The Boy who Cried Sheep
A boy was set to watch a flock. After awhile he saw a peculiar thing come creeping over the hill toward the flock.
It had a sheep’s skin and wool, slightly askew. But it walked strangely low the ground. There were glimpses of what seemed to be darker fur down below. It seemed to have sharp teeth. And its eyes were set straight ahead like a predator.
It’s hide could appear tilted a bit because of a spine condition, the boy reflected. The same spine condition could cause a peculiar walk. The darker fun could just be mud. The teeth, well, the animal is far away, perhaps I am mistaken. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if some few animals in the flock had far-away binocular vision like a predator the better to see predators sneaking up? Finally, who am I to judge? I must be charitable.
So,
“Sheep!” the boy cried.
Filed under: Deseret Review | Tags: Aesop's fables, fable, LDS, parable
John Mansfield
August 19, 2020
That’s a story that I could tell with myself as the boy. My last semester at BYU I lived in a house on the corner of 800 North and 300 East, directly across the street from campus and some stairs going up to join the long ramp south of the Maeser Building that starts at 800 North and 200 East. One chilly November morning in 1991 going up those stairs on my way to class, I saw someone halfway up those stairs who didn’t look right. He didn’t look like a student, a bit shabby with longer hair and an inadequate teenagery mustache. More than that he seemed to be almost hiding, standing out of the way trying not to be noticed. As I continued up the stairs I wondered what I should do, such as call the campus police and ask them to sort out whether or not there was anything to my impression. As I continued on, though, I chastised myself: Just because someone looks out of place, I want to call the police on them. What a judgmental and exclusionary reaction. By the time I reached the top of the ramp, I had talked myself out of contacting the campus police and was patting myself on the back for pursuing a more enlightened course than the one my initial impulse would have directed, and that course was “Do nothing,” which is always rather attractive.
According to news reports, some minutes later after the crowd heading to class had all gone on its way, a woman walking alone on the ramp was attacked by a man, by all indications the one I had wondered about. He hit her with a rock and tried to pull her into the bushes. She fought him off and fled. The incident kept campus feminists fed for a month. Oh, that I had been judgmental and that woman had not been assaulted. My passivity enabled violence.