Vagrant Story V: rovers and sheep

PHOTO: They told me it doesn't snow in England before Christmas, I told them that's fine because I brought some with me.


While traversing the english countryside in the back of Ian’s Red Rover 25 I received my ultimate calling in life. I know, I know, it’s what we all expected when I ran off to England. We probably all have this image of Reed discovering his truest passion in the midst of a monk’s chant in the bowels of some medieval castle surrounded by the Tutor coat of arms and engulfed in the scent of swine on a spit. At least that’s what I expected when I signed up for the internship in Warwickshire, UK. However, my actual moment was much more simple.

I sat scrunched in the back seat staring out the window into the sheets of green lost in thought. In reality, I was trying to lose myself in thought since another drive with Ian meant I had to listen to the queer mix of Hillsong United’s pounding pop worship tracks and his slippery Nottingham accent singing along (sorry Ino, it’s true though mate). The sun was out there somewhere but the thick clouds had formed a ceiling over the country side leaving a healthy, ambient, shadow-less light across the fields. About the fourth time through “Come on, come on we’ll tell the world about You!” something truly heart shaking happened.

I saw some sheep.

And they were just standing out there in the field.

I stared intently, trying to decipher what was so thrilling about these lazy beasts behaving so carelessly. Ian rounded a bend (something that happens quite often in England) and I saw more sheep in another field, grazing harmlessly. It was astounding. I thought back to all the sheep I had ever seen and each one was the same in this way. They were very good at hanging out in fields. That’s when my life’s calling hit me. I was supposed to be a shepherd.

Now I want to make something perfectly clear to all of you. In the Bible there is a lot of imagery of Jesus or God being a good shepherd over the people of the earth. He knows all of the sheeps’ names and loves them and is willing to look out for them and a bunch of really good stuff like that. Because of this, the illustration of being a shepherd is often used with being a good pastor or counselor.

That’s not what I’m talking about at all.

There is no imagery here, no deep philosophical thoughts or stingingly clever parables that I can write a book about someday. I’m saying that I want to be a shepherd. A cane staff touting, pie eating, harp playing, wolf killing, sheep dog training, wassailing, field rocking, English Shepherd. Every day I would sit in a field and watch the sheep. Perhaps I’d bring my iPod, perhaps I’d bring a good book, but for the most part I would hang out in the field and watch the sheep. I could pick a new field every day and I wouldn’t stop until I’d spent a whole day in every field in the UK. If I needed a nap, I’d grab a sheep, set ‘em down under a tree, lay my head on his back, and tip my cap over my eyes. It’s ok, they don’t move.

The point is, everything in England in green and gray. No wait, the point is that I want to be a shepherd. No wait, the point is that everything in England is green and gray. That’s why I want to be a shepherd, I want to study the green and grayness of it all.

You see, when they design places, most of the time they (whoever ‘they’ are) take a palette and spread all the colors across the geography creating a kind of cultural Crayola crayon set. Drive through Minneapolis, for example, and you’ve got a rainbow of color - reds, yellows, greens, purples - and that’s just on the sticker of the VW Golf in front of you. The city itself is full of color, the buildings, the sky, the leaves on the trees, the neon advertisements on the highways; it’s a typical urban color wheel. But it’s just the basic crayon set. You’ve got the full scope but only one or two tints.

But the real heart of England, the midlands, is green and gray. (Don’t count London cuz they’re not really England, they’re a different country called London.) But when they designed England they threw away the basic crayola set and produced the “Deluxe Green and Gray Extravaganza” kit. Green fields and gray skies for every occasion.

Would you believe me if I told you there was such a thing as a happy gray day? Our limited exploration of that strange color between white and black has left us with only the simplest of dreary hues. However, the complexity and distinguished pride of a proper english happy gray day cannot be denied.

To be fair to all of you that haven’t realized it yet, I am only pretending. I can sometimes get carried away in fantasy. The day I discovered this fascinating aspect of English culture, I could barely contain my ecstasy. I had been inspired by the engish isles muse; the same muse that had galvanized geniuses like Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, William Butler Yeats, and John Cleese. It was a funny thought and I knew I had to write it down.

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO:
"Eye to the Telescope"
KT Tunstall