Counting Sheep Quotes

I don't know, there's something about you. Say there's an hourglass: the sand's about to run out. Someone like you can always be counted on to turn the thing over.

But [Pooh] couldn't sleep. The more he tried to sleep the more he couldn't. He tried counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps. And that was worse. Because every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh's honey, and eating it all. For some minutes he lay there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalump was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, "Very good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better," Pooh could bear it no longer.

Don't blame you," said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven thousand million sheep before falling asleep again a second later.

Insomnia I cannot get to sleep tonight. I toss and turn and flop. I try to count some fluffy sheep while o'er a fence they hop. I try to think of pleasant dreams of places really cool. I don't know why I cannot sleep - I slept just fine at school.

<> Why are you lying awake, thinking that you’re a terrible person? <> To keep my mind occupied when I can’t sleep. Some people count sheep. I self-loathe.

I find her anecdotes more efficacious than sheep-counting, rain on a tin roof, or alanol tablets.... you will find me and Morpheus, off in a corner, necking.

Having solved all the major mathematical, physical, chemical, biological, sociological, philosophical, etymological, meteorological and psychological problems of the Universe except for his own, three times over, [Marvin] was severely stuck for something to do, and had taken up composing short dolorous ditties of no tone, or indeed tune. The latest one was a lullaby. Marvin droned, Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see in infrared, How I hate the night. He paused to gather the artistic and emotional strength to tackle the next verse. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night.

Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infrared, How I hate the night. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night. -Marvin

War seems like a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. Then they get a taste of battle. For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they’ve been gutted by an axe. They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now, They take the wound, and when that’s still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron half helm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the small folk whose land they’re fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chickens, and from there it’s just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don’t know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they’re fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad in all steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world. And the man breaks.

A 2002 Oxford study showed counting sheep actually delays the onset of sleep. It's just too dull to stop us from worrying about jobs and spouses

I'm dreaming of sleeping next to you and feeling like a lost little boy in a brand new town I'm counting my sheep and each one that passes is another dream to ashes And they all fall down. - Sleeping to Dream

Look, look,' cried the count, seizing the young man's hands - "look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die - like a coward, it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave him strength? - do you know what consoled him? It was, that another partook of his punishment - that another partook of his anguish - that another was to die before him. Lead two sheep to the butcher's, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man - man, who God created in his own image - man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbour - man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts - what is his first cry when he hears his fellowman is saved? A blasphemy. Honour to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!

Trust me, I have not earned your dear rebuke, I love, as you would have me, God the most; Would lose not Him, but you, must one be lost, Nor with Lot's wife cast back a faithless look Unready to forego what I forsook; This say I, having counted up the cost, This, tho' I be the feeblest of God's host, The sorriest sheep Christ shepherds with His crook. Yet while I love my God the most, I deem That I can never love you overmuch; I love Him more, so let me love you too; Yea, as I apprehend it, love is such I cannot love you if I love not Him. I cannot love Him if I love not you.

Am I sleeping? Have I slept at all? This is the insomnia. Try to relax a little more with every breath out, but your heart's still racing and your thoughts tornado in your head. Nothing works. Not guided meditation. You're in Ireland. Not counting sheep. You count up the days, hours, minutes since you can remember falling asleep.

I wonder if she stares at the ceiling too, counting sheep or doing what I do when I can’t sleep, namely, wondering what would’ve happened if Barbara Gordon never answered the door in The Killing Joke.

When life gets heavy My eyelids do not Sleeping comes in waves I can no longer control Awake at half past one Then again at half past three All the while Counting sheep Laughing at me I wonder if the moon Sees what has become Of her once sleeping child The world has undone. undone

Sometimes I have trouble falling asleep but it's not so bad I don't worry and I don't weep. In fact I'm glad. Because I get up off my pillow and I flip on the light. I get down and get hip in the still of the night I stretch and I yawn and then I breathe real deep And dance myself to sleep. I hoof around my beddie just a-tappin' my toes Before I know what's happened I'm a-ready to doze Got some partners I can count the boogie-woogie sheep I dance myself to sleep.

is a broken man an outlaw?" "More or less." Brienne answered. Septon Meribald disagreed. "More less than more. There are many sorts of outlaws, just as there are many sorts of birds. A sandpiper and a sea eagle both have wings, but they are not the same. The singers love to sing of good men forced to go outside the law to fight some wicked lord, but most outlaws are more like this ravening Hound than they are the lightning lord. They are evil men, driven by greed, soured by malice, despising the gods and caring only for themselves. Broken men are more deserving of our pity, though they may be just as dangerous. Almost all are common-born, simple folk who had never been more than a mile from the house where they were born until the day some lord came round to take them off to war. Poorly shod and poorly clad, they march away beneath his banners, ofttimes with no better arms than a sickle or a sharpened hoe, or a maul they made themselves by lashing a stone to a stick with strips of hide. Brothers march with brothers, sons with fathers, friends with friends. They've heard the songs and stories, so they go off with eager hearts, dreaming of the wonders they will see, of the wealth and glory they will win. War seems a fine adventure, the greatest most of them will ever know. "Then they get a taste of battle. "For some, that one taste is enough to break them. Others go on for years, until they lose count of all the battles they have fought in, but even a man who has survived a hundred fights can break in his hundred-and-first. Brothers watch their brothers die, fathers lose their sons, friends see their friends trying to hold their entrails in after they've been gutted by an axe. "They see the lord who led them there cut down, and some other lord shouts that they are his now. They take a wound, and when that's still half-healed they take another. There is never enough to eat, their shoes fall to pieces from the marching, their clothes are torn and rotting, and half of them are shitting in their breeches from drinking bad water. "If they want new boots or a warmer cloak or maybe a rusted iron halfhelm, they need to take them from a corpse, and before long they are stealing from the living too, from the smallfolk whose lands they're fighting in, men very like the men they used to be. They slaughter their sheep and steal their chicken's, and from there it's just a short step to carrying off their daughters too. And one day they look around and realize all their friends and kin are gone, that they are fighting beside strangers beneath a banner that they hardly recognize. They don't know where they are or how to get back home and the lord they're fighting for does not know their names, yet here he comes, shouting for them to form up, to make a line with their spears and scythes and sharpened hoes, to stand their ground. And the knights come down on them, faceless men clad all in steel, and the iron thunder of their charge seems to fill the world... "And the man breaks. "He turns and runs, or crawls off afterward over the corpses of the slain, or steals away in the black of night, and he finds someplace to hide. All thought of home is gone by then, and kings and lords and gods mean less to him than a haunch of spoiled meat that will let him live another day, or a skin of bad wine that might drown his fear for a few hours. The broken man lives from day to day, from meal to meal, more beast than man. Lady Brienne is not wrong. In times like these, the traveler must beware of broken men, and fear them...but he should pity them as well

