For Sunday, May 11, 2014 – John 10:1-10
I have been meditating this week on a picture of one solitary sheep grazing in a green pasture. That’s all this sheep is doing—not pawing at the ground in search of better food, not dangling off a cliff from having climbed too high, not discussing with other sheep how to become better, smarter, more self-actualized. She just grazes contentedly, chewing quietly on what is.
My soul longs for such repose, such absence of striving. The sheep is not pacing anxiously, wringing her hooves about the state of the whole broken world, but quietly attends to what Catherine de Hueck Doherty has called the duty of the moment. She just gives herself, in all her humble sheepiness, to what is before her. The shepherd is not in view, but the sheep is not concerned about dangers. When she hears the one voice, her ears undoubtedly will lift, curious as to what will be asked of her, but in the meantime she dwells in the stillness of peace, the abundance of not over-thinking, over-doing, over-strategizing, over-imagining her important role in the grand scheme. She simply enjoys the abundance of her small place in the pasture.
The serenity of the picture does not translate easily into my daily scenes, where so many gates, so many shepherds false and real, so many other sheep abound. Dwelling in quiet repose seems illusory most days. No wonder we have relegated it to the sweet by-and-by instead of our calling in the sweet here-and-now. Extended periods of stillness, grazing slowly, attending to each moment, seem a bit of a luxury with so many dire and urgent needs. Aren’t the best prayers the ones we say with our feet and hands in direct action? Isn’t the primary instruction written on all our hearts the one to stay busy? Waiting to hear the real voice that calls us by our real names might mean missing hundreds of opportunities right now.
Something in this picture heightens my longing even as I struggle. I want less, I want more, I want to slow down, I want to hurry up, I resist my own small sheepish callings, I want to be a bold citizen of the world, I want to be a hermit hidden from life’s noisy conflict, I want to avoid, I want to connect. In the midst of this cacophony, I am learning to listen for the one voice that matters. Little by little, I am learning to graze.
