Shepherds And Angels chords by Penny Wilcock

SimplifiedGm · G · F · F#

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Verse 1
Gm 
I wonder if you ever thought
what you would like to do
and what you would like to be
when you grow up.
Maybe you would like to be a teacher,
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or a firefighter, or a farmer.
Maybe you would like to have
a sweet shop,
or fly an aeroplane,
Gm 
or drive an ambulance.
G 
Maybe you would like to be a vet,
or a film star, or a ballerina.
When I was little,
I wanted to be a nurse,
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because our mother was a nurse,
and I thought our mother
was the most wonderful person
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in the whole world.
Now I have listened to lots of children say
what they would like to be when they grow up,
and some of them want to travel,
some of them want to be on the stage,
some of them want to be rich,
and some of them want to drive fast cars.
But you know, I never met a child
who said to me,
When I grow up, I want to be a dustman.
I expect that somewhere there must be a child who
wants to be a dustman,
because his daddy is a dustman,
and he thinks his daddy
is the most wonderful person
in the whole world.
But there are not many children like that.
I never met a child
who wanted to be a dustman
when he grew up.
And it's not because dustmen
get dirty
and the dust cart is smelly,
because firefighters get dirty
and farms can be smelly enough.
It isn't that.
It's because if you're a film star
or a teacher or a vet
then other people will think you
are clever and special and wonderful.
And all of us want other people
to think that we are special.
But people do not think
the dustman is special.
People don't think anything
about the dustman at all.
They might even look down
on him
and think he's not as important as
they are.
But a dustman can be special.
My dustman is special.
He's kind and friendly.
Once when I'd just come to live in our street,
and I didn't know what day the dust cart came,
he came into my
house with the other dustman
to help take my dustbins
because I wasn't ready,
and he made sure they wiped their feet on the mat,
because it was raining.
Wasn't that thoughtful?
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And he's always polite and kind
and he always says hello to me
in a friendly way.
I don't know what you think,
but I think it takes a special person
to be as nice and kind as that
when you have to empty
people's dustbins all day,
even when it's cold and wet,
and you are too,
even when the pavement is slippery
with ice.
When Jesus was born
I don't think they had dustmen,
but in those days people thought the same
kind of thing about shepherds
as people think about dustmen today.
Nobody much wanted
to be a shepherd.
They stayed outside with their sheep,
and they were really very poor.
Nobody thought they were clever or interesting,
and if you were a shepherd,
people might even look
down on you
and think you are
not as important as them.
But a shepherd can be
special.
God thought the shepherds were special enough to be the first
ones invited to see the new baby Jesus after he was born.
And God sent some angels
to tell the shepherds all
about baby Jesus
and where to find him.
Can you imagine it? It was night time.
The shepherds in those days
had to stay out with their sheep,
even at night.
They didn't have fields with fences,
and they did have wild animals
like wolves and lions and bears,
who like nothing better than
a nice fat little lamb for supper.
So you had to be brave to be a shepherd,
brave enough to stay outside
when the wild animals
came out at night,
because your sheep
needed you
to keep them safe.
I think the shepherds would
have had a fire
to keep them warm, don't you?
Because even in hot countries
it can be very cold at night.
I think the shepherds would
sit around the fire
and tell each other stories,
because of course they didn't have telly in those days,
or books to look at.
And they played music on their shepherds' pipes,
which are a bit like recorders,
because they didn't have CDs or tapes
to listen to like you have,
and the fire would burn merrily,
with little sparks flying up into the darkness,
and little flakes of ash drifting
and settling in their hair.
They didn't have sleeping bags either,
but they did have sheep
who loved and trusted them,
so I expect that when it got late,
the sheep and the shepherds
would all lie down near to each other
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and doze off to sleep under the starlight,
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and near to the warm red glow of the fire.
And there was a special star,
wasn't there,
on the night the baby Jesus
was born?
Remember?
But can you imagine
how surprised those
shepherds must have been
when late at night,
just as they were dozing off to sleep,
the sky lit up with a great blaze,
like when they put all
the lights on
at a football match after dark.
It must have been like a lot of cars
putting all their headlights on at once.
A great white light blazing in the sky,
so that their own little fire
must have looked as small as the red
glow at the end of a cigarette
that someone has thrown
onto the pavement
without bothering to stub it out.
And not only that,
but the angels were singing.
How wonderful!
How amazing to hear the angels sing.
Imagine to see not just one angel,
but lots of angels all at once,
in a great unearthly light,
and not just a quick glimpse,
but staying long enough to
sing
one of the songs
they have in heaven.
I wish I'd been there, don't you? You and me,
and my dustman,
sitting round the fire
to see the angels
and hear their beautiful song.
And the angels have brought a message,
especially for those shepherds,
to say that the baby Jesus was
born in Bethlehem
and that if they hurried along to look for him,
they would find him
tucked up in a manger
because they don't do cots in a stable.
So that's what they did.
They left the angels
looking after their sheep,
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G 
except some people say they took one little lamb to
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be a special present for the baby Je sus,
seeing as he was too poor to have toys.
G 
And I think they left one
of their shepherd's pipes,
like a recorder remember?
G 
Because he must have had more
fun with that
than with a sheep.
They went down the hillside
and they found the stable with the star,
where Joseph and Mary
and the donkey and baby
Jesus were staying
and they were careful to go in as softly
and quietly
as they could
and they did their best to
wipe their feet too I'm sure.
It's important that the angels
came to those shepherds.
It wasn't just that the shepherds
were on the hill
and so they were the
first people the angels spotted
as they flew down to earth.
No.
The angels chose the shepherds
to make the point
that God, our Heavenly Father,
cares about everybody.
Even people with jobs
that make other people
look down on them.
Even poor people.
And people who live outside
and sleep outside at night.
Even little children.
I wonder what you will be
when you grow up.
You might just be an ordinary bank manager,
or you might be a dustman
who sees an angel one day.