The peculiar idea that bigger is better has been around for at least as long as I have, and it's always bothered me. There is within it the implication that it is more difficult for God to care about a gnat than about a galaxy. Creation is just as visible in a grain of sand as in a skyful of stars. The church is not immune from the bigger-is-better heresy. One woman told of going to a meeting where only a handful of people turned out, and these faithful few were scolded by the visiting preacher for the sparseness of the congregation. And she said indignantly, 'Our Lord said *feed* my sheep, not count them!' I often feel that I'm being counted, rather than fed, and so I am hungry.

Some people count sheep. I self-loathe.

I’ve tried counting sheep like everyone recommends, but what tends to happen is that my brain thinks it’s seen the same sheep twice and that messes up my count, and when I think there’s no more sheep to count, another three will come running along and startle me. Or just as I think I’ve finished counting, an elephant comes running in. By this point I’m wide awake.

A man steps out. Strong. Brilliant. Controlled. Predator. Unbreakable. He's everything I admire plus things I can't even put into words. I crush on Jericho Barrons violently. My brain almost shuts down every time I see him and that's a lot of gray matter to stupefy. Used to be, if I couldn't fall asleep I'd fantasize all kinds of ways I'd impress Barrons by killing monsters or saying something really smart or saving the world, and he'd see me as a grown up woman and I'd glow just from the look on his face. But then Ryodan began popping into my fantasies like he had some kind of business being there, and he'd look all, well...like...Ryodan and he'd laugh and do that husky groan thing he did on level four, so I terminated that happy little exercise in somnolence. Now I count sheep. Lately even those buggers look like Ryodan with clear, cold eyes and some weird kind of hypnotic hold on me. Fecker. I'm beginning to think I'm going to have to figure out a way to kill him, permanent-like just to get him out of my head.

After counting all the sheep in the world I enumerate the wildebeests, snails, camels, skylarks, etc., then I add up all the zoos and aquariums, country by country. By early light I am asleep in a nightmare about drowning in the Flood,

If you count sheep before you go to sleep, are you barrrrr'd from dreams?

You get to be my age, you start counting regrets at night instead of sheep.

It's easy for the politicians to fall asleep. They have voters to count.

Think before you speak. Take a deep breath, people suggested. Count to ten. Count sheep. Oh, wait, that was for sleeping. Even in her own head, her tongue ran ahead of her brain. It propelled her into all sorts of absurd situations. Elopements. Scandals. This.

A Remedy for Insomnia Not sheep coming down the hills, not cracks on the ceiling-- count the ones you loved, the former tenants of dreams who would keep you awake, once meant the world to you, rocked you in their arms, those who loved you... You will fall asleep, by dawn, in tears.

Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see in infrared, How I hate the night. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night.

Where I come from, Annagramma, they have the Sheepdog Trials. Shepherds travel there from all over to show off their dogs. And there're silver crooks and belts with silver buckles and prizes of all kinds, Annagramma, but do you know what the big prize is? No, you wouldn't. Oh, there are judges, but they don't count, not for the big prize. There is - there was a little old lady who was always at the front of the crowd, leaning on the hurdles with her pipe in her mouth with the two finest sheepdogs ever pupped sitting at her feet. Their names were Thunder and Lightning, and they moved so fast, they set the air on fire and their coats outshone the sun, but she never, ever put them in the Trials. She knew more about sheep than even sheep know. And what every young shepherd wanted, really wanted, wasn't some silly cup or belt but to see her take pipe out of her mouth as he left the arena and quietly say 'That'll do,' because that meant he was a real shepherd and all the other shepherds knew it, too. And if you'd told him he had to challenge her, he'd cuss at you and stamp his foot and tell you he'd sooner spit the sun dark. How could he ever win? She was shepherding. It was the whole of her life. What you took away from her you'd take away from yourself. You don't understand that, do you? But it's the heart and the soul and center of it! The soul... and... center!

Lead two sheep to the butcher’s, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man—man, whom God created in his own image—man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbor—man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts—what is his first cry when he hears his fellow-man is saved? A blasphemy. Honor to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!

Probably we’d have been better off born in nineteenth-century Russia. I’d have been Prince So-and-so and you Count Such-and-such. We’d go hunting together, fight, be rivals in love, have our metaphysical complaints, drink beer watching the sunset from the shores of the Black Sea. In our later years, the two of us would be implicated in the Something-or-other Rebellion and exiled to Siberia, where we’d die. Brilliant, don’t you think? Me, if I’d been born in the nineteenth century, I’m sure I could have written better novels. Maybe not your Dostoyevsky, but a known second-rate novelist. And what would you have been doing? Maybe you’d only have been Count Such-and-such straight through. That wouldn’t be so bad, just being Count Such-and-such. That’d be nice and nineteenth century.

Don’t blame you,” said Marvin and counted five hundred and ninety-seven billion sheep before falling asleep again a second later.

Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep. Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night.

If you’re having trouble sleeping at night, don’t count the sheep; talk to the shepherd.

The ideas of justice of Europe and Africa are not the same and those of the one world are unbearable to the other. To the African there is but one way of counter-balancing the catastrophes of existence, it shall be done by replacement; he does not look for the motive of an action. Whether you lie in wait for your enemy and cut his throat in the dark; or you fell a tree, and a thoughtless stranger passes by and is killed; so far as punishment goes, to the Native mind, it is the same thing. A loss has been brought upon the community and must be made up for, somewhere, by somebody. The Native will not give time or thought to the weighing of guilt or desert; either he fears that this may lead him too far, or he reasons that such things are no concerns of his. But he will devote himself, in endless speculations, to the method by which crime or disaster shall be weighed up in sheep and goats - time does not count to him; he leads you solemnly into a sacred maze of sophistry.

Emma stared at the ceiling of the hotel room. Her thoughts went over every memorial, each picture, the families and children left behind. At this point it was a nightly routine. Some people counted sheep. Emma counted her father’s victims. One by one.

