I just wanna be a sheep; baa, baa, baa, baa.
That was my Sunday school jam, and I stand behind the sentiment.
I’m also occasionally interested in sheep like following along with the crowd to keep from embarrassing myself. Moving to Germany made me stand out in a lot of ways without any language ability, and now, having lost the walking ability, I tend to make a scene wherever I go. I try to just blend in as best as possible, following along the behaviors and expressions of those around me. Last night was a perfect example as I went to the 70th birthday party of my former German neighbor. Gundi is the woman who first invited me to the Kandern choir, and on Monday she was insisting to all our choir friends that I’ve dramatically improved in my mastery of the German language. Naturally, everyone agreed. Considering I started with nothing, they’ve got a point, but I still have a long way to go. This was clearly evidenced at Gundi’s birthday party where I could follow the general gist of most conversations but couldn’t catch the meaning of every word. I was particularly lost when the locals dipped into dialect. Fortunately, Helen was there to help me understand what I was missing.
I’m so grateful for this community support team that helps me to fit in with the rest of the flock when I struggle. My co-worker Jesse found another way to fit me in this last week as well. For the last few years, I’ve been the odd man out come campus beautification days, excused from duty rather than making a fool of myself showing up and being unable to help. Jesse was in charge of cleaning and organizing the art department rooms, and she told me she’d have work I’d be capable of doing. I wasn’t able to mop or move shelves, but I could sort through old art files and accomplish some of the tedious tasks that weren’t manual labor intensive.
The sheep analogy might seem like a strange fit for this reflection, but it was on my mind a lot as I looked at the little toy sheep sitting on my window sill. My friend Becki gave it to me as a reminder that I am a sheep as well as a kind of under-shepherd. Jesus called himself the Good Shepherd and demonstrated himself as worth following, so I’m a sheep that follows him. At the same time, there are people watching me, and a few of them choosing to follow my (hopefully solid) example. It’s a lot of pressure to have people follow you, and I’m reminded of my favorite professor in college who used to joke that while her colleagues cultured disciples, she created dissenters. I’m fond of her model. She knew people were watching her, so she frequently and emphatically told them to stop parroting her and to be independent thinkers instead.
Now before I go to my next example, I need to stress how much I dislike the show Rick and Morty. It’s dumb. However, many of my students love it, and a particular group of them love to quote the line, “Don’t be a sheep.” For context, the grumpy grandpa character is chastising his grandkids for not thinking for themselves which is an idea I can get behind. So while in one sense I can honestly say I just wanna be a sheep, I also can say in a different context that I don’t want to be a sheep. Jesus didn’t want stupid sheep. Fun fact: sheep are actually not dumb. They trust the shepherd, and they recognize his voice.
There’s a paradox at work as I figure out the balance between being a sheep and not being a sheep, but, hey, I’m a walking paraplegic who worships the God/man who died and rose again, so paradoxes aren’t that new to me. Neither are miracles as I head into another summer anticipating miraculous recovery. I’ve made progress in my brace-less walking, and I’m praying for more time without the braces in the coming weeks as my legs get used to this new freedom and test out their limits. Beatrice gets a little nervous, and so my left calf has had a lot of tremors the past week, but I’m hoping as the pattern of weight on the legs becomes more normal, the calf muscles will continue to relax.
