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The following is taken from a journal entry Katie, my 16-year-old daughter, wrote
while visiting friends at a small church conference in Des Moines, Iowa. Tonight, she told me the story of how she volunteered to share these thoughts with the people at the conference, and then she offered to let me read her journal. I’m a little proud of her.
You guys keep talking about how new things are happening and mentioning the youth without much hope. I want to explain to you, from the perspective of the youth, what God is doing.
I was homeschooled all of my life until last year. I wanted to go to public school for several reasons: I wanted a more structured schedule, I wanted to be with my friends, and I wanted to be in an art program. But the biggest reason which made me want to go to public school first was because I wanted to be in a situation where I was coming into contact, on a daily basis, with people who didn’t know anything about God.
God called us to be in the world but not of the world. I think that we as Christians try so hard to be not of the world that we forget to be in the world.
We get isolated into our own bubble and we block the world out. I needed to get out of my Christian bubble and be in the world.
Remember that movie that came out recently called The Golden Compass? Christians protested the movie because in the end of the trilogy, they are supposed to “kill God”.
By not going to that movie, they remained ignorant and they didn’t pop their Christian bubble. They weren’t of the world, but they weren’t in it either. I saw that movie twice because I didn’t want to be ignorant and prove the author of the books that inspired the movie correct.
A few days after that, a friend of mine at school was reading The Golden Compass books. I said that the movie was really good, and her response was, “aren’t you religious?” I didn’t know how to address the question because I believe that my faith is not a religion.
Christianity is a way of life that isn’t based on following the rules and doing good works. That’s religion: doing good things to get to heaven. That is not Christianity.
Because I saw that movie, I was able to speak to this girl about the difference between Christianity and religion. I explained a little about my faith. I didn’t “convert” her, but I planted a seed. All it took was escaping the Christian bubble and seeing a movie.
Just this last week one of my friends, who is a senior and is going to become a history teacher, wrote an article for the school newspaper entitled Jesus for President. It talked about what Jesus would do if he became president of the U.S., and if he would even want to be president.
Some atheists, who eat lunch with us occasionally, came up to us during lunch and started lightly mocking my friend’s article. We ended up having a good discussion.
My friends from church and I get together every Tuesday night and talk about God and hang out. We had to go to class that day after lunch, but we invited the atheists to come hang out with us and we said we would debate religion, evolution, and Christianity with them for hours.
One of them did show up that night. We explained some of our beliefs to him, and he explained some of his beliefs to us. We talked to him for over an hour, and after he left we laughed at how stupid we must have sounded to him.
We tried to explain the trinity and feeling God’s presence. It didn’t work out too well, but afterward, we knew we planted a seed. It didn’t matter if we changed him. We made him think. We explained our faith to him. We are okay with doing nothing else.
My lunch group is kind of the “Christian group” at school. Every day we eat lunch with this guy named Alex who is an atheist, as well. We talk openly about our faith with him, but we never try to convert him. We are just his friends. We just plant seeds.
Because I have put myself in the world on purpose, I have planted several seeds. I plan to change the world, and I believe that’s what God has called me to do with my life: change the world. But, I have to be in the world to do that. “I believe I just have to plant seeds to change the world.” (John Reuben quote)
My church in Greeley is changing the world. We have this thing called the PEACE project. Through the PEACE project, we are going above and beyond our tithes to build churches in Peru and Mexico. We are building orphanages and seminaries in Africa. We are giving clean water filters to people who are dying of diseases in Cambodia. And that’s just the start.
We are being in the world, so we can change it.
My youth group in that church is very proactive about changing the world. That’s what we do. We make it our purpose. Several of us are growing up to be pastors.
Carissa is going to move to California to live with the homeless and help them. I’m going to become a youth pastor, but before I do, I’m going to work with this guy named Shane Claiborne who believes in being in the world to be used by God.
Whenever I hear of his missions, it makes me want to cry because of what he is doing. His mission can’t guarantee food, clothes or shelter; only that God will provide. They just live to be used by God.
That’s what I’m gonna do. Me and God are gonna change the world and make it a better place. Me and God are gonna raise awareness about homelessness in the U.S. Me and God are gonna cure AIDS. Me and God are gonna build churches.
But I have to be IN the world to be used by God. So, I’m living in the world. I’m not of it – I’m an alien here – but I’m in it.
I just wanted to give you hope that the world is gonna change. The youth aren’t hopeless. They are just living in the world instead of being in the Christian bubble. God is working through the youth. We are just doing it differently than you did.
