There is the donkey who appears to our imagination in a Bethlehem stable and the one who walks in the Jerusalem parade amid cheering fans. And another placed centre stage in a painting by Orazio Gentileschi – the large head looking over the exhausted family resting on their way to Egypt, the baby suckling and Joseph stretched out on the ground – who could be saying, ‘don’t forget about the one who carries them’…
To a Father who notices the fall of a sparrow, the ass is more than ‘a dumb beast’. He, too, is loved by the Father who suffers, in some way, with all his creatures, including those we lord it over, oblivious of how in our keeping they are often mistreated and misunderstood.
In contrast there’s the story of Elisabeth Svendsen. Little did she know when in 1969 she decided to buy a donkey named Naughty Face that her heart would be blown open by seeing other neglected donkeys for sale; that she would found a worldwide sanctuary movement to care for thousands more just like them; and found a Trust that would create opportunities for children with special needs to bond with these loving friends.
And there’s Brian, who, after his awful accident, liked nothing better than to drive down in his chair to sit and gaze and talk to his two donkeys, Tess and Bess, his affinity with them deepened perhaps by his own sense of confinement and their still and attentive presence. They understood.