Lambs in Raincoats

Last night’s news featured the rain – pictures of floods across the country, interviewing folks with flooded homes, forecasts of further rain, warning of more floods… There were young lambs wearing plastic raincoats; a farmer explaining their necessity… keeping lambs warm and dry… Apparently these raincoats also scare off foxes!          

As a very young child I knew three stories about sheep and lambs… On ‘Listen with Mother’ I heard:

Mary had a little lamb
Its fleece was white as snow
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go

He followed her to school one day
Which was against the rule
It made the children laugh and play
To see a lamb at school

I imagined Mary with her lamb at the shops, in the school playground, sitting at a desk…

I also knew:

Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep
And doesn’t know where to find them
Leave them alone, and they’ll come home
Bringing their tails behind them.

Bo Peep didn’t seem worried by her lost sheep, and didn’t seem inclined to do anything about it…

The first book I learnt to read was ‘The Little Black Lamb’. It was Jesus’ story of a shepherd who loses a little lamb. He leaves his flock of sheep, searching everywhere for his lamb. Eventually he’s overjoyed to find the lost lamb…

There was Mary’s comedy, Bo Peep’s carelessness and Jesus’ compassion.

I grew older… Some churches had a ‘Pastor’. My schoolboy Latin taught me that ‘pastor’ was the Latin for ‘shepherd’. Jesus was the Good Shepherd; pastors followed His example, caring for their flock, leading them, providing them with good ‘pastures’.

I became a teacher… In school we focused on ‘pastoral care’. We weren’t just providers of information or skills. We were shepherds, knowing our ‘sheep’, caring for them, providing for their needs.

Musing… on pastoring in churches and schools… on my ‘pastoral’ responsibilities today… whether they’re a comedy, care-less or compassionate… whether there are lambs that need pasture or a raincoat…