Father Rumi hung up the phone after having promised to stop by the farm and have a look late that afternoon. He promised, after Colin told him of the eerie way all except one eye looked at him. Father Rumi readily admitted to himself that he was more curious to see the abnormal lamb for himself than to minister to Conlin's apprehensions about how they--the other six eyes--stared at him. Father Rumi thought he should reassure his parishioner that at least and in this case a most unusual creature also bore the stamp of God's flock. And after all, Colin was one of Rumi's flock too, who called in need. It was Father Rumi's _raison d'etre_, to respond compassionately and unreservedly to any call for help.
_Seven eyes. There's a curiosity. And one on top of its head that stared just up in a vacant or knowing gaze. That image brings new meaning to adoration and contemplating the divine. Silly thought. But what did that eye see?_
To be stared at with six eyes, six pairs, that was almost normal, Father Rumi thought.
_But for animal or human to have seven eyes, well that was a wonder, not to mention that six gave Colin the creeps. Colin was probably just unnerved or amazed that they were staring at him, following his every move about the barn. Maybe the lamb was just hungry and Colin held the promise of salvation from hunger? Or was it just the fact of a lamb born on Christmas eve with seven eyes?_
Superstitions abound still in this land, he dismissed.
_No awe or omen need necessarily be our response. Colin was probably just a bit taken aback by one of nature's mistakes. I'll go and visit him and bless his lamb. The church's complicity averts duplicity._
Father Rumi, proud again for his clever rationalizations, went about tidying up after this special day's rituals and celebration, and he settled into his reading chair and was soon in a kind of waking dream reminiscent of images conjured up by Coleridges' Xanadu and its gardens sprinkled with colorful koans.
Colin was not easily agitated, but this event and that being in his barn were enough to stir up and hold valid Jungian archetypes made manifest and then some. Colin was odd but not a fool and not unschooled. His offbeat readings as well as his interest in the esoteric practices of the ancients who once lived on his land made perfect sense to him as a modern if modest small farmer, and bachelor with not too much time on his hands. The seven-eyed lamb born coincidentally(?) last night on Christmas eve took on an auspiciousness and importance beyond the mere vicissitudes of nature that one sees, or hears about after five beers in the pub, or reads about in the sensationalist press. One eye in the position of the seventh chakra contemplating the heavens--well, that was just too much to ignore, that is if one could ignore the silent other eyes that just watched his every move.
Colin wondered whether he had done the right thing, calling Father Rumi. Well, at least he could give witness, especially since he didn't know if there would be any more surprises involving the lamb, or anything else. Village folk, once they got hold of this news, would be asking to see it or would just show up, like from last Christmas until after Twelfth Night when that light, UFO they said, had appeared in his horse pasture that bordered the state highway to the north.
__________
** Page 181: A shepherd calls the local priest when one of his sheep gives birth to a lamb with seven eyes. _The Writer's Book of Matches_.
