Life is a Pair of Ducks

When I was a Pastor, I did a sermon called "Life is a Paradox." One of my members told me later that her nine-year-old daughter had asked her about it. She asked her daughter if she understood what I meant and the little girl's reply was, "Well, sorta...but I don't understand how life is a pair of ducks."

Me neither.

But it seems to be as an appropriate image as any. The more I explore this "spiritual" stuff, the more comfortable I become with a pair of ducks.

It seems that in order to have something, I must not want it. In order to save my life, according to Jesus, I must lose it. In order to know something, according to Lao Tzu, I must stop knowing.

Those are some really odd ducks.

But here's the funny thing about those ducks. As you go along, feeding them, watching them swim through life's pond, even petting them every once and a while, you just get used to them waddling around. Pretty soon they're following you everywhere you go and people look at you strangely.

You begin to forget how "normal" it is to live without a pair of ducks - and oddly enough, the thought of them not being around now seems very strange. And while you cannot really understand their quacking, you almost get a feel for it - as if it makes some kind of strange sense to you.

And then you realize it does make sense.

Not in a logical way, of course. Your intellect still occasionally objects to them or tries to figure out their purpose. But somewhere deeper, a part of you actually understands. Then when you try to explain it to someone, it just comes out all quackety quack.

I keep coming back to that verse in Psalm 46:10: "Stop striving and know that I am God." It's like God is telling me, "just feed the ducks and don't worry about it."

People thought Jesus was a quack. Same with Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha. They probably felt that way about Lao Tzu and Chuang Tzu. Rumi, Hafez, Meister Eckhart, Ghandi...all had plenty of folks who thought they were quacks.

I just think they were cool with a pair of ducks.

» left by sue thom from nj (2 years 358 days ago.)

hi tiger,

 

this was a great analogy, and easy to understand.

 

i think i'll just try to feed the ducks for awhile, and see what happens,

 

thanks for a good article,

 

my best to you,

 

sue

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» left by Tiger (2 years 358 days ago.)

Thanks, Sue :)

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