Author: Bev

It’s possible that I have a smidgen of Irish blood coursing through my otherwise American-English body.  Therefore, I feel that I am qualified to pontificate about shenanigans, or not.

My ancestry chart identifies me as having one percent Native American DNA, with one direct descendant being full blooded Native American.  Mind you, according to Native rules, this definitely does not qualify me for benefits on the reservation, or anywhere else for that matter, I’m just sayin’.

I, a white Karen by all woke descriptions, found myself “encouraged” many years ago, by the college administration where I was teaching part-time in the Sociology department, to teach a course in New Mexico, just off the Navajo Reservation, entitled Contemporary Native Americans.  It was a conundrum.

I revamped the syllabus from a “fluff” course of day trips from one trading post to another and mandatory attendance at local pow-wow’s, to a credit-worthy and genuine Sociology course with study of dominant and minority group dynamics, prejudice, discrimination, and stereotyping, racism, cultural bias, atop current-events-type weekly student presentations, all focusing on the backdrop of Native culture.

The first week of class I was rigorously and somewhat humiliatingly put through my paces, then ultimately given the go-ahead by the newly appointed Hispanic Student Services Vice President, to reluctantly teach that class.  I should have said the first day, by way of a disclaimer, “I did not appropriate your culture in the teaching of this sociology course.  It’s an ‘appreciation,’ not an ‘appropriation,’ course.  I appreciate Native Americans and your culture.”

Cultural Appropriation is sort of new to pop culture.  It seems to be a part of the universally offended woke subculture, and their agenda.  It’s also associated with the Internet, in that anybody can publicly criticize anybody else for hurting their feelings.  But they don’t stop at criticism or an attempt to educate.   They demean, terrorize, and attempt to destroy someone for offending them.

Let me share a fact or two.  I have a fair to middling academic understanding of cultural anthropology.  I have taught more than a couple of cultural anthropology courses.  Secondly, we can appreciate many cultures outside of our own; even wearing their hairstyles, their jewelry, and clothing, dancing their special way, listening to and singing their music, and eating food of many varied cultures.  There is nothing inherently wrong with mimicking a cool way of life, one which we were not born into.

There is something called empathy which allows us to put ourselves in someone else’s place, attempting to feel what they might be feeling so as to show kindness toward them in a genuine way.  There is such a thing as cultural empathy also, where we try to understand, through lifestyle, “where people from another culture are coming from.”  

Do we have to be Irish to participate in shenanigans, or use the word, shenanigans?  Do you have to be Native American to wear turquoise jewelry or purchase their artwork to display in your home?   The difference between appropriation and appreciation is a matter of intent.  I would submit that nobody knows the intent of one’s heart in its entirety, but God, our Creator.

However, some self-appointed guardians of culture have intimidated us into the fear of being multi-cultural.  After all we’re all hybrids.  But this fear of saying the wrong thing, making a joke in poor taste, and constant sensitivity and courteousness is exhausting.  Somebody called it a “comedy of manners.”

My husband directed a jazz band in a traditionally black land grant college in Kentucky, early in his career.  He’s white, by the way.  But, because of his skills, he helped some young African-American musicians grow in their own tradition.  Funnily, his ancestry attributes one percent African DNA from one full-blooded African ancestor.  He also lived in Congo.

Does the Native American rug hanging in our dining room and the African busts, drums, and figures in our living room, constitute Cultural Appropriation or Cultural Appreciation?  I would submit it is the latter, as we have attained these artifacts out of respect and appreciation of these cultures with whom we have had contact.  We want to share our multi-cultural experiences with others, toward a broader understanding of all cultures.

But then I’m not wearing a Native headdress, Kente cloth stoles, Japanese Geisha garb, or cornrows in my hair, to a Halloween party, either.  It’s a matter of respectful borrowing and an appreciation for the historical and cultural context of other cultures, when we don the garb or exercise the use of the cultural mores of a non-dominant culture. 

So, let’s have some Mexican food for breakfast, Soul Food for lunch, Chili relleno for dinner, and some white boy Tums before bed.  Don’t be afraid to borrow respectfully from other cultures, but give credit where credit is due and blend, blend, blend.

