The Comma

A note before you begin:  This post is part two of a story I began yesterday.  If you have not read part one yet, simply scroll down to yesterday’s post.  Without that reading, today’s post will not make sense.  (No guarantee if it will make sense even if you did read yesterday’s post, but welome back anyway.)   –The shepherd.

By now there was a faint light as the sun was rising.  Because of the rain I couldn’t actually see the sun, but I could see the sky getting brighter.  I looked around the ram pen, in every corner.  Nothing.  The calls of the ewe in the field were beginning to sound even more desperate.  But what could I do?  I decided to finish my chores and wait for more light.  I also realized, of course, that I wasn’t going to make the 7:00 ferry.  So I fed the ram and the wether, fed the other sheep in the pen up above my house, fed the dogs, fed the cats, fed the chickens and gathered the eggs.  Then I went back down to the barn, hoping that the lamb had somehow magically appeared.  Nothing.

As the sky finally got light enough for me to see, I went back to the big field where the ewes were still eating their breakfast and the forlorn mama was still calling for her baby.  “Baa!  Baaa! Baaaa! BAAAAA!”   While she called out, she trotted first one direction, then the other.  She looked on the edge of pure panic.  I walked the whole field again, this time with my dogs Lizzie and Buddy.  My expectation was that if there was a lamb anywhere in the field, Lizzie for sure and maybe Buddy too would spot it and then with their Border collie stares would let me know where it was.  But there was no trace of a lamb, and no scent of one either as far as I cold tell from the dogs’ behavior.  I went back to where the sheep were feeding, and when I opened the gate and headed back to the barn for one more look there, the sad ewe ran back with me.

“Was there really a lamb?” I began to ask myself.  “Could the ewe have had some sort of false pregnancy or miscarriage, and now just thought she had a lamb somewhere?  Or if she had delivered a lamb, could it have been carried off by eagles?  Coyotes?  Dingoes?”  The only place I could think of looking again was under the barn.  This time I got gloves and clippers and cut my way through the blackberry bushes, imagining maybe somehow I had missed the lamb in there.  Nothing.  Then back under the barn I went, by now too wet and muddy to care that I was just getting wetter and muddier.  Another sweep of the flashlight (it is dark under my barn even when it is light outside).  Nothing.

The other ewes in the barn with their own little lambs were getting restless now with the new ewe just calling and calling.  And they were also the last group for me to feed.  So I gave them their COB and their hay, and they settled in to eat.  Even the ewe with the missing lamb, maybe exhausted by now, began quietly eating.  My heart was breaking for her.  “I’m sorry,” I thought.  “I have done everything I can think of to find your lamb, and I just can’t do it.  I wish I was a better shepherd.  But I don’t know what else to do.” 

 I kept looking around the barn again and again, as if I had missed something in that big, empty area where the ewes spend the night.    I wracked my brain to see if I was forgetting something, missing some key fact, or overlooking something right in front of me.  But I could think of nothing.  I had truly and completely given up.   I decided just to leave the ewe there in the barn with the others and to go on in to work.  Not to catch the bus anymore it was too late for that- but at least to get on in there, on my motorcycle. 

 I stood for one last moment in the silence of the barn, listening to the ewes quietly chewing their hay, and feeling my sadness.  And then, of course, when I had completely let go of hope, and when the mama ewe was trying to comfort herself by eating, I heard it.  Or I thought I heard it.  I wasn’t sure.  A tiny “baa.”  That sweet and plaintive cry of a newborn lamb, calling for its mom.  Or maybe it was my young rooster, who is still learning to crow.  Or the geese that have been flying low over my farm the last several days, calling to each other as they go.  Or my deep desire to hear something was toying with my imagination. Or maybe it was a newborn lamb.

 I kept listening.  “Call again, please, call again” I was thinking.  And then there it was again.  A bit stronger this time.  Definitely a lamb.  But where was it?  Somewhere in the barn? Outside?  The sound was still so faint that I could barely sense what direction it was coming from.   I walked around the barn, looking and listening.  Could the sound really be coming from underneath?  After I had already been under there twice, could there still be a lamb down there?  Maybe.

So I got my dog Lizzie and crawled under the barn one more time.  “Sheep?” I asked her.  “Where’s the sheep?”  And responding to her invitation to work, she did what she always does when I talk to her that way.  She found the sheep.  In this case, she found the lamb.    

It was a little ewe lamb, jet black, blending into the darkness and hiding in the farthest corner under the barn, where I had pointed  my flashlight twice and never seen her.   And earlier, having seen nothing and heard nothing, I had not crawled all the way back to look behind the rocks and the pipes and the other stuff there. Now, there was Lizzie, doing her Border collie stare, and the little lamb, looking back, and then the lamb on her feet, and then calling louder and louder:  “Maa!  Maaa!  MAAAA!”  I got close enough to catch her, and  holding her tight, crawled  out from under the barn, through the mud and into the light.  “Good dog, Lizzie,” I kept saying, realizing, even as I said it, what an understatement that was.

