How Shepherds Heard....

When shepherds got word to go see the baby king, we’ve heard the sky was a riot of light and song, filled with angels. But imagine what it was like moments before.

It was dark. If you’ve ever spent a moonless night outside in uninhabited areas where there are no lights, you’ve experienced dark. Where stars shed just enough light to distinguish the shapes of trees, a hillside, the line between earth and sky.

Imagine yourself a shepherd at night, when wild animals or thieves might prey on your flock. When ewes might give birth, maybe need help. The sheep are bedded down, but your ears are tuned to any unusual sound.

And then a flock of angels descends from who-knows-where, right out of the sky, singing. The third verse of "Song for the Wise Ones" tells this story.

Shepherds surrounded
by beautiful hosts
Fell on their faces
as if they’d seen ghosts
Like humble, wise people
accustomed to birth
Embracing the hillside
and clutching the earth

How could these poor commonfolk
in this dark hour
Simple by custom,
naive about power
See beauty through terror
and angels that stayed
And bid them through darkness
"Now go, be not afraid."

I cry every time I sing this verse because I realize how much I love the shepherds, not only in the Christmas story but the shepherds all around us now.

Who are they? They’re the ones who run the wind machines, something I felt fully last week as they rumbled through the nights. I remembered the one night I got to ride along as three friends kept watch on thermometers and each other, tending the crop, protecting our community’s wealth from frost damage.

The cold and the dark were breathtaking, literally. Driving into the middle of dark groves, getting out into the headlights with flashlights to see the start buttons, saying a prayer no one had stolen the battery, remembering each machine’s special features - that was all fascinating. But it was being surrounded by the dark that was most memorable. Angels could have appeared at any time, and, with 20/20 hindsight, not been a surprise.

One of the friends, Pat Mears, a beautiful woman who farmed, was taken from us by the angel of death this year, and I miss her. That night, in between turning the wind machines on and off, she lit up her kitchen and made a huge meal of eggs, ham, coffee and toast, laughing and talking, filling that empty spot that comes about 3 a.m. Then, as the coldest time approached right before sunrise and it was safe, we drove to grove after grove, shutting the machines down.

Our shepherds now also run the irrigation systems and the field crews, keep an eye on the pests and the markets, the trees and the soil. They raise calves as well as lambs, goats as well as sheep. They pick olives and oranges and pomegranates en masse and raise corn in their yards if they’re lucky enough to have one.

The verse ends:

Wise men, wise women,
Children and elders
go far and come near
Sing a song for the wise ones
who still can see beauty
who hallow the ground
and who go without fear.


Merry Christmas, brother and sister shepherds.