What a difference a day makes.  I often wonder if suicide victims had just waited a day or a week or a month or year, they would have come out from under the cloud of sadness or despair that took their life.

We should refrain from making snap judgments, ever.  We shouldn’t allow ourselves to be dominated by the tyranny of the urgent.

There is a reason that good counsel suggests that we sit on our decisions for a bit.  Even sleep on it.

I recently read something that defined sadness as simply, fullness of experience.  That’s not what we usually understand as sadness.  Rather, it’s despair that defines that feeling of unrecoverable loss of hope.

Either way you describe it, most of these feelings pass, over time.  There is a renewal of hope that shines light on the shadows in most of our lives, if we don’t respond too quickly to the clouds.

I can testify that I have had moments, days, weeks, and even years of despair over this trouble or that problem.  But I have lived long enough and observed my experiences objectively after the fact, to know that usually the next day brings perspective.  Even more poignant, the next year can look massively different than that day, month, or year, of hope deferred.

We all make judgments as we make our way in life. We can be very convincing and so emphatic that our judgments are right, that it is disarming to stand in a different point of view. If we find ourselves disagreeing with an initial judgment that we’ve made, we tend to reject it in a knee-jerk reaction, without consideration of its possible merit.

What if we stood back and observed our judgments with more neutrality, dug a little deeper and saw the situation differently?  We always have options. Objectivity gives us the wherewithal to choose them. This takes practice, practice, and practice, to be conscious of different reactions to the conditions around us, and not just select the first snap judgment that occurs to us.

All too often our snap judgments are negative and carry with them some kind of rejection, hurt, or punishment. If we could only establish the habit of reacting with greater neutrality.  If we could simply observe what is happening and calmly reserve our judgment until we can separate our emotions and behave objectively.

Simply put, calm down.  Actually, it occurs to me that snap judgments are subtly different from gut reactions.  Often, when faced with a decision or a problem to be solved, we have what is known as a gut reaction, or second sense.  We feel we know what to do right away.

This can change, however, if we sit on it for a bit.  Gut reactions are sometimes reliable and wise, but other times they need a little bit of simmering to work their magic.  So why not wait a little for a more objective confirmation of your gut reaction?

The song, “What a difference a day makes,” was written in Spanish in 1934 by Mexican songwriter, Maria Grever and popularized in English by Dinah Washington in 1959.  The lyrics are a study in rhyming, and remind me of verses by Lennie Kravitz, like “yesterday I was blue, today I’m with you….”  However, what a difference a day makes, indeed.

I’m a praying woman.  I have had times of prayer where I am just lollygagging around in the presence of God, and it is truly a joyful, peaceful and uplifting moment for my soul.

After such moments, I begin to assume that life will stay just outside the realm of heaven.  But then, the next day comes and the hammer drops, and it really couldn’t be a worst day.  I never cease to wonder, what happened.

On the other hand, I’ve had bad days where I think it couldn’t get any worse, and the hits just keep on coming.  But the next day “all my troubles seem so far away,” just like Carole King sang, and those troubles have turned into, if not rainbows, then at least partly cloudy.

It occurs to me that very little in this life can be assumed accurately.  We really can’t assume that the content of our lives will be a certain way because of how it was yesterday.

Cause and effect are rarely a proven science.  There are correlations all over the creation but not much valid cause and effect.

A correlation is when something is related to something else, but it’s not proven to be a cause-effect relationship.  For example, someone may be experiencing the blues, and it is raining outside.

There is a correlation between the blues and rainy weather, when they happen at the same time.  But that doesn’t mean that the rain caused the blues.  There are other factors or variables that may have caused the blues in a single human, one of which might be clinical depression, another might be miserable circumstances, etc.  The bottom line is, we can’t blame the rain for our mood, because it didn’t necessarily cause a bad one.

“You make me so mad,” is a pretty much universal exclamation when you’re angry, and someone is nearby.  It’s an assumption of cause-and-effect.

You caused me to become angry.  When that person’s behaviors, actions or personality have irritated you doesn’t mean they made you angry.

