2016-12-14

sheep dog

Chris & Nerida,  thanks again for your presentation at Muster. For me a significant thing# was that story of a sheep dog*:

A sheep dog was obviously agitated when it was simply staying in the house-yard all day. Two options remained for it… the owners could let it round up the chooks all day, & thus be busy and feel ok at the end of the day; or else train it to work in tandem with it's master to actually help the master in his purposes of working with sheep, in which case there would be a process of learning to work with it’s master.


A sheep dog that was obviously
quite agitated said (some way)
that when it was at home simply
just staying in the yard all day,

it felt frustrated, in its self.
Its owners must have “heard” this too
(and had enough eggs on the shelf),
so gave it “busy work” to do:

They left the dog with all the chooks.
It rounded up the hens all day.
Though they were ragg-ed (by their looks)
and lack of eggs, the dog was gay!

It felt contented, satisfied,
had used its muscles, herded well.
Yet something in it felt denied,
after weeks (of Chickens’ Hell).

It had not heard its master's voice
or whistling, or else seen his signs,
It had not worked under the choice
of greater purposes and rhymes...


* The sheepdog story came about when our dog Hugo was running away all the time, and I was looking for a solution.  A friend told me about their friend's sheepdog that had similar probs, who they put in with the chooks etc... That's when God gave me the flash of divine insight about my busyness..." Nerida Cuddy

# On Friday as we traveled to Muster, an almost pre-formed plan came to mind as to how to maximize the Saturday arvo discussion thingo I was down to lead. It felt like God "gave" me a plan of attack to work with him. When the time came to do it on the Saturday, I mentioned the plan to everyone there, but somehow then just forgot about or ignored it. And it felt like he was saying "alright, try out your own 'un-plan'". It was horrific in terms of serving the people there well... I could see that, as I rabbited on feeling like I had to finish (my own "set task").. and horrible when compared to working with him... Anyway your story helped me to see what was happening and to focus on the core of the issue, not any of the presenting problems like my increasing speed and frustration... etc.Bless yous.

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