with command to a life of calling.

There is a burden, a blessing, a benediction in retirement.  The reaping of decades of planting, seeds sewn in deliberation, now harvested anew.  Years of toil and labor crescendo with wisdom and skills and relationships, all set to bloom in fresh colors. This beautiful arrangement of purposed time, stewarded gifts, and fostered humanity lends to a fulfillment all creation calls out for. 

So enjoy grandchildren.  Sew a new quilt.  Play another round of 18.  But just remember, Philippians 1:6 -- "Being confident of this: that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus."  

God is not done.  You are not done.  God is not done with you.

Take On The World.

War raging. Cancer child. School shooting. Celebrity Split.  Baby sick. Gunned toddler. Car crash. Lonely day...

The hurting is everywhere.  The pain endless.  The horrors or humblings often told.  From CNN to newsfeed posts.  Burdens.  Broken.  Broadcasted.

Twitter. Instagram. Blogs. Facebook. NewsTV. Gossip. Viral Fame.

Instantly share experience, instantly share empathy.  Horrifying shock to heartbreaking story.

I was talking with a friend last week, noting our tension with having or using or removing our Facebook account (I know, same story...)  But our conversation took an unusual turn.  We started talking less about our need for connection or use of viral community or perception of so-called "friends" - the usual banter that revolves around this media.  And moreso, noted how much heavy is shared...  There's a posting about a couple who lost a baby, or a child who has luekiemia.  About prayers for a strangers story, or a school child home with the flu...  Every burden is noted, every personal heartbreak now a social situation.

It reminded me of a conversation a couple months ago where a friend was reading a stranger's blog and had drawn up an entire conclusion as well as burden from holes and innuendoes that were written.  And, she had taken on the weight of it.  Worried, prayed, distressed, agnoized.  Over someone's life that was far removed and not intertwined with her own. Yet she had taken on the load of it to her core.

There is something to ponder here -- this sharing of emotion, personal turned public news, and the burdens that it heaves on life as created creatures.

As the Church existed under Bible times and until the last century, people knew only what was in their circles.  Only what they could do something about.  Now, with constant social media and twentyfour hour worldwide news, we stay up-to-date with humans and hardships multiple times removed from our daily life.  Surely as finite beings, we weren't made nor meant to take on all the world's hurt and hardships.

Colossians 3:13 and Ephesians 4:2 both implore "bear with each other..."  The epistles are full of passages, markings, and experiences of the First Church stepping in to help their fellows in need.  I have to pause and wonder what then, as finite beings, we were made for in this conversation of community as well as burden-sharing.  And I resolve that we can, and are called to, walk with those in our circle, in our sphere of impact, and then leave the majority of the weight of others to those who can carry their load too.

If we carry our own burdens but let no one walk with us, the weight of that cross is crushing.  If we try to compel ourselves carry everyone's burdens, the weight of that cross crushes us all too.  Perhaps instead, if we share the weight of our own community, they lighten our load and we lighten theirs in a way that spreads the weight healthily.  Sara Grove's has a song based on a Rwandan proverb, the chorus writes: "Every burden I have carried, Every joy -- its understood.  Life with you is half as hard, And twice as good."  Perhaps this is the picture of shared experience, shared joy, we are all looking for.  (wrote about this in previous blog: The Cot).

Perhaps instead of broadcast news, in lei of posting instant status', or in place of reading another filtered blog, we should refocus our needs and energies, our burdens and blessings in our own homes and human hearts around us.  Perhaps we would all feel a little less heavy, a little less guilty, a little less lonely, and a little more connected, a little more fulfilled, a little more loved, if our empathy, sympathy, and energy were cultivated and contained in a smaller community, within a circle we could help carry and care for.

Now I know enough to step back and note that there is a fine space between knowledge and emotion, between ignorance and apathy.  There's broad gray areas where cutting off all concern for people outside of your community is hardened, ignorant, and can be selfish.  But perhaps pausing to filter where and why we gather information can help lessen the fog.  For there is a space where information impacts innocence to bring important insight, but that can either instigate change and a call to community, or leave a trail of chosen ignorance or elusive grief. Herein lies the question to filter: is the purpose of inputting knowledge and gaining information to evoke justice, change, and community, or to burden, weigh, and rumor?

For, this noted, we should be attune to starvation, to orphans, to genocide, to widows.  We should support organizations and people who are on the ground floor to step into the lives of those hurting.  

But we cannot all do it. We cannot all lessen every burden, we cannot all tend to every sickness, we cannot all hear every horror, we cannot all mend every heartache.  We cannot all take on the world. 

Only He could do it.  Only He can take on the world.  Only He is strong enough to carry all the burdens.  Only He knows the empathy of each heart ache.  Only He is at the side of every hurting human.  Christ.  He is the Christ.  He is the suffering servant who knows the weight of glory and the cross and all human pain.  Only He can take on the world.

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** This is not to write or make statements against helping a broader world in need.  It is not an argument to turn a blind eye to widows or orphans, or genocides or starving.  It is not prose against media as a whole.  It is, instead, simply to start thinking and filtering how we manage our own emotions and abilities and measure the weight of what we are created to carry and Who is the ultimate carrier.