In truth, his failures to do so are profound and chilling. It is not that David always succeeds as a shepherd in the conventional sense that is, in literally protecting his family and his people. The shepherd bears this heavy responsibility to assume responsibility for others, but it is borne of an awesome knowing that each of us are caretakers for the other. As a precocious wunderkind, David tells Saul that he is ready to fight the giant Goliath precisely because he has killed bears and lions as part of protecting his sheep. But we can’t ignore it – almost all of the patriarchs and matriarchs in the Hebrew Bible were shepherds, a job that most fundamentally requires practice in the art of caretaking. It is easy to either romanticize the shepherd’s calling (the humble/simple servant of God), or ignore it altogether, overly-metaphorized as it has been (the shepherd as religious leader and the people as the flock). ‘He is tending the sheep.’ 2 David is sent for, recognized, and secretly anointed. “So he asked Jesse, ‘Are these all the sons you have?’ ‘There is still the youngest,’ Jesse answered. When the prophet Samuel, with the intention of identifying the future king, asks Jesse the Bethlehemite to bring forward his sons, the prophet sees a row of hearty young men, but he knows the king is not among them. In fact, the first thing we learn about David is that he is a shepherd. And in a way, it is those two grappling archetypes inside him that makes his story so uneven and so compelling. In this spirit, it is worth remembering that before he was king, before the fame and the infamy, David was a shepherd and a poet. Robert Pinsky writes that “even though is both horrible and beautiful, he is so in a way that reminds you of human beings.” 1 Indeed, there is something about David that brings us closer to our own imperfect selves – how vast our longing to love, how devastating our failures to do so. He was a betrayer, an adulterer, and a murderer he was a grieving father and a confused monarch. And he was also a man who experienced immense grief and suffering in his short time on earth. He was a warrior without peer, a prodigious lover, the unifying king of ancient Israel, the seed of messianic consciousness (it is said the Messiah will come from David’s line). King David did everything large-screen format. Since Leonard Cohen died, I’ve been thinking a lot about King David, perhaps the ur-ancestor in Cohen’s lineage as a Jewish poet who also sought the “secret chord” that would bring God joy. © on 07:29 AM PST, Lexi S.King David, Leonard Cohen and the Search for Meaning Leonard Cohen at the Arena in Geneva, 27 October 2008 (Wikipedia) The Apostle Paul says not to argue, so I'm just following his words. Of course, I refuse to argue with you so don't expect a reply if you are challenging me. If you EVER have any questions about God, Jesus, or any of that, please message me. So, since we couldn't do it, Jesus gave his life so that, even with sin, we would live forever with God in heaven. We are simply "sheep," we cannot understand all the sins of the world and be able to move out of the way. Jesus loves us, just as God love him, and laid down his life so that we, the sheep, could live. Jesus is the Good Shepherd, and we are the sheep. I don't know if you understand the meaning of this or not, so I'll clarify: These "Good Shepherd" verses and such are from John 10:7-21. Read this poem slowly-that's how it's meant to be read-and hopefully you'll get the full effect. I wanted to have the rhymes and all, but I think I just couldn't let go of what I wanted to write for the rhymes.
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