The sheep hear [the shepherd’s] voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out … and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. … My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

– John 10:3-5, 27

When I was a child, we lived across the road from a sheep farm. Every spring, fluffy white lambs ran through the fields. Bleating sheep was part of the natural symphony of our country home. (Let me comment here that sheep do not make a delicate baa-ing sound, as some would lead you to believe. Delicate is not even close to the word I would use to describe it. Unfortunately, I cannot perform my best bellowing sheep imitation for you. But I digress…)

During those years, my dad chased many a sheep that had escaped through the old wooden fence around their pasture, and my mom and I would watch him and our neighbor, Bill, heaving on the escapees’ rear-ends to push them back into the safety of the pen. Those bits you hear about sheep being stubborn? We were eyewitnesses to it.

One sheep we will never forget. His name was Buster. I have a photo of my young self, my arms wrapped around him. I’m probably ten or eleven, in the glasses and braces stage of life. When Buster’s mother died during the birthing process, Bill took the small lamb into his home. He was bottle-fed and kept inside more like a dog than a farm animal. And this early experience gave Buster, let’s say, an interesting personality. He was just as stubborn as the others, but his familiarity and perhaps something akin to affection gave him particular audacity. Our poor neighbor was knocked a few too many times onto his elderly hips by Buster’s head butt of greeting or protest. But Buster knew his name—Bill had only to go to the edge of the barn, and yell Buster’s name, and before long, you would see him making his way over the pasture to where we stood. In spite of his stubbornness, he knew his name, and he knew the sound of the one who called him.