A Drink

I was thinking more about the metaphor of the Lord is my shepherd. I really like the idea that God leads me to places where the water is quiet. I know that some people are really talented in business and succeed well in a capitalist system. But sometimes I feel like a sheep who doesn’t even know were to go to get a drink.

I imagine that a sheep that is out in the field might think that the food is good and it would eat gladly. At some point the sheep would find a dryer patch of grass and start to get thirsty. I can totally see the sheep starting to get worried because its thirst is growing. It might raise its head and ask its neighbor, “Are you thirsty, because I am?” The neighbor might reply, “A little.” The first sheep would start to get nervous and the next thing it would know the flock would be moving. It might start to freak out thinking, “Where is everyone going? I need to get to some water.” A little later it would find itself next to a calm stream drinking. Chill out Bway, Bway, a cool drink is coming.

The Path

I went to college in the cold town of Gunnison, Colorado. Except for a rare event, when the snow thickly covered the ground it stayed throughout the duration of winter. During such a winter the snow blanketed a field that separated multiple buildings on the campus of the college I attended. Like ants following a scent, the students followed the same path across this field.

In the summer, although there were not regular classes, enough students took the path that their shoed feet wore away the grass down to the dirt. Each summer the grounds crew re-sod the path and posted barriers with the intention to deter people from walking the path. This never worked.

Fresh snow kept summer-shoed students from walking the path, but only until someone came who didn’t mind the cold slosh of wet shoes or until someone came with boots fit for pounding down virgin snow. Once the path was made, enough feet trod it so that snow was smooth hard and slick. When a line of student were on the path they looked like cows who make the same kind of paths through the snow to their food source.

This snow path was great, except for two problems that came with it. The first was, as I said, the path was slick so that if your foot hit the edge of the path it would slide down into the powder, filling your shoe with snow destined to melt and soak your foot. The second problem was when I was traveling one way on the path and another person was traveling the other. This wouldn’t be a problem on a wide path but this path was as narrow as two shoe widths. One beautiful time my opponent quickly chose the powder and let me continue with dry shoes. But then there was the time when the motivation of Robert Frost, to chose the road less traveled, was not strong enough, and my opponent was not straying. Neither I nor my opponent wanted wet shoes. With out pausing we grew closer to each other. It was a game of winter- snow- path chicken. This second problem was once avoided by someone who stomped down a diversion. I walked out onto the other path and everything was fine. But this time the other path was too far away. I lost the game. Admitting that I was a chicken I tried to tell myself that I did the right thing over the complaining shout of my cold feet.

Like Sheep

I love the metaphor of the Lord is my shepherd. It paints such a tangible picture of the relationship between a believer and God. One aspect of this picture is the sheep.

We really are like sheep. I have heard that sheep will follow a leader off of a cliff. This idea brings to mind all of the odd groups, and many cults that are lead into cliff like situations.

Do you remember the people that were obsessed with the hail-bop comet? In one sense, it seems like these groups are indicting believers along with themselves, after all, the bible has some very strong and controversial things in it. I guess that a initial response would be to play down these elements. But the problem seems to me to be that people are following something other than the shepherd. To play down the bible would make it seem that the problem is whether or not the leader or teaching is popular or common. If you look at champions of the truth throughout history, many were indicted in their respective context. So it seems that the strong controversial aspects of these groups is not necessarily the problem, but that these groups are not based in truth. They are not following the truth who is the shepherd.