Once I am sure there's nothing going on I step inside, letting the door thud shut. Another church: matting, seats, and stone, And little books; sprawlings of flowers, cut For Sunday, brownish now; some brass and stuff Up at the holy end; the small neat organ; And a tense, musty, unignorable silence, Brewed God knows how long. Hatless, I take off My cycle-clips in awkward reverence. Move forward, run my hand around the font. From where I stand, the roof looks almost new - Cleaned, or restored? Someone would know: I don't. Mounting the lectern, I peruse a few Hectoring large-scale verses, and pronounce 'Here endeth' much more loudly than I'd meant. The echoes snigger briefly. Back at the door I sign the book, donate an Irish sixpence, Reflect the place was not worth stopping for. Yet stop I did: in fact I often do, And always end much at a loss like this, Wondering what to look for; wondering, too, When churches will fall completely out of use What we shall turn them into, if we shall keep A few cathedrals chronically on show, Their parchment, plate and pyx in locked cases, And let the rest rent-free to rain and sheep. Shall we avoid them as unlucky places? Or, after dark, will dubious women come To make their children touch a particular stone; Pick simples for a cancer; or on some Advised night see walking a dead one? Power of some sort will go on In games, in riddles, seemingly at random; But superstition, like belief, must die, And what remains when disbelief has gone? Grass, weedy pavement, brambles, buttress, sky, A shape less recognisable each week, A purpose more obscure. I wonder who Will be the last, the very last, to seek This place for what it was; one of the crew That tap and jot and know what rood-lofts were? Some ruin-bibber, randy for antique, Or Christmas-addict, counting on a whiff Of gown-and-bands and organ-pipes and myrrh? Or will he be my representative, Bored, uninformed, knowing the ghostly silt Dispersed, yet tending to this cross of ground Through suburb scrub because it held unspilt So long and equably what since is found Only in separation - marriage, and birth, And death, and thoughts of these - for which was built This special shell? For, though I've no idea What this accoutred frowsty barn is worth, It pleases me to stand in silence here; A serious house on serious earth it is, In whose blent air all our compulsions meet, Are recognized, and robed as destinies. And that much never can be obsolete, Since someone will forever be surprising A hunger in himself to be more serious, And gravitating with it to this ground, Which, he once heard, was proper to grow wise in, If only that so many dead lie round.

[Fall, 1951] To me Acapulco is the detoxicating cure for all the evils of the city: ambition, vanity, quest for success in money, the continuous contagious presence of power-driven, obsessed individuals who want to become known, to be in the limelight, noticed, as if life among millions gave you a desperate illness, a need of rising above the crowd, being noticed, existing individually, singled out from a mass of ants and sheep. It has something to do with the presence of millions of anonymous faces, anonymous people, and the desperate ways of achieving distinction. Here, all this is nonsense. You exist by your smile and your presence. You exist for your joys and your relaxations. You exist in nature. You are part of the glittering sea, and part of the luscious, well-nourished plants, you are wedded to the sun, you are immersed in timelessness, only the present counts, and from the present you extract all the essences which can nourish the senses, and so the nerves are still, the mind is quiet, the nights are lullabies, the days are like gentle ovens in which infinitely wise sculptor’s hands re-form the lost contours, the lost sensations of the body. The body comes to life. Quests, pursuits of concrete securities of one kind or another lose all their importance. As you swim, you are washed of all the excrescences of so-called civilization, which includes the incapacity to be happy under any circumstances.

Popular wisdom tells us that when the reel of our concerns interferes with our ability to fall asleep, the best remedy is the counting of sheep in a meadow. But preferring to have his lamb encrusted with herbs and served with a red wine reduction, the Count chose a different methodology altogether.

Here’s an exercise for those who typically wake up anxious and paranoid at three in the morning: instead of counting sheep to get back to sleep, count all the things you are grateful for. Even the negative parts of your life. Figure out why you should be grateful for them. Try to get up to one hundred.

A day goes by. Every shiver of grass counts. The shallows and dapples in air that give grass life are like water. The bobcat returns nightly. During easy jags of sleep the dog’s dream-paws chase coyotes. I ride to the sheep. Empty sky, an absolute blue. Empty heart. Sunburned face blotches brown. Another layer of skin to peel, to meet myself again in the mirror. A plane passes overhead—probably the government trapper. I’m waving hello, but he speeds away.

The delegates from the southern states insisted that slaves were property, like horses and sheep, and therefore should not be counted as “Inhabitants.” Franklin countered this claim with an edgy joke, observing that slaves, the last time he looked, did not behave like sheep: “Sheep will never make any insurrections.

Lead two sheep to the butcher’s, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man — man, whom God created in his own image — man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbor — man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts — what is his first cry when he hears his fellow-man is saved? A blasphemy. Honor to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!

Here is a man who was resigned to his fate, who was walking to the scaffold and about to die like a coward, that's true, but at least he was about to die without resisting and without recriminations. Do you know what gave him that much strength? Do you know what consoled him? It was the fact that another man was to die like him, that another man was to die before him! Put two sheep in the slaughter-house or two oxen in the abattoir and let one of them realize that his companion will not die, and the sheep will bleat with joy, the ox low with pleasure. But man, man whom God made in His image, man to whom God gave this first, this sole, this supreme law, that he should love his neighbour, man to whom God gave a voice to express his thoughts - what is man's first cry when he learns that his neighbour is saved? A curse. All honour to man, the masterpiece of nature, the lord of creation!

But hold fast. Before you become too flushed at the prospect of starring nightly in your own private pornographic films, there are limitations.

Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep. Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night.

If at bight you can't sleep, don't count sheep - talk to the Shepherd

That helped give me a sense of normal. And getting back to normal was everything. Everybody was counting on me to be normal.

