When my grandmother (Velma) and her sister (Shirley) were elementary students in the 1930’s, they had to memorize the 23rd Psalm in Sunday School. After a few weeks of learning it, my grandmother told her Sunday School teacher she didn’t like the 23rd Psalm, and the teacher was perplexed. How could anybody dislike such a peaceful, comforting series of verses? It turned out she just had a problem with one of them, verse 6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,” which she mistakenly heard as “Shirley, goodness, and mercy shall follow me.” My grandmother told her teacher “Shirley follows me everywhere now, I don’t want her to do it all my life.”
This Sunday we celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday. We’ll read what David and Jesus each said about shepherds and sheep. We’ve been singing the Sheep Song in preschool chapel. I hope we all have goodness and mercy following us, not as a little sibling dragged along, but as the characteristics of Christ which we imitate and leave in our wake… all the days of our lives.
