A world of black sheep

The biblical story of the black sheep came to me. (Cliff’s Notes refresher – one black sheep in the flock wanders off and is lost. The good shepherd would not rest until the black sheep is brought in). I was at first annoyed, because, frankly, I don’t like the story.  I’ve always found it implausible — if a lone black sheep wandered off, I judged it wrong for the shepherd to perhaps endanger the flock to recover the one, that would be stupid and the sheep brought it on itself.
Intrigued by my annoyance, I looked at my thoughts around the story, I began to see that it was really cultural conditioning about “worth” which was warping my love for the story’s message. Aren’t we all taught that our “worth” is conditional? That it increases by being good, by achieving, by being “of value” as judged in the collective? That you’re a waste of good air if you’re not doing, things, right?
And as I saw the beauty of the message — that ALL will be brought safely home — I felt lighter. I believe the truth is, all the doing, all the achieving, all the judging is a disconnection — the only real work to be done here is to regain awareness of who you are and go home. The Good Shepherd won’t let a one of us “black sheep” be lost.