The other wives and I talked together one night about the possibility of becoming widows. What would we do? God gave us peace of heart, and confidence that whatever might happen, His Word would hold. We knew that 'when He Putteth forth His sheep, He goeth before them.' God's leading was unmistakable up to this point. Each of us knew when we married our husbands that there would never be any question about who came first -- God and His work held held first place in each life. It was the condition of true discipleship; it became devastatingly meaningful now. It was a time for soul-searching, a time for counting the possible cost. Was it the thrill of adventure that drew our husbands on? No. Their letters and journals make it abundantly clear that these men did not go out as some men go out to shoot a lion or climb a mountain. Their compulsion was from a different source. Each had made a personal transaction with God, recognising that he belonged to God, first of all by creation, and secondly by redemption through the death of His Son, Jesus Christ. This double claim on his life settled once and for all the question of allegiance. It was not a matter of striving to follow the example of a great Teacher. To conform to the perfect life of Jesus was impossible for a human being. To these men, Jesus Christ was God, and had actually taken upon Himself human form, in order that He might die, and, by His death, provide not only escape from the punishment which their sin merited, but also a new kind of life, eternal both in length and in quality. This meant simply that Christ was to be obeyed, and more than that, that. He would provide the power to obey

Yan, tan, tethera, pethera, pimp, Sethera, lethera, hovera, covera, dik; Yan-a-dik, tan-a-dik, tethera-dik, pethera-dik, bumfit, Yan-a-bumfit, tan-a-bumfit, tethera-bumfit, pethera-bumfit, figgit.

My mother used to say that if I couldn’t sleep I should count something that matters, anything but sheep. Count stars. Count Mercedes-Benzes. Count U.S. presidents. Count the years you have left to live. I might jump out the window, I thought, if I couldn’t sleep. I pulled the blanket up to my chest. I counted state capitals. I counted different kinds of flowers. I counted shades of blue. Cerulean. Cadet. Electric. Teal. Tiffany. Egyptian. Persian. Oxford. I didn’t sleep. I wouldn’t sleep. I couldn’t. I counted as many kinds of birds as I could think of. I counted TV shows from the eighties. I counted movies set in New York City. I counted famous people who committed suicide: Diane Arbus, the Hemingways, Marilyn Monroe, Sylvia Plath, van Gogh, Virginia Woolf. Poor Kurt Cobain. I counted the times I’d cried since my parents died. I counted the seconds passing. Time could go on forever like this, I thought again. Time would. Infinity loomed consistently and all at once, forever, with or without me. Amen.

Probably we’d have been better off born in nineteenth-century Russia. I’d have been Prince So-and-so and you Count Such-and-such. We’d go hunting together, fight, be rivals in love, have our metaphysical complaints, drink beer watching the sunset from the shores of the Black Sea. In our later years, the two of us would be implicated in the Something-or-other Rebellion and exiled to Siberia, where we’d die. Brilliant, don’t you think?

As far as I'm concerned," the girl said, "you can count that as a major objection to Mercerism." Her voice was clean and neutral; she intended only to state a fact, he realized. "I guess I'll go back upstairs," he said

Only he will deserve the name of “man” and can count upon anything prepared for them from above, who has already acquired corresponding data for being able to preserve intact both the wolf and the sheep entrusted to his care.

Pubs have always been the heart of Irish social life, but when the smoking ban came in, a lot of people moved to drinking at home. The ban doesn't bother me, although I'm confused by the idea that you shouldn't go into a pub and do anything that might be bad for you, but the level of obedience does. To the Irish, rules always used to count as challenges—see who can come up with the best way round this one—and this sudden switch to sheep mode makes me worry that we're turning into someone else, possibly Switzerland.

FOR YEARS I have carried in my head a thought tossed out by Aldo Leopold. In the early 20th century, he worked for the U.S. Forest Service in Eastern Arizona, and he killed a wolf to protect the cattle and increase the deer. He went on to become a pioneer in wildlife management and a leading conservationist. He wrote an essay about that killing. He’d decided that when he’d pulled the trigger and helped remove the wolf from the Southwest, he’d made the mountain a lesser place. He said we had to learn to think like a mountain. I stare into the gate of rock framing the entrance to Pima Canyon. The mesquite leaves hang listless in the heat. Underfoot, a broken field of granite spreads out. Past that stone gate, the freedom of the Pusch Ridge Wilderness begins. The place feels wanting without bighorns watching me. I can’t prove this. But I’ve known it since I was a boy. That’s why we look at the mountains and crave to be near them. Maybe we can’t think like a mountain. But we can do better than we have. We can bring the bighorns back where they belong. Counting sheep, An Essay by

He must turn to something solid, because if he didn't, who knew where his mind or his soul could blow away to, like a balloon without ballast.... He raised the binoculars and scoured the island for more signs of life: he needed to see the goats, the sheep; to count them. Stick to the solid. To the brass fittings which had to be polished, the glass which had to be cleaned—first the outer glass of the lantern, then the prisms themselves. Getting the oil in, keeping the cogs moving smoothly, topping up the mercury to let the light glide. He gripped each thought like the rung of a ladder by which to haul himself back to the knowable; back to this life.

It doesn’t have to be dark outside for us to be in the middle of the night. Sometimes the darkness is in us. Discouragement moves in, and we are like Asaph, who said, “My hand was stretched out in the night without ceasing; my soul refused to be comforted” (v. 2). Some translations read, “My sore was running in the night.” What do you do when your soul refuses to be comforted? Asaph tells us what we should do. First, talk to God. “I cried out to God with my voice—to God with my voice; and He gave ear to me” (v. 1). Someone has suggested that when you can’t sleep at night, instead of counting sheep, talk to the Shepherd. That’s what Asaph did. Sometimes

The latest one was a lullaby. Marvin droned, Now the world has gone to bed, Darkness won't engulf my head, I can see by infrared, How I hate the night. He paused to gather the artistic and emotional task to tackle the next verse. Now I lay me down to sleep, Try to count electric sheep, Sweet dream wishes you can keep, How I hate the night.

Jack's marketing books had been a part of her life for so long that she had ceased to register their presence, simply moving them from the couch to the coffee table, from the bed to the nightstand. How to Sell Everything to Anybody. Eight Great Habits of CEOs. They all seemed to involve numbers, as if you could simply count yourself to riches, like following sheep to sleep.

These anti-slavery Founders argued that if the South was going to count its “property” (that is, its slaves) in order to get more pro-slavery representation in Congress, then the North would count its “property” (that is, its sheep, cows, and horses) to get more anti-slavery representation in Congress. Of course, the South objected just as strongly to this proposal as the North had objected to counting slaves.

Lead two sheep to the butcher's, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man—man, whom God created in his own image—man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbor—man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts—what is his first cry when he hears his fellow-man is saved?

