Sophy Burnham's Blog, page 2

The Silence of Hope

This week I want to share a letter from a young woman, only 22, who wrote a while ago about her dismay and hopelessness as she struggled for spirituality — and what happened.  Isn’t that often how it works? You are brought to your knees, and suddenly when all is lost, remember a moment that brings you to your feet again, sword in hand.  I was giving a workshop once in Russia, where a young woman angrily told me that never in her life had she ever had a hopeful experience. She didn’t believe in hope or beauty or goodness or angels (Why was she in my workshop?). This was in the early days of Glastonost, soon after the fall of the brutal Soviet Union. Her entire life, she said was bleak, black, hopeless, horrible. Suddenly, during one of my meditations, she remembered, as a child, standing on the birch strewn bank of a lake, when suddenly the air, water, trees, were afire with light, song, hope, as if she were seeing into other dimensions. She left the workshop smiling.

The letter below begins by describing the writer, then praises my A Book of Angels (and I’m so happy to be praised that I repeat her gratitude here), and finally it tells the story of when she experienced an angel. Not the sight of one, but the extra-ordinary Signs. I have other stories of the Silence she speaks of and Time-Stop.  I have experienced it myself, and it is like no other silence I know. Here is her story:

Hello,

My name is Natalina M_______. I was born into an Italian Roman Catholic Family, though my father is Scottish (hence the last name). He adapted into the (Catholic) religion and the lifestyle. I think I’ve always believed in God, and I’ve always been interested in Religion. I used to read the Bible like it was peak fiction when I was young (I guess, I still am, I’m 22 this year). 

I recently graduated University in Canada with a degree in Religious Studies. It hurt me many times. The degree was like reading a list of all the bad things in the world, beside a much smaller list, of all the good, and I wasn’t sure it could make up for the bad like everyone said it would. I questioned not if God was real, but if he was worth worshipping. I wanted to know if all those men (and even women) who asked for forgiveness while raping, molesting, abusing and murdering innocent children and women and even boys/men would really get forgiveness. God certainly wouldn’t give them mercy, would he? He couldn’t.

I like to think I’m better now, but I don’t think so. I’ve tried to give love and was used, and I feel like there’s something wrong with me for not being lustful like everyone else my age. 

I asked for “A Book of Angels” for Christmas. Even though I’ve graduated university, I continue to study religious concepts. Right now I’m particularly interested in the lore of ancient culture and the belief in a sort of magic—protective amulets, talismans, as well as the mythology of King Solomon and the demons he summoned to do his bidding—all of that led me here, to your book, to learn more about Angels. They play such a massive part in not just catholic (monotheistic) history, but all history. 

Every few pages, I have to put the book down. My eyes fill with tears and I feel like there’s hope left. I must first thank you for writing it. For forcing it into the world, because how beautiful, to be reminded that there is hope, even if you don’t have it right now. 

Secondly, I wanted to tell you a story. Because the moment I opened the book, I remembered the day I witnessed an angel save my sister.

My Grandmother, before she died of leukemia, claimed to see an angel waiting for her in the corner of the hospital room. No one else could see it, even though my mother was there. My mother told me my grandmother visited her in the house after her death as well, and I used to wonder why I’d never gotten visited. I wanted to see one too, an angel, or a ghost—anything. I didn’t need to see to believe it, I was just jealous, I think, in a childish way.

I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but my younger sister was probably around 6 or 7, so that would put me around 8 or 9. My grandfather lived a two-minute walk from our house, just outside the neighbourhood across a busy street.

In the midsummer, we were walking back from visiting him, and were quickly rushed across the street in the little break the cars had given us. There was no stop-light near by, or a safe spot in the middle of the road to pause and wait for traffic from the other direction like there is now. 

My sister’s hat flew off her head, and she turned around to grab it without thinking. Her hand slipped out of mine ,and I turned—and then the time stopped. I’m not really sure how to explain it. . . . it just . . stopped. I swear it—a car would have hit her if it hadn’y. I didn’t really see an angel, not like the white dress, long hair, sets of wings and halo. Just the time stopping, and there was this sense of calm, a patience, and I wasn’t afraid. 

I waited for my sister to pick up her hat, put it back on her head, and walk back over to me. We made it across the street safely, and then Time started up again, and the cars zipped by. I must note there was no noise either. At first I thought this was my memory failing me, but I don’t think so. Because the second she was safe, the sound came back, and I remember that sound, all the cars speeding down the hill. Over the noise, my mother scolded my sister for being so reckless. I don’t remember anything after that.

