Fell Falls with Blind Bartie

               I had a lovely experience two days ago.   I was fell walking up high over Dungeon Ghyll.   I was coming up from the falls and toward home past Stykle Tarn.  Off the beaten track, round a bend, and low and behold, something I’d not experienced God-smacked me in the chops.   There was a lamb lying smack in front of me.   She didn’t move.   I looked into her eyes and they were blind, not seeing; eyes totally scaled over.   She looked frail; didn’t bleat.   I stopped, sat down next to her, reached out.   Scratched behind her ears.  She moved her head toward my hand.  I poured water from my bottle into my cupped hand.  She lapped a little feebly as I continued to pour.  I looked around, no ewe; abandoned.

 I picked her up and carried her about five miles back home to Grasmere.  Coming down from the hill fells in the rain was slippery over the rocks.   Together we fell and recovered a dozen times or so in the bracken, over rocks.   Reminded me of old Chinese saying, "Fall down seven times; get up eight times."    I talked to her, “well that was a bumpy one, huh?”  The lamb had settled down after awhile and didn’t seem to mind. 

I called Bethyl from the top of the fell, setting up a meeting plan. Just before she checked with David, the shepherd who lives above us, our friend of three decades, Michele O'Donnel, visiting us with her daughter, said "let me pray before you talk to David." She prayed for wisdom for us, even if the wisdom given by David wasn't what we decided upon. Our steps were covered in prayer all the way.  All our paths converged.  We put Blind Bartamay (as I had started to call her) in the backseat with Bethyl while I drove Bartie home.  Eventually, we found her shepherd farmer.

 The farmer, Erick, said she had a case of “staut”, from eating some plant that causes a neurological disorder leading to death unless short-circuited.   He said he’d bottle feed her, give her some medicine, and she’d be fine in a couple of weeks.   A happy ending for Bartie… and me.  

 Once upon a time another Shepherd found a little blind lamb.    He was on his own track, minding his Father’s business; but He stopped to look and see.  Saw me.  Sat down.   Gave me Living Water.   Picked me up.  Shouldered my burden.   Took me to safety.  

Today He honored me with faintly walking in His footsteps, getting a sense of His journey.  He helped me jolt downwards thru mud, off cliffs to bogs, lowering my pride.   He set me to thinking about how real and repeated is the fall.   All good object lessons from the master Teacher, who arranges parables for you and me--life lessons--so we might be prepared to live well in the days in front of us.