Woody Cavenaugh

I believe that people come in three basic types; wolves, sheep, and sheep dogs. The sheep are pretty much most people, and often they can be good people or at the very least they are trying to be good people. They have friends, they have hobbies, they might go to church, they might not. They might be up on the trends of the day, or at the very least the trends as they were once. They want to fit in, they want to be liked, they want to belong to a political party. If someone comes along with a good strong voice saying the things they want to hear the sheep will follow them blindly.

The wolves are in it for themselves. They are good in business because they see the bottom line and want to make that number as big as possible because it is good for them and their bank accounts. Wolves make good criminals because they have no real problem with taking something that doesn't belong to them. They want it, they get it. If they can land a leadership position where they can get others to do their dirty work they will. They want to be confortable, they want to have everything their way, and they won't let others stand in their way.

Sheep dogs are natural leaders, they are thinking about the good of others. I'm not necessarily talking about moral good or ten commandments good. I am talking what is perceived as "good for others" by the sheep dog in question. This means that not only would the Pope be a textbook example of a sheep dog, so would Adolf Hitler. I believe Hitler actually believed what he was doing was for the best for his people. Jim Baker, the ex-televangelist, I think was a wolf. I believe he was doing what he did to make money for himself (Ok, he did put AC into his dog's houses that's not good enough).

I tend to think that my wife is a sheep dog. She keeps me out of trouble and she always thinks about others first. She also blogs very irregularly. When she blogs it is usually after weeks and months of thought on a subject and the only warning I get that she is writing is when she says to me, "I just posted to my blog. Read it and tell me if I should pull it." Her concern is always that the audience is going to take her words to mean something more or different than what she actually meant. Her latest is no different. She seems to have managed to nail in just a few sentences how the mind of a sheep dog works. At the same time she is gently herding the flock. The flock being anyone who reads what she wrote. She never discusses what modivates her to write. Based on this article I suspect it has to do with the upswing in the number of attempts there have been to legislate morality. It could even be the recent scuffel with Creation Vs. Evolution in Pennsylvania. Who knows? She was inspired, she wrote, some may be inspired by what she wrote.

I guess I was too... I hope that doesn't make me a sheep. ;)