I care about my sister very much, to the point where an event like that would make me over-worried and angered as my mother was. How could she choose a hat over her own life? What a fool!  But at the time, I wasn’t scared. I’m not scared when I think of it, either, it’s so calming. Such a gentle peace in the frozen picture of my memory. I should have forgotten it, I think, but I remember exactly what happened, exactly how I felt, and I’m still so positive that she would’ve gotten hit without the angel’s intervention. An angel stopped Time for her—for us. 

I’ve never told anyone. I’ve never felt the need to tell anyone, I didn’t need justification or a second opinion. It was real to me. 

Thank you for listening. And thank you for all your hard work. 


Natalina M_____

The Silence of Hope

This week I want to share a letter from a young woman, only 22, who wrote a while ago about her dismay and hopelessness as she struggled for spirituality — and what happened.  Isn’t that often how it works? You are brought to your knees, and suddenly when all is lost, remember a moment that brings you to your feet again, sword in hand.  I was giving a workshop once in Russia, where a young woman angrily told me that never in her life had she ever had a hopeful experience. She didn’t believe in hope or beauty or goodness or angels (Why was she in my workshop?). This was in the early days of Glastonost, soon after the fall of the brutal Soviet Union. Her entire life, she said was bleak, black, hopeless, horrible. Suddenly, during one of my meditations, she remembered, as a child, standing on the birch strewn bank of a lake, when suddenly the air, water, trees, were afire with light, song, hope, as if she were seeing into other dimensions. She left the workshop smiling.

The letter below begins by describing the writer, then praises my A Book of Angels (and I’m so happy to be praised that I repeat her gratitude here), and finally it tells the story of when she experienced an angel. Not the sight of one, but the extra-ordinary Signs. I have other stories of the Silence she speaks of and Time-Stop.  I have experienced it myself, and it is like no other silence I know. Here is her story:

Hello,

My name is Natalina M_______. I was born into an Italian Roman Catholic Family, though my father is Scottish (hence the last name). He adapted into the (Catholic) religion and the lifestyle. I think I’ve always believed in God, and I’ve always been interested in Religion. I used to read the Bible like it was peak fiction when I was young (I guess, I still am, I’m 22 this year).

I recently graduated University in Canada with a degree in Religious Studies. It hurt me many times. The degree was like reading a list of all the bad things in the world, beside a much smaller list, of all the good, and I wasn’t sure it could make up for the bad like everyone said it would. I questioned not if God was real, but if he was worth worshipping. I wanted to know if all those men (and even women) who asked for forgiveness while raping, molesting, abusing and murdering innocent children and women and even boys/men would really get forgiveness. God certainly wouldn’t give them mercy, would he? He couldn’t.

I like to think I’m better now, but I don’t think so. I’ve tried to give love and was used, and I feel like there’s something wrong with me for not being lustful like everyone else my age.

I asked for “A Book of Angels” for Christmas. Even though I’ve graduated university, I continue to study religious concepts. Right now I’m particularly interested in the lore of ancient culture and the belief in a sort of magic—protective amulets, talismans, as well as the mythology of King Solomon and the demons he summoned to do his bidding—all of that led me here, to your book, to learn more about Angels. They play such a massive part in not just catholic (monotheistic) history, but all history.

Every few pages, I have to put the book down. My eyes fill with tears and I feel like there’s hope left. I must first thank you for writing it. For forcing it into the world, because how beautiful, to be reminded that there is hope, even if you don’t have it right now.

Secondly, I wanted to tell you a story. Because the moment I opened the book, I remembered the day I witnessed an angel save my sister.

My Grandmother, before she died of leukemia, claimed to see an angel waiting for her in the corner of the hospital room. No one else could see it, even though my mother was there. My mother told me my grandmother visited her in the house after her death as well, and I used to wonder why I’d never gotten visited. I wanted to see one too, an angel, or a ghost—anything. I didn’t need to see to believe it, I was just jealous, I think, in a childish way.

I can’t remember exactly how old I was, but my younger sister was probably around 6 or 7, so that would put me around 8 or 9. My grandfather lived a two-minute walk from our house, just outside the neighbourhood across a busy street.