Here’s my speculation about what happened.  When I first looked in the barn with my flashlight, there had been a lamb there, this little black ewe lamb, but I didn’t see her.  Newborn lambs often hide behind their moms like that.  Then, while I was getting the hay, the whole flock got up and moved to the door in anticipation of breakfast.  As they moved, the lamb moved too, and right by the door she had indeed fallen (or was pushed!) down through the opening in the wall, and into the blackberry bushes.  Once she landed, she jumped up and ran to the safest hiding place she could find, which was way back in the far corner, behind the stuff there.  And there she stayed, quiet and out of sight (as newborn lambs sometimes do, even when their mothers are calling them) until Lizzie found her hiding place and let me know where she was. 

Walking with the lamb in my arms back into the barn, I was deeply grateful.  But I also knew there was one more hurtle for her (and therefore for me).   If she had been away from her mom for too long, her desperate mother, having called and called, might now refuse to recognize this lamb as her own.  It does happen.  But when I went into the barn with this little one, who was still calling “maaaaaa” now at the top of her lungs, the ewe ran right over to us, and answered “Baaa, baaaa” to her baby, which meant “There you are, thank God (theological interpretation added by the shepherd).”  Then she said, Baaaa, baaaa, baaa” to me, which I translated as, “thaaaaank you, thaaaank yooooou tooooo.”

I was so relieved I was shaking.  I caught my breath and put the little lamb down.  Immediately her mom began to nuzzle her, and the lamb began to nurse.  It was the scene I love during lambing- a contented mother with a healthy lamb beside her nursing hungrily.

Lizzie was by my side, looking on.  “Good dog, Lizzie” I said again, and then went up to the house, washed off as much of the mud as I could, changed my clothes, got on my motorcycle, and caught the 8:00 ferry into work.  I was only a little late to the 9:00 meeting.

Before you begin reading this post, I want to let you know that the post you are about to see is just part one of a two part story.  It happened yesterday, and when I wrote it up for the blog last night, it came to four pages!  Since that felt way too long, I decided to tell the story in two parts, like a serial, or like a soap opera, with a (semi) cliff hanger before the end.  I will post the two parts today and tomorrow.  So, if you want the whole story, come on back Friday and read it through.  But if you want to start, go ahead.  Just know that this post is only the beginning . . .

I start with an open invitation to anyone reading this post to suggest a title for it.  I have already thought of a few:  the mundane “Springtime Miracle;” the religious, “Jesus and the Lost Lamb;” and the self-deprecating, “A Dumb Shepherd and her Dumb Luck.”  Then there is the more spiritual, “A Shepherd Experiences Grace.”  Anyway, here is my story.

Of course many of you reading this already know that it is lambing time on my farm on Whidbey.  I have a very small flock, and this year only seven ewes have “been with the ram,” so lambing is not as exhausting on Sleeping Dog Farm as it is for folks who actually farm for a living.  And this year I went into lambing less enthusiastically than in years past, both because I have now been through this many times, and because I am so busy with my other flock (the congregation hosting this blog.)  But my enthusiasm returned as soon as the first lamb was born last Wednesday.  I love seeing those adorable babies taking their first steps, with their very attendant mothers right there to encourage them.  As of this morning I had three lambs in the barn, from three moms, so was waiting on four more moms to deliver (and hoping for twins, but this year not really expecting them.  The reason why is another story, not too interesting, and related to flock management . . . )

I got up early this morning, about an hour before daylight in fact (as Jimmy Carter always used to do as a child- see his great book, An Hour Before Daylight for details), because I had to catch the 7:00 ferry in order to catch the last express bus from the Mukilteo ferry dock into the U district, in order to be at the church ½ hour early for a 9:00 meeting.  I was hoping all would go smoothly with my morning chores, including the sheep chores. 

 The first thing I did was check the barn, just to see if any lambs had been born during the night.  A new lamb would mean some extra work, but I had allowed for that.  I opened the barn door and swept my flashlight over the flock.  All the ewes were lying down, still dozing or just waking up.  The only lambs I saw were the three that I already knew about.  So I relaxed and went over to the other side of the barn to get breakfast out for the sheep.

I scooped three cans full of COB (a grain mixture of corn, oats and barley) into the bucket and carried it out to the field feeders, then came back for a couple of loads of hay.  By the time I returned to the sheep area of the barn to let the girls out for the day, I heard one ewe in great distress.  “Baa? Baaa? BAAAA!” she was crying.  “Whheeere is my baaaaby?” I translated.  I turned the overhead light on and looked around the barn again.

