Hello Peeps,
It’s time to share some moments together in the pastures of our lives. Yes, it is Wednesday already. So here we are in each other’s inbox.
Have you ever studied something extensively and realized at some point you need to review the basics again? Sometimes that happens when we help kids with their homework and we learn or re-learn the basic rules of phonics or math or grammar!
That is why I am calling this Shepherding 101 or the basics of care-full shepherding.
Our daughter and her husband have two very large and amazing German Shepherds. These dogs have the basics down for shepherding!
Shira (the aging one . . . kind of like Solomon) and Jordie (younger and energetic like SJ) . . . warmly greet you (if you are known by them) when you arrive and they keep track of where you are after that!
It occurs to me they can teach us the basics of Shepherding:
1. They are truly happy, even excited to welcome you. They warmly greet you. They obviously know you. You are part of their charge of care.
2. Once that greeting is over they hang around but seem to let you do what you need to do while they have half an eye on you even if it seems their are asleep. They are alert to your presence and well being.
3. Should you try to leave, they are up and ready to prevent you from leaving. They bark and bark as if to say, “Please don’t leave! Please don’t leave!”
Teachers, parents, leaders, and CEO’s do well to remember these basics. And if we do these things we enter a special space in each other’s hearts. We don’t have to do it perfectly. We don’t have to hover, micro manage, or spend hours obsessing over perfection.
I admire and am humbled as our daughter and her husband do these things well. They are teaching their children to warmly greet everyone as they come to their home. Then to go about living and experiencing life and life’s lessons with us when we are there. And finally, no matter where the kids are in play or preoccupation, they are called to hug us good-bye when we leave. Meanwhile, although they may not fully understand this yet, the kids are clearly learning that they are loved by many and are part of a larger community of shepherds who care for them too.
Finally, we can take this to heart in many roles. for example, a bus driver who warmly greets kids at the beginning of their day and wishes them a good farewell at the end of their school day is often a well loved bus driver. Nurses and doctors who have the art of warm welcome set the stage for trust and care. Teachers who greet their students with warmth and send them off with encouragement do the same.
These basics I speak of are close to my heart of late. I have been struck by love during a messy time in our TSJ headquarters. God’s love. Your love. Tom’s love. And our children’s love. And this love has lifted us, held us, and even carried us over rough terrain.
Like the ancient psalmist wrote so poignantly, life in the pastures is doggone tough. Some days we utter wails of loneliness, fear, doubt, like a baby wails for its mother or father. Some days we dance like we have never danced before and spring forth in song and praise. Some days we find peace and shelter under “the wings of the Almighty.”
But shepherding is love in action. It consists of all aspects of life.
Big Solomon and his junior are sitting right next to each other beside me here on the desk. What a symbol of life’s journey. Almost like the birth of wonder and the aging of wisdom . . . right here.
Ot maybe like the basics of shepherding: welcoming each other excitedly, sharing lessons in the pastures with each other, and weeping when one must leave for a time.
Speaking of leaving, I have to run now in our pastures. Tom has radiation treatments and his latest phase of healing has also brought oxygen tanks into our home and some antibiotics for a bacterial pneumonia that lurks in his lungs.
We can do this feeling grace and hope because we have a Shepherd that knows you and knows us. And our One Shepherd allows us to do what we must but always with an all-eeing watchful eye on each of us . . . just in case we need help.
Happy shepherding! Keeping it basic. Not perfect.