People are good, given the chance. This is my mantra, my prayer, my chant for the week. It has held me steadfast.
Tonight, once again we confront the testing time, the sorrowful time, the bewildering time, once again we ask ourselves who we are and who we wish to be.
Once again, my mind goes back to the small acts of kindness and mercy that give hope to being human, especially when the dark side of being human is sometimes incomprehensible. Once again, I can only tell you what I do, I can’t tell you what you should do. All we can do sometimes is to be good, to be better than the things that would devour us.
Today was bounded by at least two acts of kindness, and one of mercy. These things nourished me throughout the day.
Our new sheep, Izzy, was taken to the shearer by our friend Jay Bridge, whose own shearer was coming for his sheep. Izzy had not been shorn in several years, perhaps never in her young life. Her very heavy coat of wool was felted, and the shearer found strands of barbed wire embedded in her wool when he sheared her.
Jay refused to take payment for the trip, he said he would charge only $20. Sometimes, he said, he just wants to do something good for a sheep. Another act of mercy and kindness.
Jay brought us a piece of the wool with two points of barbed wire in it, it was sobering to touch it. I wondered how Izzy could even have lay down. In the afternoon, she returned to us, clean and lighter by many pounds. It seemed as if she had never grazed before, she must have lived on hay, she did not at first know what to do with the grass the other sheep were feeding on, she kept looking around to see what the others were doing.
She stayed close to Zelda, watched her, sniffed her, then lowered her head and began nibbling on the grass. Two hours later, she was still there, this time eating enthusiastically and purposefully, as sheep will do. We could see she was much thinner than our sheep. She is fine, she seemed eager to get back her and happy to settle in. She is obeying ran (she ran over him yesterday) and ignoring Fate. Things are where they should be.
Somehow, Izzy’s arrival was important to us, we were both very much taken up with it, more than we might have imagined. We were reminded of our purpose.
This evening, we went to the Bog to give Kelly the $1,400 plus dollars so many of you wonderful people donated to her to pay for her vet bills. Her rescue dog had a near-fatal birth, she lost three puppies, two were saved. The bill was $1,300 there will be a few more to come.
Kelly was overwhelmed and grateful. We hugged, she gave me a kiss, she asked me to thank all of you. We made arrangements for me to go to her house this weekend to photograph her with the puppies. She said she saw the story about her on my blog, and she imagined she might received $50 or so, and that would be wonderful and helpful.
She never imagined she would have enough money to pay the entire bill and even have some left over for additional medical expenses for the dogs.
I am excited to put up the photo I took of Kelly receiving these letters and donations, but then I learned of the tragedy in Nice, and something inside of me told me to hold this for the morning, when perhaps it would be the most helpful, after we brave for yet another awful shock, and the kind of brutality and hatred that makes us wonder so much about our world and our place in it.
It seemed almost wrong to put Kelly’s wonderful smile up to night. The Kelly project was conceived as a way for us to do a small good – a big one for her and her family – as a way of feeling better about being human. I can promise you that will be the case when I publish my photo and quote from the beautiful note she gave to me.
It is difficult when nightmares become real, hard to stay grounded in reality. And so tonight, I will think of this big and beautiful sheep sleeping peacefully in the Pole Barn with her new flock, filling her belly on sweet summer grass and sleeping softly without her barbed wire wool. And I will think of this good women whose smile caught my eye and who has touched so many faraway hearts. Perhaps some of you generous people will think of that if and when you get low. tonight. I will.
I have another photo or two to put up tonight, they speak to me of light and hope. I will be thinking of small acts of mercy and kindness tomorrow. There were two today, and they have grounded and uplifted me, I hope they can do the same for you.