[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Sheep Farm

Lynn and her husband had put the about-to-be-shorn Shetland ewes in one pen 
and their lambs in the next, for ovine crowd control, and the ewes were 
having quite a lot to say about the separation. She took us into the lamb 
pen, where a dozen or so little ones were milling around. She told us each 
one's name and personality -- a lot more varied than I would have expected. 
I'd never been up close and personal with a lamb before; I had no idea they 
were this friendly, or this inquisitive. I sat down on the hay-covered 
floor and found myself being explored, largely by mouth; lambs nibbled my 
travel coffee mug, my jacket, and my fingers. Lambs crawled over each other 
into my lap, lifted their small faces up to mine, sniffed my ear, gently 
butted my shoulder. I learned that scratching a male lamb's head is asking 
for a head-butt, but lambs love being gently scratched under the chin.

I've always thought of sheep as dumb, but I'm wrong. They're herd animals, 
of course, and they operate on instinct, but they're not dumb. I think this 
was the first time I'd gotten close enough to sheep to see them as 
inherently very lovable. (Well, mostly. Young Antonio is, I gather, a bit 
of a handful.) As she talked about them Lynn's voice was warm with 
love.  Her young son sat on the floor, lambs crawling all over him, and the 
boy's face was utterly blissed-out.

That's the thing about the Bible: it helps immensely whenever we can be 
hands-on with the world its writers knew. I had known (head-learning) that 
sheep were economically crucial in that place and time; when wealth is 
counted in flocks, then obviously the loss of a sheep or lamb would be a 
serious matter. It hadn't occurred to me that it would be more than that -- 
that a shepherd might actually love *that* lamb, God's particular critter 
and unlike any other lamb in existence.

There was love in the way the shearer held each ewe, gentling her as he ran 
his clippers swiftly and knowledgeably over her belly and back and legs and 
head. The sheep seemed to feel it, because they struggled hardly at all but 
bore being upended and stripped of their fleece with patience.  As they ran 
off, newly shorn and bawling for their babies, Lynn brought each pair of 
lambs out and there was an intensity of frantic nursing and lambish tail 
waving and general "Where *were* you? I missed you so much!" that many 
human parents can't seem to manage. Those of us who were onlooking were 
smiling a lot.

After this morning, "The Lord is my shepherd" and "he shall lead his flock 
like a shepherd" and the parable of the lost sheep are going to hold a 
totally new meaning for me. What I saw this morning had little to do with 
economics; it had everything to do with trust and vulnerability, 
individuality and preciousness, tenderness and care. The words have bloomed 
for me the way a lock of tight, dirty fleece explodes into softness when 
you open it between your fingers.

Kaity's fleece -- six pounds of lustrous white wool -- sits in a large 
plastic bag in my front hall, next to the (unnamed) Leicester fleece I got 
last week.  This afternoon, working with combed Leicester on my new 
spinning wheel, I produced most of a bobbinful of handspun yarn, not great, 
but not bad for someone who hasn't treadled a wheel for thirty years.  It 
comes back.  It really does.



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I'm about to hit some sacred cows, and they moo so badly. -- Phyllis 
Tickle, aka The Divine Miz T.