The Sheep at the Edge of the Field
There was once a sheep who puzzled the flock. Every morning when the sheep arose, while the others gathered into a neat little cloud of wool, the sheep would smile politely, nibble a few bites of grass, and then wander twenty feet away, distracted by the complexity of the world.
Sometimes the flock would whisper about this sheep
“Is she lonely?”
“Does she think she’s better than us?”
“Does she even go here”
The sheep would hear the whispers and wonder, “do I not belong here?” So she would trot back into the middle of the flock and try her best to stay in line with the flock.
Before long, the sheep would notice a patch of purple clover, or an interesting mushroom. She would stop to watch the clouds or she become fascinated by the way the invisible wind created waves on the grass. Before she realized it, she was twenty feet away again.
For years, she questioned if she was, in fact, even a sheep. She watched the flock move together as though choreographed but this sheep could not hear the music no matter how hard she tried.
One afternoon, while grazing alone, she met an old tortoise.
The tortoise looked at her and asked,
“Why do you look so disappointed dear, that looks like some pretty good clover?”
The sheep sighed.
“Am I a sheep? I don’t think I know how to be a sheep” The sheep sighed to the tortoise.
The tortoise blinked slowly. “You seem to be eating grass.”
“I am.” The sheep replied, confused
“You have wool?” The tortoise asked
“I do.”
“You say ‘baa’?”
The sheep gave a “Baa” a little reluctantly
The tortoise nodded. “Hmmm, seems like you are a sheep to me”
The sheep frowned. “That’s it?”
The tortoise shrugged. He pointed with one wrinkly foot toward the flock.
“They’re grazing.”
Then he pointed toward her.
“So are you.”
The sheep looked at the tortoise confused as he began moving forward to continue on his journey once again.
The sheep looked at the grass beneath her feet. It was the same grass. In spring the same shears would be used to harvest her wool. And it dawned on her, just because she didn’t graze with the flock didn’t mean she wasn’t a sheep.
The sheep never did learn to move exactly like the flock.
Instead, she learned something much more important. Sometimes the clover at the edge of the pasture is the sweetest. So sometimes the other sheep would wander out with her to taste the sweet clover.
Every night from then on the sheep would look across the field at the flowers and the flock, although they were often at a distance, and think “What a lovely day to graze together.”
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