You chose to be angry for whatever reason. That reason might be that you haven’t eaten yet and you’re hangry.  That person may have triggered you, from something in your history, but they literally did not make you angry.  That’s a correlation, not cause-and-effect.

So, give it a day, and calm down before you pop an artery.  I can almost guarantee that the next day will be different, at least a little.

“In life as in the dance, grace glides on blistered feet.” – Alice Abram

Have you ever heard someone pray, “Dear God, give me grace,” usually in exasperation?  As it turns out, we all need grace, and it’s probably operational in our lives more often than we know or acknowledge it.

You’ve also surely heard, “it could have been worse.”  That’s just another way of saying, “there but by the grace of God, go I.”

So, what is it about grace?  When I think about grace I think about the grace of God, defined as unmerited favor.  This in turn means I can make mistakes, repent, and be forgiven.  I can move on because I was given grace by God and the humans around me.

Other times when I think of grace, I think of some women named Grace.  I had a beloved Aunt Grace; my friend’s mom, Grace, who gifted her with grace; my friend Grace, whom I had the pleasure of helping out in her old age, when I was a teenager; and the famously graceful, Grace Kelly, who epitomized the word, grace.

In the biblical book of Zechariah, the people cried to the mountain of human obstacles in front of them, “Grace, grace,” in order for the mountain to turn into level ground or “a mere mole hill.”  It’s kind of peculiar that “grace” in the original Hebrew, is translated, “Beautiful, beautiful,” Why would you yell at an obstacle in your path, “Beautiful?”

That elegance which I attribute to Grace Kelly, must come from the word grace’s origins, meaning, pleasant, agreeable, kind, and objectively beautiful.   I mean, if you arrive at the base of a mountain in your way, will beauty, pleasantness, kindness, and agreeability move that thing out of your way?  It sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it?

Well, let’s return to Alice Abram’s quote at the top of this tome.  “In life as in the dance, grace glides on blistered feet.”  Think about that.  Ballet dancers notoriously end up with bloodied, blistered, deformed, and calloused feet.  But we don’t see their feet, we see them gliding effortlessly across a stage, performing physical feats that defy the usual, but make us feel that we could do the same if we tried.

That’s called grace.  Making everybody else feel like they can do it, just like you do, is a gift that anyone can give to others.

A crude way of describing grace is to say that so-and-so has the grace “to put up with” stuff that I, no way on this earth could put up with.  But, I on the other hand, can handle doing some other thing that the guy next door wouldn’t be able to cope with.  That’s grace.

I have my graces and you have yours, specific to your station, place, calling, or path.  You see, we all have difficulties, hardships, adversity, and stresses, but grace gets us through it and usually makes it look easy to everybody else.  That’s because they’re focused on their own path of ups and downs, the navigation of which makes their way look easier to us, than ours.

Marriage and parenting are useful examples of grace in the form of unmerited favor, or you could call it unconditional love.  Most of us love our children unconditionally.  We love them when they’re bad and when they’re good, when they’re naughty and nice, when they’re newborn and when they’re ripe old farts, like us in the sandwich generation.  That’s grace.

Our children do nothing to earn our love for them.  We may like them better during moments when they’ve done something that makes us proud.  But we don’t love them less when they’ve made a silly or grave mistake.  We love them through it.  We love them anyway.  That’s grace, gliding on blistered feet.

Marriages that last have grown in grace.  We spouses love each other when we’re grumpy and when we’re generous; happy and sad; pretty and pissy; rich and poor; smart and stupid; down and up.  We stay married even when there are moments when we’d rather be apart, because we know that a moment will come back around when we can’t stay apart.

“Happy marriages” make it look easy.  That’s grace, gliding on blistered feet.

Thank God for grace.  It’s the invisible quality of life that sees us through the more challenging times and makes us look beautiful doing it.  In times of ease, grace is what keeps us grateful and humble, with a beauty and wisdom which defy jealousy, hatred or wrath.  That’s grace, gliding.

