The Sheepdog and the Sheep

Sometimes deep thoughts are triggered in the most unexpected ways. A while ago, a random YouTube video came up in my feed. It was a video of a sheepdog herding a large group of sheep. While I do love animals, I neither have farming interests nor am I a pet owner. There was no reason, from my viewing habits, for YouTube to decide this would be right for me. The video, however, was so utterly fascinating that I promptly clicked on a few more sheepdog videos. This led me to an unexpected epiphany regarding freedom.

The sheepdog in the video, a beautiful black and white Border Collie named Kate, was an expert in her craft. She managed to round up a huge herd of sheep scattered in a massive field in less than a minute. The sheepherder pulled up in a four-wheeler and gave a call. Kate eagerly bounded out into the field running around the perimeter, and the sheep moved swiftly into a clump in the center. With just a few more quick commands from the sheepherder, Kate then easily moved the herd through a gate in the far corner of the field. I was charmed by the dog and watched a few more videos from that channel, transfixed by the easy confidence of the sheepherder’s remarkable working dogs.

It wasn’t until I found a video of the sheepherder discussing his work that it turned from entertainment to enlightenment. The sheepherder explained the basic principle that makes the dogs so effective: fear. The sheep innately fear the dog. It is the predator–prey relationship that instinctively guides the sheep to move away from the dog. This was a surprise to me. The dog was so gentle that I naturally concluded she must be friends with the sheep. But I was wrong. If they were playmates, that would undermine the dog’s ability to herd. The sheep need to have a low level of healthy fear for the herding to actually work. Though some of them are large, the sheep are easily manipulated by the dog because of that innate fear.

This realization made me think about the subject of freedom. The sheep, happily grazing in a huge field, might easily believe themselves to be free. They see an object of fear and decide to move away from it. Of course, they would. Who wouldn’t? The sheepherder would never let his dog harm the sheep, but the sheep don’t know that. That little bit of fear makes them easy to control.

This led me to contemplate how powerful people in the world often use fear to manipulate human beings. We, like the sheep, think ourselves free to follow our desires. But how often are we really just moving away from an object of fear? Considering how many objects of fear the media, major corporations, and our politicians continue to present to us, it may be quite often. We may be like those sheep, moving through a gate that some powerful person wants us to move through. How many times do we buy the products, join the movements, share the social media posts, and vote for the leaders that we are guided to out of fear rather than freedom?

I think this is why Jesus Christ said “Be not afraid” as often as he did in the gospels. True freedom means facing our fears, not running away from them. True presence is to be exactly where we are without wishing to be somewhere else. Only from this place of acceptance and fearlessness can we truly create miracles with one another. Although we act like sheep sometimes, the truth is we are not sheep. We are beings of light, children of God, and until we can stand firm in the presence of our fears, we cannot create the truth, beauty, and goodness that God is calling us to create.