You’ve all heard that sheep are timid followers and to be called a Black Sheep is not an endearing term. So what must it be like to be identified as a Black Sheep all your life then one day you find yourself in a culture that honors Black Sheep? You’re told another story. Black Sheep are leaders. They are courageous, curious and the first to face danger. Would you be like, “No you’re wrong, Black Sheep are misfits. They are unwelcomed and mistreated because they are different.”

That would probably go through your head, but then you might think, “Wow, maybe this Black Sheep thing isn’t all bad. Maybe my culture got it wrong.”

And you flash back to the time you got a lump of coal for Christmas and your father jumped in to protect you and said something like, “Stop it. This is a load of crap.” And you got a glimpse that the load was a lot bigger and smellier than you ever dared to think.

If you’re fortunate the unraveling begins and you start to question the things that you have been told and taught and with good reason. 

Much of the foundation that we build our lives around is more sand castle than rock. When the tide rises, we either cling tightly to the beliefs we were born into or we learn the life saving gift of letting go.

I suppose it doesn’t matter much in the scheme of life whether you cling to your beliefs or find reason to question them. But when we look at the greater puzzle we must reckon with the reality that *“no man is an island” and what you do and say does impact another, either to benefit or to harm.

As our society continues to follow beliefs of dominion and superiority and drives us with cookie cutter sameness, perhaps its time to champion our diversity as the wonder that it is.

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Each week I write and record a two minute piece for WDRT Community Radio. It can be found on Soundcloud and I bring it here to my blog. But here you get extra information and sometimes the back story. The sheep in the photo is Cupcake and she is almost four months old. Yesterday I watched her take on our dog Chester after he chased her lamb friend Cookie…as he turned away from her “face down”, she promptly butted him, and I remembered the audacity of being a Black Sheep…

No Man is an Island – John Dunne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were:
Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.