We are tackling the world at its level. We are changing the world, so don’t lose hope just because you don’t see the effects yet. We are taking our time planting seeds and cultivating them.
They will grow, but seeds take some time to become fruit; maybe even years. We are doing things slowly. Don’t give up on us because in a few years, you will see the effects of our actions today.
We are changing the world.
For the last couple of days, Ellie, my 5-year-old daughter, has been entertaining herself with an old Betty Crocker cookbook that Renee and I have had since we got married.
The pages are falling out, and we probably haven’t used it more than three times, but it’s always been on our bookshelf.
On Tuesday night, Ellie got all dressed up in some costume that, in her imagination, must have been appropriate for a waitress or a chef or something, then she laid out the book in the middle of the stairway on one of the steps.
“Daddy, I need you. Come here, please,” she called to me at least a dozen times that evening.
“I’ll be right there, honey.” I tried to be enthusiastic for the first seven or eight trips down half the stairs to her perch, but the game lost its excitement earlier for me than Ellie. When I got tired, she called her mother and then her siblings, until they got sick of it, too.
When I did respond to her calls for a command performance, I stood over her display and inquired, “What do you need, Ellie?”
“Do you like this?” She pointed to a picture from the cookbook.
“Mmmmm, that looks like a great salad. Yes, I like that.”
“Then how about this?” She turned the pages to another picture.
“Oh yes, that’s corn and tomatoes. I love that!”
“Okay, thanks,” she would respond as she leaned over to the notepad laying on the step next to the cookbook. In the middle of the page, she would write a strangely formed “Y”, apparently indicating an affirmative response. No category or description of the dish was included; just a giant “Y” in the middle of the page.
I’m not sure she could have written an “N” if I had replied negatively to any of her questions, but I didn’t, so it wasn’t necessary.
She ended up with several pages of nothing but Y’s written all over them in no semblance of order.
The next evening I went upstairs to put the kids to bed and there she was again on the loveseat with the cookbook and the notebook. I ordered her off to bed, but she wouldn’t have it until I gave her my order.
“Wait, Dad! I need to take your order first, please. Do you like this?”
“Oh! Fried Catfish: that’s one of my favorites.”
She wrote the giant, mutant “Y” and then packed up her stuff and headed off to bed.
So, what’s the point? There is no point, and that’s the point.
For Ellie, the joy is in the imagination . . . the activity . . . the interaction. She couldn’t care less about life lessons, or even death lessons. She was just enjoying her family and pretty pictures of food and imagining that somehow what she was doing had value.
As it turns out, the only value in her game was that it made her father laugh for a few minutes and appreciate the beauty of not having a care in the world. That’s value enough, I guess.
Thanks, Ellie.
Last Saturday, my sister-in-law, Angie, and I were out for a long training run on the Poudre River Trail. For the first hour or so, Angie, working hard to keep a pace and be heard over the gusting wind, related a story about her father, Frank Straka.
Frank had been in the hospital in Salida recently after experiencing high blood pressure and what seemed to be minor stroke symptoms.
Although the family has been relatively close over the last few years, Angie and her siblings have had their share of difficult relational obstacles, many of them associated with their father, Frank.
Angie explained, as we huffed and puffed against the wind, that as she tried to discuss some of the recent family tension with Frank in his hospital room, he had asked her to stop talking about those issues. He could feel his blood pressure rising and didn’t want to spend his energy on those topics.
The next day, though, Angie had received a call from Frank. He related how he had experienced a deep regret the night before over focusing on petty issues and causing unnecessary dissension among his children.
Frank described how he had come to realize, alone in that dark hospital room, as he struggled with the symptoms of his high blood pressure, that it was quite possible his life could end suddenly, even though he was only in his 50’s.
In those moments, Frank recognized the relationships he had with his children were too precious to waste with insignificant quarrels. He explained to Angie that he wouldn’t waste that time any more, and they talked about how his relationship with God could bring peace to his own life and bring positive changes to his family.
As you would expect, Angie was excited about Frank’s change of heart and was looking forward to seeing how the family would be affected in days to come. We talked about how it seems that we often have to get ourselves into desperate situations to get the right perspective on life.
This morning, Angie’s sister, Kelly, who lives in San Diego, was taken into emergency surgery for a c-section to deliver a baby boy about six-weeks premature. Angie was supposed to have been at Kelly’s side for the birth in May.