 There were the three lambs that had been born over the last week, standing with their moms in the lambing jugs (pens where moms and babies spend their first days together).  And there were the rest of the ewes, and then there was the one girl in deep distress.  No new lamb in sight.  My Border collie Lizzie slipped in through the open door to access the situation.  She looked around, then looked at me.  “No new lambs here,” her eyes said.  But the cries of the troubled ewe were ringing in our ears.

At this point I should let you know that every night during lambing season when I get home after dark, I count the ewes as they move from field to barn, to make sure no one has stayed behind.  A ewe with a new lamb will almost always stay in the field with the baby, even if everyone else has deserted her. In that case I go out to the field, find mother and baby, and carry the lamb to the barn.  The ewe will follow.   But because every once in awhile the ewe will not bond with the lamb, and so will leave it behind without a second thought, I always walk the field at the end of the day to be sure there is no abandoned lamb out there.  I had done that last night.  But still, could I have left a lamb out?

I opened the barn door and let all the sheep (except the ewes with lambs) stampede out to the field, thinking that if the ewe in distress had indeed left her lamb last night, she  might run to the spot and I could follow her and try to figure out what had happened.  But she just followed the others out, took a few bites of hay, and then stood in the middle of the field bawling. “Nooo.  Thiiis is not whaaaat I’m hungry fooor.  Baa! Baaa! BAAAA! Whheeere is my baaaaby?”  And still no answer.  No lamb. 

I went back to the barn and looked around, trying to see if I could find some clue there to what had happened.  I saw a place right by the door where the barn siding had pulled away a little bit, leaving an opening where the wall and the floor of the barn met.  Could a lamb fall through there?  I got down on my knees and shone the flashlight through the hole and down into the patch of blackberries below.  Nothing.

I went outside to examine the other side of the hole.  Of course it was pouring rain, and the rain was beginning to soak through my clothes.  The opening in the barn wall dropped out into a small pen by the barn where I keep my ram, “Muffin,” and his buddy, “Seven,” a wether.   It was still dark, but I crouched down and shone the flashlight under the barn.  Nothing.  But where else could the lamb be?  So I crawled (through the mud) under the barn and looked around, letting my flashlight play over the old pipes, rocks, and a stack of wood windows the previous owner had stored under there, and listening carefully.  I heard nothing.  I saw nothing. 

To be continued tomorrow . . .

Ok, this post feels like a bit of a rant. I have to say it right out. The phrase “doing more with less” does not work for me right now. I heard it again just a few days ago, when one of our state legislators was complaining about “the government” trying to find a way to preserve some vital programs and he said something like, “Well, we’re all tightening our belts around here. Individual families are having to find ways to do this. The government too will just have to find a way to do more with less.”

Here’s what I do not like about that statement. It assumes that folks in human services are sitting around with more resources than they need, that they are not currently stretched to the limit of what they can do, and that somehow if they just work a little harder, with a little fewer resources, things will get better. It assumes that if we just got our act together, there would actually be more services for children in our state, for people in our state who are poor, for people in our state who are hungry, for people in our state who are without homes, for people in our state without basic health care, for those who are on the margins. More with less. Harrumph!

Now I know that there are places where “more with less” is a useful phrase. It calls on me to look, for example, at my consumer mentality and re-evaluate the ways I use my resources. I have a copy of the More with Less cookbook, and I love the hotdog and apple casserole in there. A few hotdogs and apples, plus some butter and brown sugar really can feed a group of people at a church potluck. But this particular politician was not referring to that kind of “more with less.”

Right now our state (and our nation, and our world) is looking at having to cut critical human services. The potential impact of those cuts is heartbreaking. We will have fewer teachers, fewer support services for the desperately poor and desperately ill, fewer services for homeless people, including fewer housing options. Less food to feed hungry people. Less resources for those on the margins of our society.

So I say, sure, tell well-off, well-fed, healthy and secure folks that they might have to do more with less. But do not tell hard working, exhausted, caring, compassionate people that they will just have to do more with less. Do not tell teachers or health care providers or folks working on behalf of homeless teens, stretching themselves to the limit, that they will have to do more with less. Do not tell hungry parents wondering how they will feed hungry children that they will just have to do more with less. Do not tell people waiting for basic health services that they will just have to do more with less. Do not tell people already living in tents because there is no where else to live that they will have to do more with less.

At least let’s be honest. If we have less, we will have to do less. But the acknowledgement of “less with less” lets us ask the real questions (like Why do we have less? What is the “less” that we are willing to do? Can we still call ourselves compassionate people? What are the ways that we might have more?). It invites us to genuine self-examination (How am I using what I have now? How can I make a difference to someone with much less?). And ultimately, when we have weathered this rough economic time, it lets us know that we have been doing less. And when we do have more, there will be much more that we need to do.