In the midsummer, we were walking back from visiting him, and were quickly rushed across the street in the little break the cars had given us. There was no stop-light near by, or a safe spot in the middle of the road to pause and wait for traffic from the other direction like there is now.

My sister’s hat flew off her head, and she turned around to grab it without thinking. Her hand slipped out of mine ,and I turned—and then the time stopped. I’m not really sure how to explain it. . . . it just . . stopped. I swear it—a car would have hit her if it hadn’y. I didn’t really see an angel, not like the white dress, long hair, sets of wings and halo. Just the time stopping, and there was this sense of calm, a patience, and I wasn’t afraid.

I waited for my sister to pick up her hat, put it back on her head, and walk back over to me. We made it across the street safely, and then Time started up again, and the cars zipped by. I must note there was no noise either. At first I thought this was my memory failing me, but I don’t think so. Because the second she was safe, the sound came back, and I remember that sound, all the cars speeding down the hill. Over the noise, my mother scolded my sister for being so reckless. I don’t remember anything after that.

I care about my sister very much, to the point where an event like that would make me over-worried and angered as my mother was. How could she choose a hat over her own life? What a fool!  But at the time, I wasn’t scared. I’m not scared when I think of it, either, it’s so calming. Such a gentle peace in the frozen picture of my memory. I should have forgotten it, I think, but I remember exactly what happened, exactly how I felt, and I’m still so positive that she would’ve gotten hit without the angel’s intervention. An angel stopped Time for her—for us.

I’ve never told anyone. I’ve never felt the need to tell anyone, I didn’t need justification or a second opinion. It was real to me.

Thank you for listening. And thank you for all your hard work.

Natalina M_____

The post The Silence of Hope appeared first on Author Sophy Burnham.

And one more. Thinking about death.

After my last post, about the two angels in clouds, I came across a (lost) email that was sent to me a while ago. The writer has given me permission to use it. Who knows how many have seen angels in the sky or with their spiritual eye? Who knows how many times the angels come in our despair and we miss it? My apologies that the image does not recreate well: I can’t get it to show the original blue, blue of the sky, the white, white of the angel. Scroll down to see her comforting Toni the day after Jan 6 two years ago.

From Toni:

Subject Angels

Dear Sophy, recently I found myself thinking about what happens after death and feeling so agitated about not having any positive or hopeful feeling about it. I have believed in angels for a long time though. That same day this picture showed up randomly on my phone. It’s a picture I took the day after January six when I was outside in my hot tub thinking about the events of January sixth. On that day I spent the afternoon praying and picturing angels at the capital building to help. When I saw this Angel in the sky I was filled with joy, such a feeling. Seeing the picture pop up like that made me think of The Book of Angels which I used to own but gave to a granddaughter a few years ago. So I found the book on line and got it today. I love this book and now I can read your other books, too. Thank you. Toni Foltz, retired public school teacher from Toledo Ohio

Date: June 17, 2023 at 1:34:15 PM EDT

To: sophyburnham@gmail.com

Two Angels

Sometimes when you are feeling discouraged and very low, or when you think you are alone in the world, something catches your eye — and it needn’t even be anything magnificent, but suddenly your heart opens. Sometimes you see it (whatever “it” is, hope, joy, calm) in the clouds. You know it’s just a cloud, but it feels like a message. How to explain the sense you are cared for, that everything will be all right? Suddenly, in the words of St. Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well.”

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The post Two Angels appeared first on Author Sophy Burnham.

Two Angels

Sometimes when you are feeling discouraged and very low, or when you think you are alone in the world, something catches your eye — and it needn’t even be anything magnificent, but suddenly your heart opens. Sometimes you see it (whatever “it” is, hope, joy, calm) in the clouds. You know it’s just a cloud, but it feels like a message. How to explain the sense you are cared for, that everything will be all right? Suddenly, in the words of St. Julian of Norwich, “All shall be well, and all shall be well. All manner of thing shall be well.”

The Heroine’s Journey

The other day I was interviewed by Susanna Liller for her YouTube series on the Heroine’s Journey. What fun! Here is the link:  https://youtu.be/n5E5kUy-Pzc. .

I think we are all on a Hero’s (or Heroine’s) Journey, all our lives long. We are always in transition — from infancy to adolescence to adulthood to aging, and then on into the Great Mystery. (Those who report Near Death Experiences all agree that THIS part is wonder-full—wondrous, exciting, warm, welcoming, loving; a Coming Home; the Beloved running to meet us, arms outstretched.) For more about NDEs, look at the link below.

