It was June 2004, we were passing through the Cotswold Hills, South Western England, (famous for its Cotswold sheep). Ben was driving with his mum alongside him in the front, both enjoying the others company, while I huddled grumpily in the back with my bout of Bell's Palsy. I wasn't seeing very well but I did notice a man working with his sheep in a makeshift holding yard and race. This was going on quite close to the road so I called a halt in order to have a closer look and perchance a chat with the man. I watched for a while. He appeared to be crutching his little captives, for their own good of course, though they seemed singularly unimpressed. When each one was done, he or she was free to make their way out through the race, a narrow outlet that could be blocked by the body of the man. As glad as the sheep were to find their own personal little ordeal over, the little outlet seemed to hold some imagined danger resulting in the race becoming choked up with a few timidly reluctant escapees.
The man was encouraging them one by one, saying, "Come on, be bold, be bold"
I didn't think much about this at the time, but asked the man when he expected to shear the sheep, to which he replied, "I hope to do so within a couple of weeks".
I returned to my back seat, and to my grumpy seclusion, considering the evident danger of blowfly strike in the mild English summer even though the sheep would be completely shorn in the not too distant future.
It was only many months later that my mind returned to the man encouraging the inmates to "be bold, be bold", realizing that this was indeed the "key verse" to the little parable enacted out before me that day in the Cotswolds.
The Good shepherd is often quoted as saying, "It's me, don't be afraid" or "Don't be afraid, it will be all right".
The Holy Spirit seems to give similar promptings in all different kinds of setting and circumstances.
My father was a kind of under shepherd to me, his shepherding methods changed as I grew older, the more capable I became the more he took his hand off me.
He was always encouraging and affirming. He used to say, "Don, life is like a game of cricket, you might go out for a duck or you might make a hundred, so you should go out intending to hit up a hundred" I used to have the feeling that to hit up a hundred one made a lot of money!
When he was asked by the older children why I was treated so well, his reply was that he had learned a lot by the time he got to me. I am still thankful for that.
The words of an old Western Song from my boyhood comes to mind.
Home, home on the range
Where the deer and the antelope play
Where seldom is heard
A discouraging word
And the skies are not cloudy all day.