It was very strange that I, who knew the whole extent of space and time, and counted the wandering stars like sheep, overlooking none, but I who was the most awakened of all beings, I, the glory which myriads in all ages had given their lives to establish, and myriads had worshipped, should now look about me with the same overpowering awe, the same abashed and tongue-tied worship as that which human travelers in the desert feel under the stars.

Only yesterday an express train tore up a whole flock of sheep not far from here, over forty dead animals, flung through the air like cotton-wool balls, the good shepherd fallen asleep drunk somewhere, the dog in the field alone, not a hope. Now the shepherd has to bear joint responsibility for the whole loss, or don't you think he bears a responsibility, dear television audience, write and let us know what you think, it's your views that count.

Look, look,” cried the count, seizing the young men’s hands—“look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die—like a coward, it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave him strength?—do you know what consoled him? It was, that another partook of his punishment—that another partook of his anguish—that another was to die before him. Lead two sheep to the butcher’s, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man—man, whom God created in his own image—man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbor—man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts—what is his first cry when he hears his fellow-man is saved? A blasphemy. Honor to man, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation!

Well, well. I know all we medicos hand these things out freely nowadays. Nobody tells young women who can't sleep to count sheep, or get up and eat a biscuit, or write a couple of letters and then go back to bed. Instant remedies, that's what people demand nowadays. Sometimes I think it's a pity we give them to them. You've got to learn to put up with things in life. All very well to stuff a comforter into a baby's mouth to stop it crying. Can't go on doing that all a person's life.

...the following parable may be useful. Long ago, when shepherds wanted to see if two herds of sheep were isomorphic, they would look for an explicit isomorphism. In other words, they would line up both herds and try to match each sheep in one herd with a sheep in the other. But one day, along came a shepherd who invented decategorification. She realized one could take each herd and ‘count’ it, setting up an isomorphism between it and some set of ‘numbers’, which were nonsense words like ‘one, two, three, . . . ’ specially designed for this purpose. By comparing the resulting numbers, she could show that two herds were isomorphic without explicitly establishing an isomorphism! In short, by decategorifying the category of finite sets, the set of natural numbers was invented. According to this parable, decategorification started out as a stroke of mathematical genius. Only later did it become a matter of dumb habit, which we are now struggling to overcome by means of categorification.

Look, look,’ the count continued, grasping each of the two young men by the hand. ‘Look, because I swear to you, this is worthy of your curiosity. Here is a man who was resigned to his fate, who was walking to the scaffold and about to die like a coward, that’s true, but at least he was about to die without resisting and without recriminations. Do you know what gave him that much strength? Do you know what consoled him? Do you know what resigned him to his fate? It was the fact that another man would share his anguish, that another man was to die like him, that another man was to die before him! Put two sheep in the slaughter-house or two oxen in the abattoir and let one of them realize that his companion will not die, and the sheep will bleat with joy, the ox low with pleasure. But man, man whom God made in His image, man to whom God gave this first, this sole, this supreme law, that he should love his neighbour, man to whom God gave a voice to express his thoughts – what is man’s first cry when he learns that his neighbour is saved? A curse. All honour to man, the masterpiece of nature, the lord of creation!’ He

4And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbor shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. 5Your lamb shall be  hwithout blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, 6and you shall keep it until the  ifourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. [1] 7“Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the  jtwo doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it.

My worse date ever?” I asked. “I don’t know. I’m always amazed when the other person doesn’t ask you anything about yourself. This one date—once the autobiography started, it wouldn’t stop. I actually sat there, thinking, Wow, you’re not going to ask me a single question, are you? And sure enough. Ten minutes. Thirty minutes. An hour. Only one subject. And it wasn’t me.” “So, what did you do?” you asked. “I just started counting. Like sheep. And when the waiter asked if we wanted to have dessert, my date started to order, and I interrupted and said I had promised a friend to walk his dog. What about you?

Suddenly with a single bound he leaped into the room. Winning a way past us before any of us could raise a hand to stay him. There was something so pantherlike in the movement, something so unhuman, that it seemed to sober us all from the shock of his coming. The first to act was Harker, who with a quick movement, threw himself before the door leading into the room in the front of the house. As the Count saw us, a horrible sort of snarl passed over his face, showing the eyeteeth long and pointed. But the evil smile as quickly passed into a cold stare of lion-like disdain. His expression again changed as, with a single impulse, we all advanced upon him. It was a pity that we had not some better organized plan of attack, for even at the moment I wondered what we were to do. I did not myself know whether our lethal weapons would avail us anything. Harker evidently meant to try the matter, for he had ready his great Kukri knife and made a fierce and sudden cut at him. The blow was a powerful one; only the diabolical quickness of the Count's leap back saved him. A second less and the trenchant blade had shorn through his heart. As it was, the point just cut the cloth of his coat, making a wide gap whence a bundle of bank notes and a stream of gold fell out. The expression of the Count's face was so hellish, that for a moment I feared for Harker, though I saw him throw the terrible knife aloft again for another stroke. Instinctively I moved forward with a protective impulse, holding the Crucifix and Wafer in my left hand. I felt a mighty power fly along my arm, and it was without surprise that I saw the monster cower back before a similar movement made spontaneously by each one of us. It would be impossible to describe the expression of hate and baffled malignity, of anger and hellish rage, which came over the Count's face. His waxen hue became greenish-yellow by the contrast of his burning eyes, and the red scar on the forehead showed on the pallid skin like a palpitating wound. The next instant, with a sinuous dive he swept under Harker's arm, ere his blow could fall, and grasping a handful of the money from the floor, dashed across the room, threw himself at the window. Amid the crash and glitter of the falling glass, he tumbled into the flagged area below. Through the sound of the shivering glass I could hear the "ting" of the gold, as some of the sovereigns fell on the flagging. We ran over and saw him spring unhurt from the ground. He, rushing up the steps, crossed the flagged yard, and pushed open the stable door. There he turned and spoke to us. "You think to baffle me, you with your pale faces all in a row, like sheep in a butcher's. You shall be sorry yet, each one of you! You think you have left me without a place to rest, but I have more. My revenge is just begun! I spread it over centuries, and time is on my side. Your girls that you all love are mine already. And through them you and others shall yet be mine, my creatures, to do my bidding and to be my jackals when I want to feed. Bah!" With a contemptuous sneer, he passed quickly through the door, and we heard the rusty bolt creak as he fastened it behind him. A door beyond opened and shut. The first of us to speak was the Professor. Realizing the difficulty of following him through the stable, we moved toward the hall. "We have learnt something… much! Notwithstanding his brave words, he fears us. He fears time, he fears want! For if not, why he hurry so? His very tone betray him, or my ears deceive. Why take that money? You follow quick. You are hunters of the wild beast, and understand it so. For me, I make sure that nothing here may be of use to him, if so that he returns.