As Angie rushed to make travel arrangements to go to San Diego, she was also trying everything she could think of to get in touch with Frank, whom she hadn’t spoken to for a few days, to be sure he knew about his new grandson.
It wasn’t until her plane was leaving the gate for take-off from the airport in Denver that David, Angie’s husband, called her with news about Frank.
Frank Straka was found today in his home in Salida. We don’t know exactly when he died. We only know that he’s gone.
Graciously, the pilot took Angie’s plane back to the gate, and she’s here in Colorado with her family. Yet, she’s doubly sorrowful, as she is unable to be with Kelly and her new nephew, having his own struggle to get to stable health.
Renee looked through our pictures tonight and found a photo of Frank with Gabriel, Angie’s and David’s 4-year-old-son, on his birthday in December, sitting atop the new bike he had just received as a gift from Frank. It’s a good picture, speaking at least a thousand words.
I barely knew Frank Straka. I met him at David and Angie’s wedding and have seen him on occasion over holidays and family events, but we’ve never had a real conversation, I guess. I can feel the weight of his absence tonight, though, as I think of his children and grandchildren and what they’ll miss about their father and grandfather.
I know that God does all things well. I don’t understand, though, how these things work for his good. For now, we’ll struggle to trust and hope, and we’ll hold the family in prayer.
It’s 11:20pm and I’m sitting here at the computer falling asleep with a Bible in my hands trying to grasp some concept I’ve been meaning to write about. It’s not coming, so I’m quitting.
Before I go, though, I’m giving our Good Friday play a plug. Sorry about the commercial, especially to those of you for whom being here is impossible, but . . .
This Friday evening at Christ Community Church, here in Greeley (1301 15th St.) we’re having 2 showings of our Good Friday production, “Tenebrae”.
(That means something about Service of Shadows, I’m told.)
Yours truly is playing Jesus and I’m getting crucified. Really (except for the death and real blood parts).
Maybe it’s cheesy (it’s hard to tell from the cross), but I really think it’s a good production. I think you’d be really happy to have been there.
So, if you are nearby, and if you have an hour on Friday night to get a good visual reminder of why we bother with an Easter celebration, please come and see us.
People have worked hard to make this event meaningful, and we would all be grateful for the chance to share it with you.
Show times are 6:00 and 7:30.
I’m going to bed now. Good night.
For some reason, Jesus always felt the need to describe himself:
“I am the good shepherd . . .”
“I am the bread of life . . . “
“I am the vine . . . “
“I am the way, the truth, and the life . . . “
“I am the Alpha and the Omega . . . “
“I am the resurrection and the life . . . “
“I AM.”
Evidently, we have a hard time understanding him. Sadly, all of those self-descriptive, metaphorical statements don’t seem to make it any more clear to us. I mean, is it possible to be bread and a shepherd?
What’s he talking about, anyway?
Actually, I don’t think we’re all that dense. We really do get it, but we have a hard time applying it.
It’s great that he’s the bread, but when my kids want a sandwich, I’ve got to put bread on the table, and Jesus can be hard to find, not to mention less than appetizing.
Obviously, he knew we’d always have a hard time understanding him and figuring out how to fit him into our lives. He was trying to make himself known in practical, yet transcendent, ways.
We are hungry: He is bread. We are seeking green pastures: He is a shepherd. We want to be productive: He is the vine from which all fruit is produced. We are groping for a clearing: He is the way. We are searching for truth: He is truth. We are dead or dying: He is the resurrection and life.
If you think about it, he really has it all covered.
I believe the trouble we have in applying his point comes from a general discontentment with his answers. We’d be happier if he would just point us toward comfort, or share the recipe for the bread. Instead, he keeps saying, “I am . . .”
We’re reading the words of Jesus – he’s standing right in front of us – and we’re looking past him, over his shoulder, behind him, wondering where the bag of goodies is. Where’s the stuff stashed, anyway? Who’s got the goods? To whom do I need to speak to get this my way?
This is the power of the resurrection, as you think about Easter celebrations.
The power of the resurrection is not in a path to a better life, nor in the present (or forthcoming) joy of my own eternal life. The power of the resurrection is not in the possibility of my own immortality. It is not in the amazing way he stuck it to those Pharisee boys – the underdog coming out on top.
The power of the resurrection is Jesus. He is the resurrection and the life. The life is not only his, it is him.
My desire for a life that’s bigger than the confines of this small world and my temporary maladies, is a desire for him. Jesus is the life I want and need. Jesus is all I have longed for in every breath, and I’ve been looking past him, wondering when the real answer would materialize.