I frankly didn’t know this column title was a word, until….  My bestie gave to me two books about words, among other thoughtful gifts last Christmas.  She knows me so well.  One of the books introduced to me the word, edutainment.

All I can say about those two books about words is – watch out folks.  I’ve just been charged up.  New words are my version of an EV (electric vehicle), and I’ve just been plugged in.   I thusly don’t think I’ll ever be short on ideas for columns.

Edutainment is obviously a new word which combines the words education and entertainment; which is in itself called a portmanteau, a lovely word, don’t you think?  Now that I’ve been so enlightened by this one word, edutainment, I think my entire column should be so entitled.

Besides spewing what spills out of my brain each week, I think there is a twinkle of a goal to both entertain readers of said column, and educate or prevent you all from making the same mistakes I’ve made, or feeling bad about making them.  This is pure edutainment.

The thing about education is, it’s tumbling and compounding.  You learn one thing and it tumbles into another thing, and another, and another.  As En Vogue sang in 1992, “Free your mind, and the rest will follow.”  Observations of people and the compounding generalizations we make, drawn from life experiences, is what we in our household used to call edumacation.

As to entertainment, I hope to amuse you, divert your attention from the usual, and perhaps occupy your mind agreeably for just a moment of your day.  It would honor my dad’s storytelling legacy if I were to elicit a giggle, a chuckle, even an occasional snort, when you read these articles.

Thus, you may now refer to this, my one hundred fiftieth column, as Bev’s Weekly Edutainment, or not.  You may truly do what you want with the words that I heave in your direction each week.  Of course, I’m assuming that at least everybody in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, if not the world, via Facebook “shares” on the Internet, reads my column.

I’m not much of a follower.  I’m more likely the one over to the left or the right of the pack, daydreaming and meandering around thoughts and ideas, completely oblivious to who everybody else is following.

Social media (Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter), is overflowing with people accumulating friends and followers, like possessions.   On these platforms, we share our accomplishments, best selfies, information, marketing, and some sadness with the occasional obituary or prayer request.  A simple life with a few face-to-face friends, is on the downswing, in favor of amassing unknown and distant followers and admirers.  It’s no longer the twentieth century, Dorothy.

It used to be that just Jesus had followers.  But now it’s the goal of every Brittany Ann from Butte, and Kelsey from Kansas or Lily from Los Angeles to acquire followers.  This is usually on Twitter, on which I rarely post, or Instagram, which used to be a medium for photographs, but is now a popularity contest, and I have a few followers.  I follow no one.

If “influencers,” like the Brittany’s, Kelsey’s and Lily’s of the world, can accumulate followers in the millions, they’ve arrived.  Arrived where?  Fame or better yet, celebrity.  It’s not unheard of for a little one these days to answer,” famous,” when you ask them what they want to be when they grow up.

I read that to be famous or a celebrity is to be familiar to throngs, but without proximity.  We think we “know” celebrities because of this interview, that story, and their images pasted at billboard size all over the place.  But they do not know us from Adam.  There is no reciprocity in celebrity.

I guess I’m not that interested in being famous. I’m not at all enamored with the accumulation of followers or mounting up humongous numbers of friends on social media.  I will never know millions of people in person, and that’s fine with me.  I can barely keep up with the few intimates, friends, and acquaintances I have in my life, now.

About information and education, the Internet was created to distribute information about everything, everywhere.  I think Amazon created its business model to mimic the world wide web.  Everything for everybody, all in one place.  So much information.

I wonder, is information the same as education, or knowledge, for that matter?  And, when does knowledge spill over to wisdom, or understanding?

Education is supposed to grow us into adults capable of functioning in the world around us, hopefully as contributors to a better world.  Having been so schooled, we are intended to walk the earth aware, prepared, discerning, enlightened, and more intelligent than when we were youngsters.

I received a liberal arts education, which supposedly, well, it did, broaden my understanding of a breadth and depth of information.  Brain science tells us that we retain only a fraction of all the knowledge presented to us.

However, all that information combined with experiences lived, might blessedly turn into something akin to wisdom.  I hope my words set into this format each week, contribute to your education, make you laugh or smirk, or grin or sigh, shake your head, but never turn the page too quickly. 