One night, out of a clear blue sky, one of the wrestlers started another one of our conversations that had nothing to do with wrestling. As a matter of fact, very few of them did. He said: “Pappy, did you realize that wrestling fans had such stupid faces before you started refereeing?” “No, I didn’t. It’s a pity my psychiatrist couldn’t work in my place some night.” “How’s that, Pappy?” “My God, he’d find enough customers in one arena to last him a lifetime.” “I have a more horrible thought than yours.” I asked: “Yeah, what is it?” “Look at them again. Then stop and think that each one has a vote, and that it counts as much as yours or mine.” “I see what you mean. Nauseating, isn’t it?

Some of the middlemen who claim to be closer to God than all the rest of humanity realise that they can outwit their followers by making them believe that the more you serve them, the more you are pleasing God. Needless to say, many folks throughout history bought this codswallop. For those followers, having an authority figure like a middleman, teacher, cleric, or guru becomes their only way to add spiritual significance into their lives and to feel whole. As a result, they throw away that responsibility by counting on another entity outside of themselves. Depending on such hand-holding renders them mentally, emotionally, even spiritually immature — losing their freedom and critical thinking in the process while never achieving wholeness. On the other hand, propelled by the exhausted rules, dogmas, and hierarchy they embody, when “the false prophets in sheep's clothing” notice the submission of such followers they often begin taking advantage of it. Now bow down and kiss my feet to reach Nirvana! Wash them first. But as Allan Watts seamlessly put it: “Anybody who tells you that he has some way of leading you to spiritual enlightenment is like somebody who picks your pocket and sells you your own watch. Of course if you didn’t know you had a watch, that might be the only way of getting you to realise.” This all echoes with even more striking words by Bob Dylan: You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Simply Know Thyself; the rest shall follow.

What I realized is that God used a bearded, animal-skin-wearing, locust-eating wild man to prepare the way for His Son’s ministry to the people on earth. But John the Baptist didn’t look religious in any way. God told Samuel in 1 Samuel 16:7, “Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” It is the heart of a man that counts; the beard, in my opinion, is the exclamation point. If you believe a man’s heart is right and his spiritual qualities are good, why would you judge him based on how much he shaves his face? As it says in Matthew 7:15, “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” After I thought about that, I decided I would rather be a sheep in wolves’ clothing than vice versa, you know?

Look, look," cried the count, seizing the young men's hands - "look, for on my soul it is curious. Here is a man who had resigned himself to his fate, who was going to the scaffold to die - like a coward, it is true, but he was about to die without resistance. Do you know what gave him strength? - do you know what consoled him? It was, that another partook of his punishment - that another partook of his anguish - that another was to die before him. Lead two sheep to the butcher's, two oxen to the slaughterhouse, and make one of them understand that his companion will not die; the sheep will bleat for pleasure, the ox will bellow with joy. But man - man, whom God created in his own image - man, upon whom God has laid his first, his sole commandment, to love his neighbor - man, to whom God has given a voice to express his thoughts - what is his first cry when he hears his fellow man is saved? A blasphemy. Honor to man, this masterpiece, this masterpiece of nature, this king of the creation! The people all took part against Andrea, and twenty thousand voices cried, "Put him to death! put him to death!" Franz sprang back, but the count seized his arm, and held him before the window. "What are you doing?" said he. "Do you pity him? If you heard the cry of 'Mad dog!' you would take your gun - you would unhesitatingly shoot the poor beast, who, after all, was only guilty of having been bitten by another dog. And yet you pity a man who, without being bitten by one of his race, has yet murdered his benefactor; and who, now unable to kill any one, because his hands are bound, wishes to see his companion in captivity perish. No, no - look, look!

Darwin’s Bestiary PROLOGUE Animals tame and animals feral prowled the Dark Ages in search of a moral: the canine was Loyal, the lion was Virile, rabbits were Potent and gryphons were Sterile. Sloth, Envy, Gluttony, Pride—every peril was fleshed into something phantasmic and rural, while Courage, Devotion, Thrift—every bright laurel crowned a creature in some mythological mural. Scientists think there is something immoral in singular brutes having meat that is plural: beasts are mere beasts, just as flowers are floral. Yet between the lines there’s an implicit demurral; the habit stays with us, albeit it’s puerile: when Darwin saw squirrels, he saw more than Squirrel. 1. THE ANT The ant, Darwin reminded us, defies all simple-mindedness: Take nothing (says the ant) on faith, and never trust a simple truth. The PR men of bestiaries eulogized for centuries this busy little paragon, nature’s proletarian— but look here, Darwin said: some ants make slaves of smaller ants, and end exploiting in their peonages the sweating brows of their tiny drudges. Thus the ant speaks out of both sides of its mealy little mouth: its example is extolled to the workers of the world, but its habits also preach the virtues of the idle rich. 2. THE WORM Eyeless in Gaza, earless in Britain, lower than a rattlesnake’s belly-button, deaf as a judge and dumb as an audit: nobody gave the worm much credit till Darwin looked a little closer at this spaghetti-torsoed loser. Look, he said, a worm can feel and taste and touch and learn and smell; and ounce for ounce, they’re tough as wrestlers, and love can turn them into hustlers, and as to work, their labors are mythic, small devotees of the Protestant Ethic: they’ll go anywhere, to mountains or grassland, south to the rain forests, north to Iceland, fifty thousand to every acre guzzling earth like a drunk on liquor, churning the soil and making it fertile, earning the thanks of every mortal: proud Homo sapiens, with legs and arms— his whole existence depends on worms. So, History, no longer let the worm’s be an ignoble lot unwept, unhonored, and unsung. Moral: even a worm can turn. 3. THE RABBIT a. Except in distress, the rabbit is silent, but social as teacups: no hare is an island. (Moral: silence is golden—or anyway harmless; rabbits may run, but never for Congress.) b. When a rabbit gets miffed, he bounds in an orbit, kicking and scratching like—well, like a rabbit. (Moral: to thine own self be true—or as true as you can; a wolf in sheep’s clothing fleeces his skin.) c. He populates prairies and mountains and moors, but in Sweden the rabbit can’t live out of doors. (Moral: to know your own strength, take a tug at your shackles; to understand purity, ponder your freckles.) d. Survival developed these small furry tutors; the morals of rabbits outnumber their litters. (Conclusion: you needn’t be brainy, benign, or bizarre to be thought a great prophet. Endure. Just endure.) 4. THE GOSSAMER Sixty miles from land the gentle trades that silk the Yankee clippers to Cathay sift a million gossamers, like tides of fluff above the menace of the sea. These tiny spiders spin their bits of webbing and ride the air as schooners ride the ocean; the Beagle trapped a thousand in its rigging, small aeronauts on some elusive mission. The Megatherium, done to extinction by its own bigness, makes a counterpoint to gossamers, who breathe us this small lesson: for survival, it’s the little things that count.

