Saga of an Urban Shepherd

It never ceases to amaze me how divine providence weaves its way through our lives. This morning on our daily daybreak walk, we came across an urban shepherd. There he was seated on a low broken wall opposite a vacant field on which grazed five cows. As we passed him, I asked ‘are you the shepherd of these cows?’ The question animated his face which bore a long white beard. ‘Yes’ he replied, smiling, ‘I once had many more’.

We stopped, sensing that he wanted to tell his story. ‘I am Nazir Khan and I am following in my grandfather footsteps’. His story was - his grandfather, grandmother, father, mother were all shepherds in the same area. They once also kept goats and sheep. ‘Before all this’ he gestured with a sweeping hand encompassing school buildings, single homes and small gated townhouse communities, ‘our animals grazed here freely’. ‘I was a little boy accompanying my grandfather.’

‘He would sell manure, milk, and occasionally a young bull.’ ‘But things were cheap then, manure was 50 cents a bag, now it is 50 dollars a bag.’ The livelihood declined over the years, the family reached down to one cow. But things are once again on the up and up, the demand and price for ‘pure’ manure and milk, from the burgeoning residents, is increasing.

So much that a few weeks before he was lucky that a passerby saw persons with a van trying to steal his pregnant cow - the friend made a loud accusation and the guards at the nearby school compound came running out to investigate, the van sped off leaving the lucky cow. He can no longer leave his cows to graze on their own, like a true shepherd, he has to sit and watch them graze.

I couldn’t help trying to make connections with John 10, Gospel of Jesus, The Good Shepherd. Today’s wolves also come on two legs and four wheels, to steal, kill and scatter. We need Good Shepherds in our lives to sit and watch us graze. We also need Good Shepherds, who would fearlessly accost these wolves by making a loud racket and calling for help. We also need nearby urban residents, spaces and laws, that would protect the urban shepherds livelihood.

Jesus, thank you for being our Good Shepherd and sending daily good shepherds in our lives. Please animate us to be good shepherds for others.

NOTICE

Starting this weekend and continuing on weekends a Travelogue to churches. Every weekend I hope to present a story with pictures and hopefully, in time, video clips on a visit to a church. Please subscribe to ensure you get these stories delivered to your email address.