Right now I’m in another Heroine’s Journey transition, as I sell my Washington DC apartment and move permanently (as much as anything is permanent in this temporary world) to Massachusetts. Leaving Washington, my home since 1958, where my family has lived for 300 years, where every alley holds memories—has been physically exhausting and emotionally and spiritually harder than I imagined. Letting go. Giving up. Giving away. Moving on. So here I am at another step on the Heroine’s Journey.

The podcast audio version on her website is: https://susanna-e-liller.mykajabi.com/podcasts/the-real-life-heroine-s-journey-podcast

It’s not easy. How do you recognize a “Knowing,” the subtle guidance of intuition? How do you learn to trust the Still, Small Voice of God, the nudge toward a new path? The first part of your life seems to be about acquiring abilities, confidence and Stuff, and the second about shedding them. I wrote about this in my novel, The President’s Angel, a book I’m sure was dictated, “channeled,” since it speaks so profoundly of things I don’t even know. It’s the story of a President of the United States who sees an angel; and the course of history is changed. The book offers a plot interrupted by “commentaries” on what is happening on this strange planet where we find ourselves. In one passage I found myself writing about loss.

‘In those days people were terrified of nuclear war. It had become a metaphor for the terror of their souls. . . . As soon as people named something of value, they found they were afraid of losing it. The more they valued it, and the more precious it appeared to them, the more they feared its loss, which would bring that sharp reminder of the void. Yet life is nothing but loss, beginning with the loss of the darkness at birth, when comfort explodes into pain, then the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, the loss of friends, the loss of much-loved animals, of brothers, mother, father, the loss of investments, the loss of homes with their creaking floorboards and cribs and cozy nooks, the loss of jobs, the loss of dreams, and the repeated loss of self-esteem, and always hanging over them the loss that would be produced by their own death, the loss of the self that they would not even have gotten to know before it would be gone. Which to say, the loss and extinction of the whole subjective world.”

There is also a freedom in loss, in letting go. but the freedom also requires trust. Do I trust that the Universe is on my side? Do I trust the goodness of the spiritual dimension? Do I trust myself? Forgive my fears, my blunders and human nature? Here are many YouTubes on NDE’s that put things into perspective. For the truth is, there is no loss. There’s always MORE!

As for NDE’s, look at the wonderful book by Barbara Bradley Haggerty’s FingerPrints of God. I’m especially taken by the story about the woman, blind since birth, who died during surgery, then came back to tell the surgeon everything she had seen and heard, including all the colors! Or Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eban Alexander, a neurosurgeon who was in a coma for a week and even brain dead, yet came back to report what he had seen. Or this which is only one of many others on the web:
(1) DR MARY NEAL AMAZING NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE – YouTube

The fact is, we are ALL on The Hero’s Journey, the Heroine’s Journey. It’s called life.

 

The post The Heroine’s Journey appeared first on Author Sophy Burnham.

The Heroine’s Journey

The other day I was interviewed by Susanna Liller for her YouTube series on the Heroine’s Journey. What fun! Here is the link:  https://youtu.be/n5E5kUy-Pzc. .

I think we are all on a Hero’s (or Heroine’s) Journey, all our lives long. We are always in transition — from infancy to adolescence to adulthood to aging, and then on into the Great Mystery. (Those who report Near Death Experiences all agree that THIS part is wonder-full—wondrous, exciting, warm, welcoming, loving; a Coming Home; the Beloved running to meet us, arms outstretched.) For more about NDEs, look at the link below.

Right now I’m in another Heroine’s Journey transition, as I sell my Washington DC apartment and move permanently (as much as anything is permanent in this temporary world) to Massachusetts. Leaving Washington, my home since 1958, where my family has lived for 300 years, where every alley holds memories—has been physically exhausting and emotionally and spiritually harder than I imagined. Letting go. Giving up. Giving away. Moving on. So here I am at another step on the Heroine’s Journey.

The podcast audio version on her website is: https://susanna-e-liller.mykajabi.com/podcasts/the-real-life-heroine-s-journey-podcast

It’s not easy. How do you recognize a “Knowing,” the subtle guidance of intuition? How do you learn to trust the Still, Small Voice of God, the nudge toward a new path? The first part of your life seems to be about acquiring abilities, confidence and Stuff, and the second about shedding them. I wrote about this in my novel, The President’s Angel, a book I’m sure was dictated, “channeled,” since it speaks so profoundly of things I don’t even know. It’s the story of a President of the United States who sees an angel; and the course of history is changed. The book offers a plot interrupted by “commentaries” on what is happening on this strange planet where we find ourselves. In one passage I found myself writing about loss.

