The Lost Lamb

Chinese Scrolls of the Good Shepherd Story, Church of the Good Shepherd, April 1966

“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, `Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.' Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”

—Luke 15:4–7

SONG: “The Lost Lamb” by Abigail Washburn and Jingli Jurca | Performed by Abigail Washburn, on Song of the Traveling Daughter (2005)

Zai na yaoyuan de guxiang Wo shiluo liao yi ge gulao de meng Yi ge youshang de meng Zai na yangyu wo de defang Wo fenbian buliao muse he chenguang Wo yanjuanliao chenmo he sixiang Feng nanchui you zhuanxiang beifang Jianghe ben hai, hai que bu zhang Wo xin manliao choucheng Yu lai you shi qing bu jiuchang Fuzu tianbuman linghun de kewang Zhihui dangbukai yongsheng de shuangjiang Wo Wo shi Yi zhi Mitu de gaoyang Shei neng ying wo zouchu mimang Nar you wo chongsheng de xiwang Oh, muyangren ah Ni zai hefang?

In that far distant land I call home I lost the ancient dream A sorrowful dream In that place that raised me I cannot discern the growing shadows of dusk And the first faint rays of the morning sun I’ve wearied in the silence and searching Wind blows south and turns again north River flows to the sea, yet the sea does not rise My heart is filled with melancholy The rains come, clear skies will follow soon Even fortune and good blessings Cannot quench the soul’s thirst Wisdom cannot relieve us our eternal lot I am a lost lamb Who will lead me from this haze? What will bring me hope again? O shepherd Where are you? [source]

Celebrated today as one of America’s most acclaimed folk musicians, Abigail Washburn came to notoriety through an unlikely path. Raised in the Indiana suburbs, she went to college in Vermont, where she majored in East Asian studies and Mandarin and hoped to pursue a degree in international law at Beijing University. But one night, before her planned departure, she attended a party where she heard a recording of Doc Watson singing “Shady Grove.” Instantly taken with the sound of American bluegrass, she bought a banjo and headed to Appalachia, to immerse herself in the music and culture of the region. Her passion and talent soon brought her to the attention of Nashville recording studios and to the attention of her now-husband, renowned banjoist Béla Fleck, whom she met at a square dance.

Although her international legal career in Beijing did not pan out, Washburn’s deep love for Chinese culture endured. In 2011, she launched the Silk Road Tour, collaborating with Chinese musicians along the way. That same year, she co-founded The Wu-Force, a self-described “kung fu-Appalachian avant-garde folk-rock” trio with guzheng (thither) master Wu Fei and multi-instrumentalist Kai Welch. As her website puts it, “her efforts to share US music in China and Chinese music in the US exist within a hope that cultural understanding and the communal experience of beauty and sound rooted in tradition will lead the way to a richer existence.” You can hear more of her ambition for cultural exchange in her 2012 TED Talk, “Building US-China Relations... by Banjo,” or her 2015 interview with Krista Tippett, “Truth, Beauty, Banjo.”

One of Washburn’s songs, “The Lost Lamb” (2005), which she co-wrote with Beijing poet Jingli Jurca, was inspired by a Chinese student Washburn once taught in Vermont. The student had come to the US to earn money for his family, but after four years, he received a letter from his wife, notifying him that she and their daughter were starting a new life—without him. Washburn’s song captures his sense of alienation, dislocation, and ache for home, family, and happiness, from which he has been cut off.

“The Lost Lamb” is deeply moving, even without understanding the lyrics or the story behind them. But reading the translation, one hears profound echoes of the biblical Parable of the Lost Sheep. In that story from Luke 15, Jesus describes himself as the shepherd who searches for a sheep who has strayed. In like manner, we are to understand, God searches for the sinner to return them to relationship with Him. The speaker in the song acknowledges his plight: “I am a lost lamb,” and is desperate for help: “O, Shepherd, where are you?”

At the same time, the song feels very much like a modern-day psalm—raw, aching, and spiritual. “It’s hard to tell dusk from dawn,” the speaker says. “My soul thirsts.” The speaker’s pain is acute and his pain undisguised: “Who will lead me from this haze? What will bring me hope again?” Like the psalmists, the speaker reaches through suffering and uncertainty for answers, for salvation, for a Savior.

Whether we hear this so as a lament over lost love, lost culture, or lost faith, the song sounds with truth and beauty in the midst of its deep sadness.

<hat tip: Victoria Emily Jones>