It’s my sincere desire that, me in the use of new or old words, and you in the acting out of those words, can together make this fireball of a planet a better place.  Cheers to another one hundred and fifty columns of edutainment.

I grew up with the picture book, The Little Engine That Could.  The story originated in the early twentieth century as a folk tale, the gist of which is optimism and fortitude.

As the story goes, all the big engines refused to come to the aid of the broken-down locomotive, pulling a long line of train cars over a mountain pass.  Only a small engine came forward to attempt the difficult rescue.

At each slow advance over difficult terrain, the little engine uttered the mantra, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”  After surmounting the journey and having reached its destination, the little engine said, “I thought I could.”

I don’t know if this folk tale enhanced an already building work ethic in me and my generation when we were youngsters, but it may well have.  We were subtly taught that we could have what we wanted if we worked hard enough.  “Anyone can become the President of the United States,” was a common theme.

I wonder, not having received what I wanted, more than a few times in my lifetime, if getting what you want is all that it’s cracked up to be.  And, watching the aging generation ahead, who raised us, not being able to do what they want is prophetically palpable.

Perhaps it keeps us grounded to not be enabled to do everything that we want to do.  I know I’ve heard it said over and over again and I’ve said it myself, “If I had a million dollars, I would….”

I wonder if those things I’d do with a million dollars would hurt or hinder who I am and who I should be.  How about, “I’d relieve your pain, your distress, your sadness, if I could.”  But, I can’t. 

There’s a saying taped to my desktop computer monitor, reinforcing the truth that I’m not God and I can’t fix everything that’s wrong in my world, as much as I want to.  “You can’t heal people you love.  You can’t make choices for them.  You can’t rescue them.  You can promise that they won’t journey alone.  You can loan them your map.  But this trip is theirs.”

It may be that we’re not meant to have everything we want, or fix everything that’s broken, for that matter.  Where would I be if I had done what I wanted, every time I wanted it?

I kind of think that when we don’t get what we want, we edit.  We use the creative juices inside us to change what we want.  How many of us, college bound had an idea what we wanted to major in?  Then, how many of us changed our minds, maybe a few times?

Picasso said, “if I don’t have red, I use blue.”  That’s optimism and fortitude as surely as is, “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”

There’s something encouraging to those of us who are losing the generation who raised us, and becoming less able to do what we want, or what we used to do, how we used to do it.  It’s the simple truth that life is ten percent what happens to us and ninety percent how we react to it. 

For example, if I can’t walk as steady on my feet as I used to, by golly I’m gonna get me a Mercedes-Benz walker and push that puppy in front of me at speed, dude.  In fact, let’s have walker races.

If I can’t eat greens, let’s try oranges.  If I’m unsteady, use it as an excuse to hold someone’s hand.  If I lose a friend, maybe I can make a new one.

It’s all a matter of attitude and that Little Engine That Could spirit of optimism, strong work ethic, and sticking to it.  “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can,” how about you?

I follow the activities of the British royals.  Some folks around the U.K. and their Commonwealth of Nations, believe the royals owe them because of the massive perks they receive in lifestyle and wealth which is way beyond what most of the populace would dream of.

I like their sense of service, born out by the concept of noblesse oblige, or nobility obliges.  They truly live to serve others.  They might perform their service in more expensive and flashier clothing than any of us might wear when in service; but service it is and for them it’s their life’s work.

Lately, I’m especially interested in Catherine, the Princess of Wales’s new Shaping Us Campaign of Early Childhood.  Much of my psychology and sociology study has focused on human development, and as it goes,” the earlier the better.”

What the Princess is trying to do with her work on this campaign is to affect the nurture part of our early years.  Presumably there’s not much we can do about what “God gave us,” or the nature part of the growth and development equation.  This is debatable, but it’s a debate for others more educated in biology than this writer.

I’m more able and willing to pontificate about nurture.   For instance, it’s observable by everyone who hasn’t lived under a rock since birth, that people love to give credit to their parents for the good stuff they “inherited,” and blame them for the bad stuff. 