‘In those days people were terrified of nuclear war. It had become a metaphor for the terror of their souls. . . . As soon as people named something of value, they found they were afraid of losing it. The more they valued it, and the more precious it appeared to them, the more they feared its loss, which would bring that sharp reminder of the void. Yet life is nothing but loss, beginning with the loss of the darkness at birth, when comfort explodes into pain, then the loss of childhood, the loss of innocence, the loss of friends, the loss of much-loved animals, of brothers, mother, father, the loss of investments, the loss of homes with their creaking floorboards and cribs and cozy nooks, the loss of jobs, the loss of dreams, and the repeated loss of self-esteem, and always hanging over them the loss that would be produced by their own death, the loss of the self that they would not even have gotten to know before it would be gone. Which to say, the loss and extinction of the whole subjective world.”

There is also a freedom in loss, in letting go. but the freedom also requires trust. Do I trust that the Universe is on my side? Do I trust the goodness of the spiritual dimension? Do I trust myself? Forgive my fears, my blunders and human nature? Here are many YouTubes on NDE’s that put things into perspective. For the truth is, there is no loss. There’s always MORE!

As for NDE’s, look at the wonderful book by Barbara Bradley Haggerty’s FingerPrints of God. I’m especially taken by the story about the woman, blind since birth, who died during surgery, then came back to tell the surgeon everything she had seen and heard, including all the colors! Or Proof of Heaven by Dr. Eban Alexander, a neurosurgeon who was in a coma for a week and even brain dead, yet came back to report what he had seen. Or this which is only one of many others on the web:
(1) DR MARY NEAL AMAZING NEAR DEATH EXPERIENCE – YouTube

The fact is, we are ALL on The Hero’s Journey, the Heroine’s Journey. It’s called life.

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Keep My Sheep

Occasionally I get a letter (imagine that!) or an email so evocative that I can’t stop thinking about it, like the one I’m about to tell you about concerning sheep. The only thing I know about sheep is that my horse refuses to step one hoof into a  pasture that contains these white, strange-smelling aliens that dash nervously away, ears pricked and tails twitching, as they scramble into the safety of their flock, bumping deeper into the middle at sight of my threatening horse.

Or I think of the Bible, both the Hebrew and the New Testament with its images that we are the sheep of a loving God. Who does not love the 23rd psalm, in which the shepherd leads his flock into green pastures beside still waters and even safely through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, guiding them with his shepherd’s rod?  I used to sit in church, even as a child, comforted by this image of myself, the lovable lamb.  In the National Cathedral in Washington, my favorite Chapel of the Good Shepherd is so small that it can hold only two or three people; and it’s best if you are all alone in a one-person pew to gaze at the stone carving of Jesus cradling a lamb in his arms,  looking down at it, loving it.

It’s metaphor for how we, too, are loved and cared for by the Shepherd. Until we remember that the lamb will be slaughtered in the springtime, as was the Lamb of God, His Son, Jesus.  A tremor runs through me, therefore, considering sheep and my associations with lamb chops and butchery.  So it was a pleasure to receive the following letter, inspired by my blog, which the writer has kindly given me permission to reprint.  I had no idea that being with sheep, like therapy horses, helps heal the traumatized and lost. I had no idea that sheep were affectionate, or smart.  You see I’ve never known a sheep. There’s so much I don’t know.

    I too, have loved an Arabian horse, thank you so much for your (as usual) lucid, helpful writing. Although I am not a very good rider (My husband is the horseman–we had won him in a raffle and trained him as a young colt, then a gelding, then sold him to a family who would love and appreciate him because we lost our nearby boarding stable.) Blowing air gently back and forth and the grooming, leading, talking, feeding, formed a strong attachment and I still think of him nearly 30 years later, long after he died. For this past 10 years we have bred and shown Shetland Sheep. They are every bit as smart and loving as horses. It is a scientifically proven fact that herd animals have larger brains relative to their body size than animals that are not as social. The theory is that they need more brain to store and use all the social cues to function in a flock or a herd.

