Lagging Behind

Terri from Red Brick Road Farm describes how she discovered that one of her favorite Icelandic ewes was not well:

She went out to graze with the flock yesterday, but lagged behind, and was first to come back to the barn.  I noticed some spotting, and worried that maybe she was having a miscarriage.  By evening, she was quite lethargic, and by that time I was figuring it out.

She was figuring out that Diedra, her ewe, was dying.

And as is common with me, I was compelled find another layer of meaning in this short, but poignant, posting.  I imagined a herd beginning its steady march en masse away from the barn.  As the barn fades further and further into the distance, the field, slightly elevated, becomes wider and wider.  There is more freedom, but less security.  There is no set destination, only a sense that there is something better on the horizon.  So the herd keeps moving.  In spite of births, in spite of deaths, the herd keeps moving.

And then I thought, I suppose this is similar to the story of humanity.  We’re born into this mass of people that is relentlessly moving on to better pasture.  Our births are but a pause in the regular day-to-day activities that normally fill up the lives of our parents, but they have little effect on the pace of the rest of the world.  We grow up.  We hear-tell of a barn, but it is no longer in sight, so it is difficult to pinpoint its relevance in our lives.  We move forward adequately, shifting in this direction, then the other.

And then one day, we can’t keep up with herd.  We put forth effort to do so, but somehow we can’t do it anymore.  The herd moves at the same, steady speed, but we are weaker.  We put forth effort, but we fail.  We lag behind.

Suddenly, we find ourselves alone.  The herd is fading into the distance.  The barn is still out of sight, but it feels closer.  We make our way in that direction, trusting that maybe there we’ll find another herd to roam with.