By Kay Etheredge
Jim and I returned recently from a wonderful vacation. I think I should say that we are not really vacation people. We go to the beautiful beaches of Alabama and Florida anytime we have an opportunity, but when our children were young and living at home we planned more vacations than we actually took. We planned trips out west and to Williamsburg among other places, but there seemed to always be something that took precedence over the actual going…a transmission went out on a car or something needed replacing in our home, and in a ministry home there was never enough money for repairs and trips. One year we had planned a beach trip, but the husband of a dear lady in our church became critically ill. We talked to our children about our need to postpone the trip. The following Sunday someone asked our oldest daughter “aren’t you going to the beach soon?” Her reply was “Yes ma’am, maybe, if Mr. ___ doesn’t die.”
In the past year we had a discussion with all of our children, now adults, around the table. We talked about regrets. I said one of my biggest regrets is not taking more vacations, even if we couldn’t afford it, even if the car died, or an appliance needed replacing. If I could do it over again, we’d take the trips and make the memories.
We traveled this summer to England, Scotland, and Ireland to celebrate our 40th wedding anniversary. There were so many things we saw and experienced. It truly was the trip of a lifetime. We began in Oxford and stayed in a beautiful country cottage Air B&B. The first morning there, recovering from jet lag, I went downstairs and the view that greeted me from the small kitchen was spectacular. The window was flung open and the beauty out that window took my breath. I had to go back upstairs to get my camera. Even with a photo, there was no way to capture the beauty. It was a place I didn’t want to leave. Our host brought us bread and homemade orange marmalade and cold fresh milk in a glass bottle, and we walked across a cow pasture and over footpaths to get into Oxford. We passed people older than us leisurely riding bicycles in the countryside, their dogs running joyfully beside them. The beauty of the English countryside was magical. There was a slowing that was contagious.
We traveled to Bath for a few days and there was great beauty there as well, although it was certainly less rural. We visited Skipton and Yorkshire and drove with a guide in the Yorkshire dales. There were sheep everywhere, grazing peacefully. They wandered across the tiny narrow roads and we saw colored paint on their wooly backs. Our guide explained that the sheep farmers let them graze wherever they wander, and each farmer has a different paint color. It is their mark of ownership. I studied the sheep as our guide talked about how much lamb meat is produced each year. The stunning beauty of the mountainous area, with the stone fences going as far as the eye could see, made me think of the beautiful hymn “Sheep May Safely Graze”. I got lost in the life of a sheep as we passed so many. Their lives consist of grazing, reproducing, and wandering from field to field. I wondered if they notice the great beauty around them. I wonder if they are capable of thinking or worrying. They are blissfully unaware that they bear a color of ownership, and their owner can use them for whatever purpose he chooses.
We as believers also bear marks of ownership that our Good Shepherd places on us. Our marks can be visible but often are not. Hopefully, as we go about our daily activities in the world around us, our marks of ownership will become obvious…not like colorful smears of paint on the sheep’s backs, but more in how we choose to love, to forgive, to show the love of our Shepherd to others. Our lives consist of much more than grazing, sleeping and reproducing, and hopefully our differences will stand out in the ever increasing sinfulness of the world around us.
Another big delight of our trip was to see, in the Yorkshire dales, a working sheepdog. It was fascinating. A young boy (maybe a modern day David from the Bible) rode a four wheeler out into the massive pasture. On the back rode the dog. At the boy’s command, the dog jumped off the four-wheeler, and began to herd and round up the large herd of sheep. He got them all into lines and then circled back around and ran them through the small openings in the stone fences. When he got all of them going in the right direction, he casually jumped back onto the four-wheeler with the boy and they followed behind the sheep. I probably only imagined that the dog was smiling.
A man beloved to all at BBM left the mission months ago. We consider him a dear friend. In fact, the day after our accident he stopped by our home to see how he could help. When he left the mission we were all sad, but hopeful. Slowly we lost touch, but we heard rumors that his circumstances had sent him spiraling downward. My husband and other staff members went often to try and locate him. My husband came home rejoicing one day that he had seen him, talked to him, invited him to come “home” to BBM. It reminded me of a beautiful line from The Book of the Dun Cow by Walter Wangerin, Jr., that says “lonely was lost in communion”. The friend said he has been thinking about it, and even though it isn’t what we wanted to hear, it is something, and we have prayed much for him to decide to do the next right thing. We believe that he bears a mark of ownership and that our Good Shepherd, (who can sometimes resemble the hound of Heaven), seeks to lead him into a place of peace and rest. How we long for that to happen.
As we spend more time in His Presence and in His Word, we conform more and more to His image. A line from “Sheep May Safely Graze” a hymn that returned to me over and over was “Sheep may safely graze and pasture, in a watchful Shepherd’s sight”. Maybe the key word is safely. We are never out of His watchful sight. He chooses the “paint color”, the mark that says sometimes overtly, “This one is mine”
The deepest beauty comes from resting in the awareness of His mark.