GARGOYLE speaks
But By Name
E. Carson Brisson
The
focus
Into the golden dawn beneath a covenant-blue sky, our little company of nine companions set out on foot from Jerusalem toward Jericho, a full day’s trek through the Judean Desert and a downhill journey if anywhere on earth there is one. While the rainy season had all but ended, an overnight downpour along the ridge upon which Jerusalem sits awaiting her newness had filled with runoff rainwater the ravines and valleys (called wadis) that slice through the beautiful wilderness into which we now desired, quite unlike temptation, to be led. Several hours into our hike, the sun a torch to our southeast, we spotted just north of our route a crust of morning shadow living under a limestone bluff by the base of which a narrow channel of water foamed hurriedly by rushing to its own demise in the sands and heat waiting downstream. The vote we took to slip briefly into the sweet shade beneath this rocky crag beside which these not-so-still waters ran was silent and unanimous. Hardly had we paused when we began to hear bleating and the clanking of bells coming from our south. Within moments, from behind a twisted stone formation approximately 40 meters away, a small flock of sheep and a Bedouin shepherdess emerged. She was moving her sheep northwest, and it was immediately obvious they would need to cross the stream that cut across their way. As we looked on, the shepherdess, paying us absolutely no mind, turned to her sheep and ordered them to stop. Perhaps they had studied her language. “Yes,” she whispered back, leaning Perhaps it was just the tone of her voice. In any case, they stopped. The shepherdess partially out of the shade, the sun then, alone, entered the ravine before her and waded into the water at a spot she seemed to sense was relatively shallow. Cautiously she tested and tried, with her instantly finding its favorite strands body and with no doubt some treasury of received and living wisdom lodged in in her hair. “She knows her sheep. her vocation, the depths and currents and stoney secrets of the carmine stream. Then, returning to her flock, she began guiding her sheep, one by one, across it. She knows her sheep because The very young she cradled. Those who seemed confused or startled she assistshe cares for her sheep.” ed with a firm hand. A few she simply watched over carefully. One turned back again and again, and again and again she turned back with and for it. When her entire flock had finally reached the far side of the water, the shepherdess paused. I thought she was going to count her sheep to verify that they were all there. I was—the more important half of that thought—wrong. The shepherdess did wish to see if all her sheep were present. But, she did not do so by simple addition. Rather, she called out to each by name. Whether or not they knew their names I could not tell, but clearly she knew them. When she had finished, satisfied that all her sheep had made it safely across the waters, the shepherdess turned, and, with her little flock bleating, clanking, and dripping at her heels, soon vanished into the promises and the perils of the rain shadow wilderness shimmering in pastel silence between her and home. No one among us had uttered a word since the shepherdess and her sheep had appeared. After a moment or two, I whispered to my beloved, beside whom I was sitting, words to the effect that we had just witnessed a shepherdess who really knew her sheep. I remember to this day, three decades later, her response almost to a word: “Yes,” 21 she whispered back, leaning partially out of the shade, the sun instantly finding its favorite strands in her hair. “She knows her sheep. She knows her sheep because she cares for her sheep.” Gentle Gargoyle reader, once upon a journey we saw in the wilderness a shepherdess leading her sheep. She seemed to believe in a way home. She seemed to believe in a home on the way. She seemed to believe in a home at the end of the way. She knew her sheep because she cared for her sheep. She walked in water for and with her sheep. And when she counted her sheep, she did so not by number but by name. Ω
E. Carson Brisson is associate professor of biblical languages and associate dean for academic programs.