Beyond Discouragement He gives power to the weak, and to those who have no might He increases strength. Isaiah 40:29 NKJV We Christians have many reasons to celebrate. God is in His heaven; Christ has risen, and we are the sheep of His flock. Yet sometimes, even the most devout believers may become discouraged. After all, we live in a world where expectations can be high and demands can be even higher. When we fail to meet the expectations of others (or, for that matter, the expectations that we have for ourselves), we may be tempted to abandon hope. But God has other plans. He knows exactly how He intends to use us. Our task is to remain faithful until He does. If you’re a woman who has become discouraged with the direction of your day or your life, turn your thoughts and prayers to God. He is a God of possibility, not negativity. He will help you count your blessings instead of your hardships. And then, with a renewed spirit of optimism and hope, you can properly thank your Father in heaven for His blessings, for His love, and for His Son. Overcoming discouragement is simply a matter of taking away the DIS and adding the EN. Barbara Johnson Just as courage is faith in good, so discouragement is faith in evil, and, while courage opens the door to good, discouragement opens it to evil. Hannah Whitall Smith The strength that we claim from God’s Word does not depend on circumstances. Circumstances will be difficult, but our strength will be sufficient. Corrie ten Boom Would we know the major chords were so sweet if there were no minor key? Mrs. Charles E. Cowman MORE FROM GOD’S WORD But as for you, be strong; don’t be discouraged, for your work has a reward. 2 Chronicles 15:7 HCSB The Lord is the One who will go before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid or discouraged. Deuteronomy 31:8 HCSB

We’ve all heard the phrase, “When seconds count the police are only minutes away.”  This is not a knock against the police.  Many officers are good friends of mine, and no police force can be everywhere—nor, in a free country, would we want them to be.  But calling the police almost never helps. Criminals, like predators in nature, do not attack when conditions favor the prey, when the sheepdog is alert beside the sheep.  Predators attack when the prey is vulnerable and unprotected.  In other words, when the cops can’t respond fast enough.  When an attack comes you probably won’t be standing in front of the police station.  You’ll be alone, or multi-tasking a busy life, or burdened (tactically speaking) with small children.  You could even be sound asleep.  Your attacker will choose that moment precisely because he thinks he can get away with it.  The mere thought of this is frightening.  And that’s a good thing.  Properly applied, a little bit of fear keeps us alert.  It is OK for children to live without fear.  Indeed, that is a top priority of every parent.  Adults, though, must see the world for what it is, both very good and very bad, and prepare for the worst so they can safely enjoy the best.     This book is about winning the legal battle, and leaves tactical training to others.  In no way does this imply, though, that your first priority shouldn’t be survival.  If you are in a fight for your life, for the life of your spouse or your children or your parents, you MUST win.  Period.  If you don’t win the physical fight, everything else becomes rather less pressing. The good news is that because we know how evil people target their prey we can use this knowledge against them.  Avoid looking weak and the bad guy will seek easier prey.  Stay alert and aware of your surroundings.  Project confidence.  Avoid places where you can get cornered, and make yourself look like more work than you’re worth.   Criminals are sometimes too stupid to know better, but that’s the exception.  They largely know the difference between easy and difficult victims. There’s more than enough easy prey for them.  If you look difficult they’ll move on.

The general who counts only his casualties, the prisoners and the material that he has lost, the positions that he has not taken, the chances that remain to his enemy, and compares his small achievement with his vaster plan, has no sense of triumph. If he confines himself to such calculations he loses the fruit of his victory; in fact, if he is very ambitious, he will regard his victory as a reverse. For is it not a reverse to have done something which is not enough? The Savior’s ambition is insatiable. For one soul He would give the whole of His blood and the whole of His heart. But precisely for that reason, when a soul is lost, even a single soul, He feels that to save it He would leave and forget all the others. His parable tells us so: “If a man hath a hundred sheep, and one of them should go astray: doth he not leave the ninety-nine in the mountains, and go to seek that which is gone astray?”179

To Friedman, a free society is a more moral society, because it respects the moral primacy of the individual. It is only through their own free choices that people express their values, and therefore their individuality and their humanity. Without that freedom, we count no more than sheep. To be truly human, we must be free, and responsible for our own actions. The majority may not approve of what we choose, or may think they know what is best for us; but that gives them no right to dictate what we may drink or inject, nor to force us into military service, nor to steal our property and income for their own purposes.

March 5 Is He Really Lord? . . . so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus. Acts 20:24 Joy means the perfect fulfilment of that for which I was created and regenerated, not the successful doing of a thing. The joy Our Lord had lay in doing what the Father sent Him to do, and He says—“As My Father hath sent Me, even so am I sending you.” Have I received a ministry from the Lord? If so, I have to be loyal to it, to count my life precious only for the fulfilling of that ministry. Think of the satisfaction it will be to hear Jesus say—“Well done, good and faithful servant”; to know that you have done what He sent you to do. We have all to find our niche in life, and spiritually we find it when we receive our ministry from the Lord. In order to do this we must have companied with Jesus; we must know Him as more than a personal Saviour. “I will shew him how great things he must suffer for My sake.” “Lovest thou Me?” Then—“Feed My sheep.” There is no choice of service, only absolute loyalty to Our Lord’s commission; loyalty to what you discern when you are in closest contact with God. If you have received a ministry from the Lord Jesus, you will know that the need is never the call: the need is the opportunity. The call is loyalty to the ministry you received when you were in real touch with Him. This does not imply that there is a campaign of service marked out for you, but it does mean that you will have to ignore the demands for service along other lines.