      Our sheep adopted us into their flock. They come to us voluntarily and they talk with us in the same gentle chortlings that lambs and ewes only use for each other during their bonding process. As we age and grow too sore in body, we must downsize and quit keeping rams and quit breeding and showing. We have young granddaughters miles and miles away in San Francisco and older grand children in Colorado and Wyoming whose lives we need to be part of, too. So we are very carefully downsizing the flock, trying to make sure at least two go together and that they go to loving homes that will give them good care. Dispersing a flock of sheep is a huge responsibility, at least in order to do it well, in a way that the sheep will thrive–they cannot be healthy without being part of a flock. For us as well, as adopted members of their flock, it is very hard emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, to part with them. 

     Friends sometimes bring us loved ones who are in a streak of bad luck or illness, just so they can spend time with the sheep. They report that their loved ones spend a huge amount of time talking excitedly on the way home about how good, how healing, it was to be with the sheep.    

      So, we have pretty much decided to just stop breeding them, not to keep rams, and to keep the sweetest older ewes around for pets and therapy. Recently some of our sheep have won some big, competitive shows; we show to learn and to make sure we are in compliance with the breed standard. Although my husband is competitive and enjoys handling them and winning shows immensely, I consider my greatest achievement as a Shepherd was being smart enough to sell a ewe lamb and donate another to a ranch in Western Wisconsin, near the Twin Cities, that keeps Therapy animals of all types. Kids from the Inner City as well as disabled people come to visit them and the sheep are among their favorites. We have tried to tame and halter-train most of our lambs before they go to their new homes, because one never knows who they will end up helping. A friend of ours, another Shetland Sheep breeder, had grand-daughters who raised an orphaned Shetland bottle lamb in the house in diapers.  Now they dress her in a tutu and take her to nearby nursing homes, where the sheep loves being petted and socializing. Most commonly asked question when their now grown-up but still small ewe in her tutu first meets someone is, “What kind of dog is THAT?”

Her letter shifts my distrust.  I remember the comfort I’ve always taken from the psalms, and from the words Christ spoke in the Gospel of John, “Keep my sheep,” he admonished Peter before leaving his gang for the last time. “Feed my sheep.” Meaning us. Meaning me. Meaning all of us who need to be loved so much. Meaning become the shepherd, all of us sheep.

The post Keep My Sheep appeared first on Author Sophy Burnham.

Keep My Sheep

  Occasionally I get a letter (imagine that!) or an email so evocative that I can’t stop thinking about it, like the one I’m about to tell you about concerning sheep. The only thing I know about sheep is that my horse refuses to step one hoof into a  pasture that contains these white, strange-smelling aliens that dash nervously away, ears pricked and tails twitching, as they scramble into the safety of their flock, bumping deeper into the middle at sight of my threatening horse.

   Or I think of the Bible, both the Hebrew and the New Testament with its images that we are the sheep of a loving God. Who does not love the 23rd psalm, in which the shepherd leads his flock into green pastures beside still waters and even safely through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, guiding them with his shepherd’s rod?  I used to sit in church, even as a child, comforted by this image of myself, the lovable lamb.  In the National Cathedral in Washington, my favorite Chapel of the Good Shepherd is so small that it can hold only two or three people; and it’s best if you are all alone in a one-person pew to gaze at the stone carving of Jesus cradling a lamb in his arms,  looking down at it, loving it. 

    It’s metaphor for how we, too, are loved and cared for by the Shepherd. Until we remember that the lamb will be slaughtered in the springtime, as was the Lamb of God, His Son, Jesus.  A tremor runs through me, therefore, considering sheep and my associations with lamb chops and butchery.  So it was a pleasure to receive the following letter, inspired by my blog, which the writer has kindly given me permission to reprint.  I had no idea that being with sheep, like therapy horses, helps heal the traumatized and lost. I had no idea that sheep were affectionate, or smart.  You see I’ve never known a sheep. There’s so much I don’t know.  

    I too, have loved an Arabian horse, thank you so much for your (as usual) lucid, helpful writing. Although I am not a very good rider (My husband is the horseman–we had won him in a raffle and trained him as a young colt, then a gelding, then sold him to a family who would love and appreciate him because we lost our nearby boarding stable.) Blowing air gently back and forth and the grooming, leading, talking, feeding, formed a strong attachment and I still think of him nearly 30 years later, long after he died. For this past 10 years we have bred and shown Shetland Sheep. They are every bit as smart and loving as horses. It is a scientifically proven fact that herd animals have larger brains relative to their body size than animals that are not as social. The theory is that they need more brain to store and use all the social cues to function in a flock or a herd.