The preservation and sufficiency of my own life cannot be the object of my pursuit, if truth and life are what I’m after. It’s only about me to the extent that he’s looking my way. It’s truly all about him.
Paul, in Galatians 2:20, was right on the money regarding the truth of this idea. This is true, whether I can recognize it or not: “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered himself up for me.”
The power of the cross isn’t really found in the method. Yes, of course, it was excruciating and torturous, and in that way, the experience Jesus had on that device was accentuated by the horror.
Apparently, though, many people died on crosses in that era, and if that’s true, you can believe that crucifixion was just one method among many. A society that loves to see people die horribly, in a public arena, can be creative.
The common nature of criminal execution in public seems, at least, to diminish the power of that kind of death.
It follows, then, that the pain endured by Christ on the cross doesn’t represent the power of that event either. The pain must have been unimaginable, but not uncommon, and therefore it couldn’t have been its endurance that exalts Christ’s experience. Many others experienced similar pain to the point of death.
The power of the Christ’s cross must have been, fully and completely, in Christ.
Furthermore, I’m much less impressed by the fact that he died for me, without intending to dilute the wonder of that truth in the slightest sense, and much more impressed by the sheer simplicity of the fact that he died.
Jesus died. The one, by whom and for whom all things were made and are held together, died.
He could have opted out. He said that he could have called legions (whatever number that is) of angels to help him, if he had wanted their help. He didn’t want them, and he didn’t call them. You can be sure, whatever angels are, they were hoping for a call from Jesus that day.
He chose to die. He said that no man could take his life. Rather, Jesus chose to lay down his life.
Right there: that’s the power.
The power of the cross came to a crescendo many hours before Jesus was ever nailed to it. It reached its climax in the Garden of Gethsemane, though the carrying out of the thing had to be completed.
In that garden, Jesus prayed. He looked for a way out. He wondered if everything had been completed. He wondered if another meal with his friends might have been possible. He wondered if the children he had held in his lap would be affected by his sudden departure. He wondered how his mother would cope.
Then, he stood in sorrowful triumph. He stood courageously and powerfully, with his jaw set and his heart pounding, and the assurance of the joy set before him compelling him to be resolute.
He gave his life. That’s the power. It’s in the giving, not the taking.
Then, of course, he was raised. Then he ascended. It has to go in order.
Ellie just can’t help it. She has to police her little brother. “Dad! Ethan didn’t pack any clothes in his backpack!”
“Okay, Ellie,” I replied, just to get her to turn the volume down a bit. “Tell Ethan to come here, and we’ll find out.”
My mother had stopped by to drop off a birthday dress for Meghan who turned two on Sunday. As usual, several of the kids wanted to go home with her. Grandma has cable TV with Nickelodeon and The Cartoon Channel, and she has a whole closet filled with Twinkies and candy bars and soda pop. Depending on your age, it’s either a dream or a nightmare.
Beckoned and threatened by his older sister, Ethan came stumbling into the room with a backpack as tall as he is strapped to his back side.
“What, Dad?”
“Did you pack some clothes so you can take a bath at Grandma’s, buddy?”
“Nope.”
“Well, what’s in your backpack, then?”
“I got my Spiderman suit, and my sunglasses, and a baseball.”
“Wow! Well, that’s pretty good packin’, but you’d better get some clothes, too. Get some clean underwear and socks.”
“Okay, I will,” he chirped, as he danced off to his room with Ellie on his tail.
Ellie couldn’t resist: “See, Ethan, I told you! You have to pack some clothes, too!”
I’ve spent way too much time packing and traveling. Ethan’s a novice, but his methods taught me an important lesson: I don’t think I’ve ever packed adequately. I don’t think it’s really possible.
Most of my packing efforts are spent worrying about where I’m going, who I’m meeting, what impression I’ll need to make, and what might go wrong. I always pack way too much and still never seem to have what I need.
A few years ago, I was climbing Longs Peak, one of more than fifty peaks in Colorado that exceed 14,000 feet in elevation. I packed twice as much as I needed and still didn’t have everything. At about 12,000 feet, when it was hard to breathe and the rocks and cliffs were chipping away at my machismo, I decided to ditch the pack.
I left it lying there beside the trail, knowing it might be gone when I returned – if I returned – but with it, I would never make it to the top.
Tonight, I’m fairly certain that I haven’t packed adequately. The things I’m carrying can’t meet the demands of what life is bringing. Still, I cling to them, like a rabbit’s foot in my pocket, hoping they’ve got some magical power.