Last Saturday at our church’s CourageFest, which is what we named a gathering of folks interested in the connection between discipleship and social action, we talked about the journey of faith being like a Mobius strip.  As technically adroit as I am for an old person, (defined as someone who actually used a computer the size of a refrigerator- but wait- wasn’t that the size of Bill Gates’ first computer?  OK, old defined as someone who used such a computer and does not yet have a “smart phone”) I still don’t know how to put an umlaut over the “o” in Mobius, which is the way it is really supposed to be spelled.  And my spellcheck doesn’t recognize the word anyway.  In fact, my spell check doesn’t recognize the word spellcheck either.  Anyway . . .

If you don’t know what a Mobius strip is, you can find pictures and definitions in all kinds of places on the internet.  You make it by taking a long strip of paper, and holding an end in each hand, twisting it once, then joining the ends so you have a circle with one twist, kind of like the symbol for infinity that us old folks learned about from watching episodes of Ben Casey, MD.  And once you have that strip of paper twisted and joined thus, you have a what I will call, non-technically, a one sided object.  If you place your finger on what seems like the inside, and then trace around, you will find yourself on the outside.  Keep going, and you’re back on the inside.  How cool is that?  (“Very cool” my generation answers.)

So with this image and this understanding we can now draw all kinds of parallels to life. Life is not just like a box of chocolates.  (a reference which probably comes to my mind as much because of Lent as because of Forrest Gump.  Ha!).  It is not just about what’s inside and what’s outside.  In fact, a Mobius strip is kind of the opposite image.  There is no inside or outside, there is just the journey, sometimes turning inward and sometimes turning outward. 

At our CourageFest, we considered the ways that discipleship is like a Mobius strip.  Just when we think we are on an inward journey, deepening our connection with God, we discover that we are moving outward in response to the world’s deep needs.  And just when we think our discipleship is about responding to those needs, we discover that we must again look inward, to strengthen our connections and our courage.  If you have a moment to comment as you read this, I would love to hear where you are in the midst of the Mobius mystery.    

Whew. If I get this posted it will just be because of pure persistence. Today is moving day for the encampment that calls itself Nickelsville, the folks who have been living in our parking lot in tents because they have no where else to live. After three months with us (months which included record snow fall, days of freezing cold, and rain, rain, rain) they are moving south, and that means this has been an extremely busy morning.

So I stayed up last night and hitched up to my truck the flatbed trailer I use on the farm, then got up at 4:30 this morning to catch the 5:10 ferry into town- truck, trailer and all (my neighbor is doing my morning farm chores today). The rain started falling about the time I got to the Seattle City Limit sign coming south on I-5. By the time I got to the church, Jo Evan’s breakfast crew was already hard at work getting food ready for the camp, and the camp folks were also up, standing around the burn barrel trying to get warm, or packing up the contents of their tents in preparation for the move.

Around 7 a.m. we wheeled out four carts of food- ham, bagels, muffins, fruit, hard boiled eggs, coffee and hot chocolate. It was raining so hard by then that it was not easy to keep the food dry, but folks lined up and ate. The energy and anxiety of moving day was all around us. And volunteers- from our church and from all kinds of other places, were everywhere, ready to be put to work helping. With four people in the cab of my truck, and a truck and trailer full of pallets, I made a run down to Bryn Mawr United Methodist Church which is the next home for these homeless people.

In the midst of all the activity, there is little time for reflection, but here are a few things I am noticing:

-the level of privilege that I have is something I easily take for granted (by priveledge I mean a roof over my head, a warm, dry place to sleep, all my stuff, a place for all my stuff- and on and on).   Being a part of this encampment ministry reminds me of this at every turn, and also reminds me that there is so much more to life than what I usually realize in my day to day activities.

-the stories of the people who have made our parking lot their home for the last three months always surprise and amaze me. In my truck today was a guy who was a roadie for Willie Nelson in the mid-80’s. I’ve never met a roadie of Willie’s before. 

-God is present all around me today, and Jesus is somewhere close around too, I can tell. The other night at the encampment while I was listeneing to some of my new friends, it seemed clear to me that Jesus was standing around the burn barrel with us, laughing, telling stories and staying warm.

It is about 11:45 now, the parking lot is beginning to look empty (although there are still trucks lined up to load stuff and people working everywhere) and the rain has stopped for a few moments. Of course there is so much more to notice and to say, but I suspect it will come to me in a slow and steady stream over the next weeks as I have some space to reflect. In the meantime, if any of you reading this have had experience with this ministry and would like to comment, I would love to hear your stories.