It’s my personal theory that Benjamin Franklin’s statement that nothing is certain but death and taxes doesn’t go far enough.  I think the inevitables are death, taxes and blame.  Maybe not everybody succumbs, but most of us want to blame somebody for “what’s wrong,” in our lives.

I also think that there’s a third factor beyond nature and nurture, that determines who we become as adults.  It’s the trinity of me, myself, and I.  Some stuff can only be attributed to my reaction to my environment, upbringing, circumstances, beliefs-held, physiological makeup, etc.

And, funnily those traits that skip a generation or two, but someone in the misty-distant past in the line of descent, triggered the same stuff in me.  It’s called atavism, and that’s fun.

Now, I’ve clearly got some stuff from my parents.  Back in the day, my dad, a carpenter, would have been characterized a blue-collar worker vs. a suit (white-collar worker).  He worked hard and believed everybody should do the same.

I learned from Dad, a work ethic.  I will work on a hands-on project until either I’m exhausted or the job is finished.  That’s all there is to it.

Dad’s go-get ‘em physicality probably carries over into my health and workout regime.  But my doctor has worked on me for years to be aware that my mom’s diabetes might be lurking in my aura.  If I’m calling it like it is, that factors mightily into my exercise-or-diabetes fear.   Thanks doc.

It’s obvious to anyone who knew my mom and knows me that I got her sarcasm, dry sense of humor, seriousness, and tendency toward the cerebral.  These traits go together and cannot be separated, in my opinion.

I’ve always described this combo of traits as “kindly sarcasm,” not the mean stuff.  It’s best exemplified in the phrase, “are you kidding,” which is not a question but a sarcastic comment about something I think is inconceivable, unimaginable or just plain stupid.

My mom also passed along her propensity for attention to detail, to put it mildly.  She was known to write on the back of a photograph, a comprehensive biography of the person(s) pictured, including their full name of first, middle, last, married, and nickname, which resembles either that of royals or pedigree dogs entering a dog show.

You’d think that with all that detail, mom would have attended to dusting.  But, not so much.  She avoided it like the plague that it is, and so do I.  Go, mom.

My dad loved the woods.  So, do I.  I grew up with a pine forest in my back yard, oaks in the side yard, a creek down below, a corn field beside the lane, apple trees along the lane, lilacs and concord grape vines outside the back door, etc.  I like trees and quiet, vines, plants, and dirt.  Thank you, dad.

It’s not all mom and dad who bequeathed traits to the kids.  If you have older siblings, and I’m blessed with a number of them, you inherit a fair amount of stuff from them as well.  Thanks guys for your contribution to my life.  You all rock, in your own way.

How in the world did I get my unquenchable desire for travel, mostly to European or Canadian destinations?  And, I inordinately dislike collecting and hoarding stuff, to the degree that I have thrown useful stuff out or given stuff away when I later clearly could have used it, worn it, or repurposed it.

All I know is, we should all be cognizant that hand-me-downs are inevitable.  We receive traits from who they are and what they did, by example and by genes.  Importantly, however, we can choose to enhance the good stuff that we got from our parents and our culture, and we can diffuse and refuse the bad stuff. 

So, let’s just go with God, and what we’ve got.

Once upon a time I earned a bachelor of science degree in psychology, and ever since then I’ve been fascinated with the science of proving or disproving one hypothesis or another.  I continually ask, are my theories about thus and such, right or wrong?

Everybody likes to be right, but admitting you’re wrong is another matter altogether.  However, the integrity of science demands that when you’re wrong, you freely acknowledge it and explain why.  Being wrong is just as important to the advancement of knowledge as is being right.

It occurs to me that few woke folks will admit they’re wrong.  But sleepy saints are just as guilty of thinking they’re right about everything.

Admitting that we’re wrong about something is clearly an issue of humility and not with the integrity of the scientific method.  I wonder if in order for society to move forward, we need a massive infusion of humble leadership rather than throwing more and more money at our societal problems.

Is a leader who says, “I got that wrong,” and sacrificially takes measures to correct their mistakes, a more valued leader, for their humility?  Or do we prefer the leader who arrogantly plows through the will of those they represent, with their own interests for personal profit and aggrandizement?