With what I’m packing, I’ll never make it to the top, though. If I can sneak out before Ellie sees me, I think I’ll try to travel lighter.
Near the end of his life, my father used to sing this old, sentimental chorus so much that I was embarrassed for him:
I have everything I need to make me happy
I have Jesus to show me the way
He has saved me, and he gave me life eternal
And now, I have everything
Now, I think I should have listened more carefully. I’m beginning to understand that less is more. Small is great. Open and empty are better than closed and full. A Spiderman suit in the pack is better than clean underwear any day.
Madeline: “Our father who is in heaven, halloween be your name . . . “ or “Now I lay me down to sleep, keep me ’til I love you more.”
Noah: “Our father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, leader snot into pertation, deliver us from evil, the kingdom, the power, amen.”
Ben: “Thank you Jesus for this day; thank you for everything you’ve done for us, help us to have a good day tomorrow. Thank you for Wilby, Themby, Jonah, and Ketchine [our Compassion and World Vision kids]. Thank you for everything you’ve done for us. Amen.”
Ethan: “Now I lay me down to sleep. Pray the Lord my soul to keep. Ummmm. Ummmm. Mumble, mumble, mumble. Pray the Lord my soul to keep. Amen.”
Ellie: “Now I lay me down to sleep. Pray the Lord my soldier keep. Ummm. I can’t say my prayer.”
Renee: “Oh, God. Please help me. I don’t know if I can do this. I’m not very good at this. What am I doing? Help me to be rational and grateful and a good mother. Thank you for Dale. Help him to not be so tired and grouchy. Thank you for my children. I love them. I love you. Amen.”
Dale: “Oh, God, if this is what it’s going to be like, I don’t think I can hold up. Make me strong, Lord. I need you, Jesus, to come to my rescue. Thank you for my wife. She’s an amazing mother. Help me to love her and support her in the way she needs. Thank you for my precious children. They are so amazing and beautiful. Thank you for their safety and health. Give them a passion for you, Lord. Teach them your ways. Help me to be a good father. I can’t do this by myself. I love you. Amen.”
Jesus: “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what they’re doing.”
Though I’ve been frequently mocked for being a Kevin Costner fan, I have to admit that Field of Dreams has been one of my favorite movies for 20 years. Once, while on a business trip a few years ago, I even visited the actual field at the site where the movie was filmed in Dyersville, Iowa.
Sadly, the stigma of the string of recent Costner disappointments, along with my over-exposure to Field of Dreams, led me to avoid watching that movie for several years, though.
Renee even purchased the 20-year-anniversary special edition DVD of Field of Dreams for my birthday a couple of years ago, but up until last week, I don’t think I had even opened it.
For reasons I still don’t understand, my son, Ben, asked me if we could watch it. When I asked why, Ben shrugged and said with typical 10-year-old eloquence, “I don’t know; I just want to see it.”
I spent a few minutes trying to come up with better options but ultimately caved to that silly child and decided I had shunned Kevin long enough. Grace abounds, I guess. Ben and I hid in my bedroom from the family herd with a pile of pillows and blankets and bucket of popcorn and hit the play button.
About half way through, Ben was snoring quietly next to me, and I was enthralled in memories and baseball dreams in Iowa.
Several scenes in that movie really get to me – Shoeless Joe Jackson (Ray Liotta) appearing on the dark baseball field in the middle of the corn for the first time, Jackson’s comments about how he loved baseball, Archie “Moonlight” Graham (Burt Lancaster) dying in the seventies in one scene then hitchhiking to Iowa as a young man in the eighties to find a place to play baseball in the next scene, Archie Graham stepping off the field and being transformed back into the old “Doc Graham” again to save a choking girl only to discover he’s not able to go back to being a young baseball player again, and the speech by Terrence Mann (James Earl Jones) about how baseball has marked the years of America.
The scene that truly gets to me, though, is the same scene that made the movie a hit back in the day. It’s the very end of the movie when Ray Kinsella (Costner), and his wife and daughter, discover that the fellow who’s been playing catcher on their baseball field all day is John Kinsella, Ray’s estranged father, as a young man.
As the sun sets warmly over the tall corn and the theme music picks up volume, John and Ray get reacquainted after almost twenty years of bitterness and John’s death:
John: Can I ask you a question?
Ray: Sure.
John: Is this heaven?
Ray: (Chuckling) No, it’s Iowa.
John: Hmmm. I could have sworn this was heaven.
Ray: Is there a heaven?