      Our sheep adopted us into their flock. They come to us voluntarily and they talk with us in the same gentle chortlings that lambs and ewes only use for each other during their bonding process. As we age and grow too sore in body, we must downsize and quit keeping rams and quit breeding and showing. We have young granddaughters miles and miles away in San Francisco and older grand children in Colorado and Wyoming whose lives we need to be part of, too. So we are very carefully downsizing the flock, trying to make sure at least two go together and that they go to loving homes that will give them good care. Dispersing a flock of sheep is a huge responsibility, at least in order to do it well, in a way that the sheep will thrive–they cannot be healthy without being part of a flock. For us as well, as adopted members of their flock, it is very hard emotionally, psychologically, spiritually, to part with them. 

     Friends sometimes bring us loved ones who are in a streak of bad luck or illness, just so they can spend time with the sheep. They report that their loved ones spend a huge amount of time talking excitedly on the way home about how good, how healing, it was to be with the sheep.    

      So, we have pretty much decided to just stop breeding them, not to keep rams, and to keep the sweetest older ewes around for pets and therapy. Recently some of our sheep have won some big, competitive shows; we show to learn and to make sure we are in compliance with the breed standard. Although my husband is competitive and enjoys handling them and winning shows immensely, I consider my greatest achievement as a Shepherd was being smart enough to sell a ewe lamb and donate another to a ranch in Western Wisconsin, near the Twin Cities, that keeps Therapy animals of all types. Kids from the Inner City as well as disabled people come to visit them and the sheep are among their favorites. We have tried to tame and halter-train most of our lambs before they go to their new homes, because one never knows who they will end up helping. A friend of ours, another Shetland Sheep breeder, had grand-daughters who raised an orphaned Shetland bottle lamb in the house in diapers.  Now they dress her in a tutu and take her to nearby nursing homes, where the sheep loves being petted and socializing. Most commonly asked question when their now grown-up but still small ewe in her tutu first meets someone is, “What kind of dog is THAT?”

    Her letter shifts my distrust.  I remember the comfort I’ve always taken from the psalms, and from the words Christ spoke in the Gospel of John, “Keep my sheep,” he admonished Peter before leaving his gang for the last time. “Feed my sheep.” Meaning us. Meaning me. Meaning all of us who need to be loved so much. Meaning become the shepherd, all of us sheep. 

Grief

I haven’t written on this site in many weeks. I had nothing to say, as I reeled from the loss of three people in three weeks. Grief is so close to depression, you hardly know what’s come over you, and it takes time to heal. I say “you.”  I mean me, of course, but maybe it relates to you, too.  You have to tell me, because right now I feel the ground still rocking, unstable, underfoot.  What have I to share? In grief, one sees through a veil; everything seems dulled: color, music, friendships. I have to remind myself to laugh, and all the time, I beat myself up for not feeling upbeat, happy, optimistic, and especially for having lost my way spiritually.  Where is God? The best I can do is to comfort myself that all things change, that everything is temporary, including life itself.

“Out, out, brief candle,” says Macbeth, on the death of his wife:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player,
that struts and frets its hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more.It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing.

Is it true? Is there really no meaning? That’s what it feels like, and where is my generous spirituality in this?  Sometimes you cling with all ten claws to faith alone, trying to remember those times when you saw and heard the angels sing, when your heart leapt up with joy at the beauty of a tree or horse or the eyes of a friend. That’s what faith means.  That you can’t see “IT” anymore (whatever “it” is) — but you remember having seen it once (or many times!), and you cling to hope and faith.  You cling to faith that you are still loved, and that you still love, even when you don’t feel loving. You return to the cold comfort of intellect.  “We do not see things as they are,” according to the Talmud, “We see them as we are.”  Perhaps you remember St. Paul, “We walk by faith, not by sight.” You remember that grief itself is a poignant expression of love, and the deeper the grief, the deeper the love. I say you. I mean me.

When signs of the spiritual are absent, I walk by faith alone, by the memory of blessings poured upon me earlier, or of felix culpa moments, in which terrible things turned out serendipidously in my favor.  In grief, I walk by faith, praying, and then one day, I know, I’ll begin to blink my spiritual eyes again.

It just takes time. Grief is just another of these life-long journeys into love.

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