Can there be a better job title than shepherd?
The word, strengthened by its long-standing associations with Christ, immediately denotes someone who guides, leads and cares. That Jesus was born and lived in a part of the world where sheep were part of daily life and landscape must have naturally encouraged the link to be made. People of the area, the audience, would have automatically grasped and understood the qualities of care etc being attributed to Jesus by association; from their having close daily-life familiarity of what constituted a shepherd, and of what characteristics a shepherd had to display in looking after a flock of sheep.
The Gospel according to St John in Chapter 10, verses 1-21, is a full depiction of what a Good Shepherd is. During the passage it is said ‘The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep’. The passage as a whole could serve as a job description for a shepherd to the present day.
So, the role of the shepherd is a hallowed one. The shepherd’s image is that of being the best of mankind, and who is altruistic.
Being a shepherd is clearly a distinct and specialist position. Do perception and reality change when it is someone called a farmer who is in charge of sheep? A farmer is engaged in farming. The general acceptance is that the farmer’s practice, farming, is an operation to deliver an income. Even if a farmer’s endeavour is solely sheep, their activity is sheep farming.
Farming has traditionally been a traditional endeavour, with practices - being dependent on natural rhythms and cycles - staying essentially the same, changing little over the centuries. As was described in the Farming, and Industrial Farming (4th February 2021) article, only over the last two hundred years or so has any great change to farming been introduced, due to technological innovation, and other - such as societal - changes. Traditionally, good farming equated to good husbandry.
There have been moments of time, such as the Middle Ages when wool was sought after, that sheep have represented an item of good earning. But, frequently, sheep farming has tended not to represent the activity of choice to make a profit, unless the prevailing situation has been such that no other kind of farming was feasible. Marginal land has been, and stays still, a main location of sheep farming, and with all the challenges of climate and terrain attendant.
The sort of ‘marginal land sheep farming’ so described to function has tended to need to operate in the traditional way. Therefore, in this kind of endeavour, the work of a farmer in farming sheep, will likely in essence be not far removed from that of the shepherd. But, still, there will be the difference between dedicated activity of a specialist, shepherding, and the practice in regards sheep of a farmer, farming.
Beyond a difference, maybe slight, maybe large, existing between shepherding and farming, now there is, across the world, a starker division within the realm of sheep farming. This is a divide mirroring - but more accentuated because shepherding and farming of sheep have, for good reasons, tended especially towards the traditional in practise - the general now distinctions between farming and industrial farming. The way industrial farming operates in relation to sheep has already been portrayed in the Farming, and Industrial Farming article. But where in this does shepherding, and its distinct style of activity and set of values, sit?
It is not to be imagined that a shepherd, and who needs to do certain things with his sheep for their good and/or for his objective, can always do what his sheep want. Sheep are nervous animals, and do not like change or alteration. For example, it cannot be a joy to limping sheep being turned on to their backs to have a bad foot attended to. The shepherd’s role, however, is to make decisions about the sheep from basis of his knowledge and experience. And the good shepherd engenders the trust of his sheep, or they at least give the shepherd the benefit of doubt, and so they go where he leads/with what he has decided.
Paternoster
Elisabeth Frink
The sculpture by Elisabeth Frink in the photograph is called Paternoster (it is known too by the names Shepherd and Sheep and Shepherd with his Flock), and sits in Paternoster Square near St Paul’s Cathedral in London. The link with Christianity is in evidence therefore. In evidence too, to me, is a slight look of reluctance or wariness to some of the sheep - perhaps concerning where they are being driven to by the shepherd.
Sheep need humans to help them. But they need to remain wary of humans - even the most wonderful and dedicated shepherd. Even the shepherd most devoted to the sheep in his care, will likely have certain aim or aims - his own or of his employer - that are not likely to duplicate what is wished for by the sheep. But by influence of the heritage of shepherding, from their own commitment and professionalism, through a thorough understanding of their charges from having spent so much time with sheep, by sheep being their sole concern, and with most likely an arrived firm affection and respect for sheep in the mix too, shepherds are very much in pole position for giving sheep the best existence they can hope for. There is risk and potential for dilution of commitment and care to sheep when shepherding is replaced by sheep farming, and so on to when sheep farming is amid general farming, and, when - right at the other end - farming of sheep is on a scale of being industrial and impersonal.
The fundamental question to be asked is, can ‘the approach of the shepherd’ stay in the future?
Is it crook and dog, quad bike and dog, or helicopter?
*Please read shepherd for shepherdess also, and so on.
8th February 2021