FINDING FULFILLMENT For You, O God, have tested us; You have refined us as silver is refined . . . we went through fire and through water; but You brought us out to rich fulfillment. Psalm 66:10–12 NKJV Everywhere we turn, or so it seems, the world promises fulfillment, contentment, and happiness. But the contentment that the world offers is fleeting and incomplete. Thankfully, the fulfillment that God offers is all encompassing and everlasting. Sometimes, amid the inevitable hustle and bustle of life-here-on-earth, we can forfeit—albeit temporarily—the joy of Christ as we wrestle with the challenges of daily living. Yet God’s Word is clear: fulfillment through Christ is available to all who seek it and claim it. Count yourself among that number. Seek first a personal, transforming relationship with Jesus, and then claim the joy, the fulfillment, and the spiritual abundance that the Shepherd offers His sheep. In serving we uncover the greatest fulfillment within and become a stellar example of a woman who knows and loves Jesus. Vonette Bright We are never more fulfilled than when our longing for God is met by His presence in our lives. Billy Graham A TIMELY TIP Want to increase your sense of fulfillment? Then strive to find God’s path for your life . . . and follow it.

Cities fell apart in violent conflicts over a single letter: was Christ of the same being with the Father, or of like being, homoousios or homoiousios? Was he from two natures (ek duo), or in two (en duo)? Such language is seriously off-putting for most modern readers, including many educated Christians. And it uses so many technical terms that almost seem to the uninitiated like secret codes. Person? Subsistence? Nature? A critic could be forgiven for comparing the straightforward words of Jesus, with all the everyday analogies and images—sheep and harvests, the sparrows and the lilies of the field, the erring brother and the widow’s penny—to the arcane philosophical language used here. Jesus spoke of love; his church spoke in riddles. I may not be the only modern reader who hears the language of Chalcedon—two but not one—and finds his thoughts occasionally straying to the film Monty Python and the Holy Grail. A monk offers instructions for the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch, in a deliberate parody of the Athanasian Creed: First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shalt be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, nor either count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out.

so serene, so fun of common purpose; I should have been a man, I·would. not have grown up so· sour, I would have spent my days in the sun doing whatever it. is that men do, digging holes, building fence.s, counting sheep. ·What is there for me in the. kitchen?

J. Malachi tried to count sheep, feeling that this was a practice which should be revived in the modern era, but he got bored after about seventy. This is what I get for being a deracinated postmodern, he thought. I've lost touch with the agricultural roots of culture.

No Shows I woke up this morning but there were some no shows. My wife, Darcy, died of pancreatic cancer at 31; one day she came from a routine checkup and the next month she was gone. My oldest daughter, Jenna, was 9 at the time, and 9 years later she OD’d on something; I asked the coroner not to tell me ‘what’ but ‘why’? My youngest daughter, Sylvia, hasn’t talk to me since, so I guess that counts as a no show. My parents are long gone, my brothers and sisters, dispersed over the world, rarely email. My cousins, uncles, aunts, are all distant or deceased. So when I woke up this morning, I counted the no shows like sheep and fell back into a welcome sleep where everyone still showed up.

Counting sheep, in fact, was his surest route to insomnia - by morning he could fill a whole pasture with a vast and clamorous flock.

...years since have proved to me over and over again that the heart set to do the Father’s will need never fear defeat. His promises of guidance may be fully counted upon. Does it make sense to believe that the Shepard would care less about getting His sheep where He wants them to go than they care about getting there?

You get to be my age, and you start counting regrets at night instead of sheep.

When politicians have problems sleeping, they count voters.

I'll just say it: I've never liked stories about dogs. Stories about hunting dogs. Sheep dogs. Bloodhounds. St. Bernard's with casks of brandy. Dogs that could talk, count, sing arias, walk on two feet or dance the boogaloo. - Richard Ford, in the foreword 'The Beast at my Feet

Do something, Margaret used to say. Don’t just count things, do something purposeful instead. Thirteen half bricks. Thirteen. It made him uneasy. Don’t stand there, John, counting your days away.

Greatness emerges from what seems in earthly terms small and insignificant, while worldly greatness collapses and falls. So it is, for example, in the account of the call of David. The youngest of Jesse’s sons, who was busy looking after the sheep, has to be summoned and is anointed king: it is not outward appearance or height of stature that counts, but the heart.

There are books on Dream Making for Insomniacs, Sheep Counting 101, encyclopedias on the methods of sleep, theories around daydreams and naps and sleepwalkers. I pull out a recipe book titled, Sleep Tonics, filled with recipes for golden milk and warm butterscotch cocoa. There is a book on how to choose the correct pillow firmness for side sleepers, and a DIY book on constructing your own mattress made of recycled fibers and sheep's wool.

As she worked, her face was soft, her gaze blinkless, her body outwardly relaxed, nearly motionless. But inside her head there was a relentless noise, and to shut it out she started counting her records and then counting sheep. One sheep, two sheep. three sheep ... two hundred and fifty sheep think of nothing but sheep. Calm, she thought, calm.

The heart set to do the Father's will need never fear defeat. His promises of guidance may be fully counted upon. Does it make sense to believe that the Shepherd would care less about getting His sheep where He wants them to go than they care about getting there?

The migraine held me in its gloomy embrace. I rocked in my bed. I willed the railroad spike to remove itself from my head. I counted sheep. I counted breaths. I counted back from 100. I counted on myself. The pain in my head burned lethal umber and gold, shaped like a dagger and sharp as betrayal. I named it Detective Wasserman. I gave it flesh with my worrying, and I flayed it, inch by glorious inch.

David said to God, “Was it not I who ordered the fighting men to be counted? I, the shepherd, have sinned and done wrong. These are but sheep. What have they done? LORD my God, let your hand fall on me and my family, but do not let this plague remain on your people.

I often meet people who do not like me or each other. It doesn’t always matter. I keep on smiling, talking. I knock at the same door once, three times, twelve. My dislike has no consequences. It accrues only in my mind—like preserves on a shelf or guns zeroing in, and never firing. The same smile. I knew someone who used to go to sleep counting, not sheep, but people against whom he had grievances—bullies from childhood, kindergarten teachers, back to nannies even, bosses, employees, anybody awful up to the preceding day. When they were rounded up in his mind, he would machine-gun them down.