“Am I right or am I wrong?”  This reminds me of an old blues song, but also of leaders and followers, generally; which reminds me of the metaphor of sheep and shepherds, accompanied by the well-known Psalm 23 poem by David, the Shepherd and would-be King.

I observed a Facebook post where a friend was insulted for being a dumb sheep for following a certain leader, not to the bully’s liking.  My friend defended himself with a few facts as his weapon.

My reaction to this post was readiness to fight the bully of sheep everywhere, and punch that particular bully in the face.  So much for right and wrong.

After quickly checking my fantasy-behavior, I formed a hypothesis about it not being the sheep’s fault for following the only reasonably protective shepherd they’ve had.  Instead, it’s the shepherd’s fault for leading his sheep astray.

Having had family history raising sheep, the sheep metaphors from Psalm 23 vividly instruct “we, like sheep…”.  Like most people who grew up in the church, I memorized the twenty-third Psalm at a young age.

Psalm 23 is an uncanny metaphor for people.  It’s a love poem from sheep to shepherd.  The comparisons between the behaviors and characteristics of sheep and people, shepherds and leaders, is remarkable.

The twenty-third Psalm is comforting.  Why?  Because it depicts a benevolent leader who’s got your back and will never see you hurt or in danger, without his or her support. 

It seems to me that sheep are widely disparaged for blindly following their leader, whose sole purpose is to guide, direct, coach, nurture, protect, teach, and incentivize those in their charge.  To say someone is just a dumb sheep is really telling them that they have an unworthy leader. 

Sheep are not dumb, nor are most people, but we are vulnerable creatures if not nurtured, protected, cared for and led by a loving shepherd or leader.  Maybe you’ll recognize some people you know in these sheep metaphors, from Psalm 23:

Sheep can’t raise themselves.  They need a shepherd/leader.

Sheep cannot lie down in green pastures unless they’re free of fear.  There is much to be afraid of when you have no defenses but to run.  A fearful sheep can literally run itself to death.

Sheep can literally be bugged to death with un-anointed heads.  Rest cannot come when insects are buzzing incessantly around your head.  Have you ever been “driven to distraction” by something bugging you?

Sheep are creatures of habit and if not led and managed by a kindly shepherd, will follow the same trail over and over until it’s a rut and the land is decimated.  Some of us resist change, even if it’s for the better.

On the other hand, sheep leave behind the most beneficial manure to the land, of any livestock.  They also eat all manner of weeds; so, with diligent shepherding they can renew the land on which they graze.

Rams are competitive.  They’ll butt their rivals to death, vying for top status unless a shepherd is present to put a stop to such shenanigans.

Sheep that are too fat or with bounteous wool can topple over onto their backs, called “casting,” and are unable to get up.  They will die unless rescued and shorn by their shepherd.

Most sheep resist the shearing process and the more contrary among them, receive wounds from kicking back, not knowing it’s for their safety and benefit.  You’d think they were being tortured to see a sheep being sheared.

There are always a few sheep, often ewes, that repeatedly wander away from the flock.  Such ewes teach their lambs this bad habit, putting themselves and their offspring into the dangerous position of being picked off by predators, just waiting for the opportunity.

Again and again, the attentive shepherd leaves the flock to bring these sheep back to the fold.  “We, like sheep, have gone astray, each unto his own way…”.

Realistically, we, like sheep, have to pass through the valley of adversity in order to reach the high tableland or mountain of summer delight.  However, sheep aren’t in fear of falling from the steep paths, and people aren’t afraid to make mistakes, if their shepherd and leader are within bleating distance to catch and correct them.

Sheep are visibly content, safe and loyal when the shepherd/leader is present and attentive.  An absent shepherd means unruly, unhealthy, discontented sheep that don’t thrive.

Experience teaches us that beneficial change sees its way through the moments of chaos and desperation, if you wait for it.  Let me ask this in conclusion, who’s your shepherd?  And, what kind of sheep are you?

(refer to- “A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23” by W. Phillip Keller)