Six Little Ducklings Take a Leap of Faith

When I was visiting friends this weekend, Maggie wanted to show me the ducklings that had hatched on their roof a few weeks ago. Earlier this spring, a mother duck had made her way from the river into the neighborhood and found a nice puddle on top of their flat roof and had built her nest up there, nestled into the corner of the house. Beats me why a duck would choose a place so high up, but I think she must have been proud of herself.

Maggie took me upstairs to look out the window to see the ducklings. Sure enough, as soon as we peered out, six little ducklings scuttled their way out of a pile of leaves in the corner and waddled across the roof to their mother, who was calling them over.

"Oh, look! Look at them! Eeeehh! They are so cute! Oh, I want to hold one!" ....such were the feminine exclamations issuing from our mouths.

We squealed with delight about how cute they were, all clustered around mom, finding shade under her shadow and waddling across the roof staying close to her body. The seven of them were making their way across the roof slowly, as if out for a little stroll or to get some exercise. Then the mother duck began heading for the edge of the roof, and we said, "Uh oh! No mother duck! Don't get too close to the edge!"

Well, that was exactly where she was intending to go. She began testing some spots and peering down. When she'd found a good spot in her estimation, she hobbled over the ledge and flopped down to the ground. A feeling of dread overtook us at the sudden realization that instead of witnessing a cute little scene we might be in for a horror story. Were we to watch six ducklings now break their tiny necks, jumping 10 feet off the roof into the rock garden below? For they were so tiny yet with downy feathers and wobbly legs!

"What is she thinking?!" we exclaimed. "No, don't let the ducklings jump off!" we cried, feeling helpless.

Then sure enough, as we started to worry, one duckling scampered up on the ledge and took a dive. We gasped and ran downstairs and out the back door to see if it had survived the fall into the rock garden. It had! And the mother duck was exhorting them all to come down with a "Quack, quack, quack."

One by one, all the ducklings dropped down. Two of them landed on their backs, kicking their little legs, and we were worried they were hurt or perhaps couldn't roll over on their own. All the while, the mother duck just kept calling them. When at last even the two on their backs had flipped themselves over and were all on their feet, Maggie and I stopped our flailing and breathed sighs of relief and rejoiced! We said our goodbyes to the family that had started out on their roof: Mother Mary Bridget and her flock-lings, named Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Mary and Martha.

I was so thankful we had been there just at the right moment to observe this exodus from the roof and to wish farewell to the brave little ducklings who are headed for the water where they belong. I couldn't help think about the times when my faith is tested like that and I am tempted to respond in fear and flailing. "This can't be the right time! I'm not ready! What do you expect of me?" The jump seems impossible and frightening, yet the Lord, like a mother bird, keeps calling us, until I muster the nerve to finally let go, fall and trust. I couldn't do it without my brothers and sisters. I couldn't do it without the reassurance of faith that "mother knows best," that ultimately, we are meant for so much more, and the One who calls us is trustworthy.

"For I know well the plans I have in mind for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare, not for woe! plans to give you a future full of hope." (Jeremiah 29:11)

Fair thee well, ducklings!

"All My Life’s a Circle"

With the car windows rolled down and the volume cranked up on the tape player, my mom, sister and I would sing our hearts out down the highway: 

“All my life’s a circle, sunrise and sundown. / The moon rose through the nighttime / till the daybreak comes around. / All my life’s a circle, but I can’t tell you why. / The seasons spinning round again. The years keep rolling by.” ("All My Life's a Circle" by Harry Chapin)

It’s fitting that this rousing song should go round and round in my head this month, as our family recalls Dad’s passing away on April 27, 1990. Harry Chapin was one of Dad’s favorite songwriters, and listening to his music during our long, summer road trips up north to see Dad's side of the family, I always felt there was a special message to me from Dad in his lyrics.

At 27 years of age and having just endured one of the coldest, harshest winters in Wisconsin, I have come to realize yet again that all my life’s a circle. The coming of spring couldn't be more welcome and more miraculous. There was a point in February and March where I just didn't think spring was possible. I thought we’d be stuck in winter forever. But then surprise, surprise, spring returns!

Saturday a friend and I took a six-and-a-half-mile hike through the village where I live and out along a trail that runs beside a certain Fox River, underneath a canopy of trees. How wonderful to my ears to hear the rushing of water, running, spilling, gurgling over the rocks, foaming at the dam, rising high up on the banks of the creek-ways and river-ways everywhere in the village! Truly, this is the miracle of spring, this power to set free what once was solid ice, immoveable. Dad would love to be here, underneath the canopy of trees, where green shoots are springing out of the ground, and yellow daffodils, yellow tulips and purple wildflowers have just begun to soften the world with their color.

A rabbit hops into my view, a few feet in front of me on the path, and then a second later is gone, suddenly lost in the camouflage of woody undergrowth. It’s a phenomenon of nature that Annie Dillard in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek defines as “now you see me, now you don’t.”

“I found you a thousand times / I guess you’ve done the same. / But then we lose each other / It’s just like a children’s game / And as I find you here again / The thought runs through my mind / Our love is like a circle / Let’s go around one more time.” (Harry Chapin)

This song always reminds me how we weave in and out of different places and people's lives at different times. We wave goodbye to one opportunity to embrace a new one and then return to it one day. A recently re-discovered newspaper article I forgot I wrote four years ago reveals I was writing about the parish that I now attend, never dreaming I’d be in this city one day!

And this month, I find myself at familiar crossroads as I'm given the opportunity to move back to the city from whence I came and into a house that I had first hoped to live in a year and a half ago. I find myself, thus, caught "in the middle of a move.” While my place here goes up for rent, waiting for the right person to come along and find it, on the other side, a room awaits me and old friends eagerly anticipate for me to return and move in with them in another city. Like so many things in life, I am in the middle of a guessing game. I am ready to pick up and go at any moment, but when? Is this it, now?

 

I can't help thinking that maybe this will be heaven: to find ourselves come full circle, and to know for the first time the reason why.