The Shepherd and Eric Hoffer
According to Eric Hoffer, a man who loved sheep so much as the Bible described shepherds so much in a positive or respectful manner became insane finally.
Eric Hoffer (July 25, 1902 – May 21, 1983) was an American moral and social philosopher. He was the author of ten books and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in February 1983.
Hoffer was born in 1902 the Bronx, New York City, to Knut and Elsa (Goebel) Hoffer.[3] His parents were immigrants from Alsace, then part of Imperial Germany. By age five, Hoffer could already read in both English and his parents' native German.[4][5] When he was five, his mother fell down the stairs with him in her arms. He later recalled, "I lost my sight at the age of seven. Two years before, my mother and I fell down a flight of stairs. She did not recover and died in that second year after the fall. I lost my sight and for a time my memory."[6] He was raised by a live-in relative or servant, a German immigrant named Martha. His eyesight inexplicably returned when he was 15. Fearing he might lose it again, he seized on the opportunity to read as much as he could. His recovery proved permanent, but Hoffer never abandoned his reading habit.
Hoffer was a young man when he also lost his father. The cabinetmaker's union paid for Knut Hoffer's funeral and gave Hoffer about three hundred dollars insurance money. He took a bus to Los Angeles, and spent the next 10 years on skid row, reading, occasionally writing, and working at odd jobs.[7]The man returned from Europe as WWI ended. Then he started to work as a hired shepherd in California. He loved to read the Bible where sheep and shepherds were depicted so positively or rather respectfully. His life consisted only of working in a field with sheep and his dogs and reading the Bible. But he drank. He drank much.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hoffer
So, one day he failed in his duty of taking care of sheep as he was drunken to sleep in his duty hours. Then, the owner of the farm who owned sheep advised him to leave the work for a while. "You had better take a rest and go to a town to enjoy movies or something. When you feel you are alright, come back here again," said the farmer.
Then the man met Hoffer, while he was living in a shack of a town in California, still drinking much. One day, the drunken ex-shepherd sleeping on the street happened to be carried to his small but well tidied-up residence by Hoffer by chance. The two men turned to be congenial to each other. Hoffer listened to the ex-shepherd talking and talking for two weeks or so. But their days ended suddenly.
One day the ex-shepherd was standing at a railroad crossing as a cargo train was passing. But in a freight car sheep were loaded fully. And among those sheep there was one which was very familiar with him when he had been working in the farm. The sheep was wise and obeyed his instruction very wisely.
The ex-shepherd could spot the sheep he loved in a cargo train. So, he understood that the owner of sheep betrayed him to sell those sheep. It meant the sheep would be soon butchered. Then he ran and jumped to the fright car and opened a door to let sheep run away. The door was opened, sheep jumped away from the train, and great confusion happened along the railroad section. Eventually, the man was arrested and sent to a mental hospital as he was judged to be insane.
http://erdemlihayat.com/?p=1042
Eric Hoffer himself was not a pious Christina; Hoffer did not go to church but rather to a public library on Sundays. And, this incident especially didn't turn him to be a devout Christian.
Nonetheless it is apparent that the answer to any questions about Christianity is not in sheep in the US. However the shepherd could be regarded as one sheep himself. And an angel might have been taking care of him. Then it was the angel sent by Heaven that lost his sheep. The angel must have done something drastic to be alerted by this incident. Maybe the angel opened the door of the mind of Hoffer who became a great author later.
And Erick Hoffer is said to have taken a dim view of the anti-Vietnam War movement. Then it meant something more remote from the Bible was in the anti-Vietnam War movement than in battles in Vietnam in 1960s and early 1970s, very unexpectedly.
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Mar 1:28 And immediately his fame spread abroad throughout all the region round about Galilee.