John: Oh yeah. It’s the place where dreams come true.
Ray: (turning to see the beauty of his farm and listening to the echo of the laughter coming from his wife and daughter on the distant front porch of their home) Maybe this is heaven.
(John turns to walk toward the corn.)
Ray: Hey, Dad!
John: Yeah, Son?
Ray: You wanna have a catch?
John: (with a tear in his eye) I’d like that.
(Ray picks up his glove and a baseball and the two grown men cry as they toss it back and forth and the camera pans up and away.)
I know, I know. It’s so humiliating to admit it, but I cried like a baby at that scene – for the 100th time, I guess. What a sucker for cheesy drama am I?
I can’t help it though. I love the idea that reconciliation is possible, even after years of bitterness and anger. I love the idea that dreams just might come true, even after we’re old and used up, if we can live wildly enough to follow a vision.
Mostly, I love the possibility that heaven is closer than we think; that heaven is present because Christ is present, and all that is true and good in this world comes from him, and is heavenly. Maybe this is heaven. Maybe my son sleeping next to me as I cry, and pray I’ll be a good father, is proof positive that there is a heaven.
Hey, Ben? You wanna have a catch?
Five minutes into my lunch-time run on the Poudre trail, following the snaking stream of the Cache La Poudre river through Fort Collins, I stopped to stretch at my usual spot by the bench and railing looking over the river.
I leaned over the railing and looked down to the water to see if the bike with the bent front wheel was still laying there on the thinning ice in the same spot it had been a few days earlier.
The bike was gone, but it had been replaced by a pair of geese and a pair of ducks, apparently out for a double date. They had selected what seemed an odd place for their strange little party, but maybe it just seemed that way because I’m not of the right species.
Perhaps it was the perfect spot for the entertainment they were seeking in order to impress their dates. I’m sure it couldn’t have been very expensive. In any case, it was nice to see winged friends of different races crossing stereotypical boundaries to spend time together.
I turned away for a moment to give some attention to another muscle group and when I turned back, a minute later, the party was breaking up. The ducks had packed up and were strolling to the other side of the river across the ice.
You don’t see ducks walking very often, really – mostly they swim or fly which are far more efficient forms of transportation – but these ducks were in no particular hurry and efficiency was not a part of the plan for their early spring rendezvous.
These two showed no shame about displaying their orange, webbed feet for the sake of an afternoon stroll.
They kept a little distance between them as they walked, but it was clear they were a couple. The male was all dressed up for the occasion – maybe a little overdressed. On his head, he wore a dark green mask, a white choker necklace around his neck, and bright purple bracelets around the tips of his sharply creased and finely groomed wings.
The female preferred a more modest outfit, apparently not nursing the need to draw attention to herself, but she was definitely cute, and a little self-conscious, in her muted earth tones.
About halfway across the river, they came to a point where the ice was too thin to support their weight, but too dense to allow them to swim. They didn’t seem to discuss the dilemma, but they obviously knew each other well enough to proceed without words.
As a gentleman would, the male took action first to show off his skills and impress the lady. He was floating, but had to lift his feet up out of the water, one at a time, and push down on the ice to blaze a trail to open water.
They took a sharp right turn to calm waters, and as you would suspect, by the time the male reached freedom, he was hungry, and had forgotten that his date might need help. She struggled along behind him, too proud to use the trail he had blazed, and made her own way, stopping to rest for a few seconds at a time.
Meanwhile, he played aloof (or he forgot about her) and began diving for whatever ducks find interesting below the surface of a stale, shallow, mostly frozen river.
It wasn’t really diving though, because only his head and chest were submerged. The pointy feathers on his rear end were jutting heavenward and those weird, webbed feet dangled and kicked at the air just above the surface of the water.
Girlfriend eventually made it out of the ice, without even a hint of recognition from boyfriend, but she didn’t seem to mind. They must have been in the advanced stages of their early-spring romance.
She swam up to him and they floated there together for a second, exchanging some meaningful look but no words. Then, they dove in tandem, like feathered, synchronized swimmers. As if on cue, they both submerged their upper halves.
All I could see were two feathered butts, and their dangling, orange, webbed feet.
I watched their loosely-choreographed maneuvers a moment longer and laughed out loud, then turned and hit the start button on my watch and went on my way, thoroughly amused and comforted by the lack of elegance found among courting ducks, and the sense of order in the world they displayed for my benefit.
There is order in this world. Things work even without my help and it’s nice to have a reminder of that once in a while.
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