A favorite story comes from a Danish philosopher named
Kierkegaard. He describes a flock of ducks flying over the countryside,
swooping and gliding.
One of the ducks suffers a kind of seizure and decides to
leave the formation and land in a a farmyard below. There he joins a flock of chickens,
participates in the chickens' routines of feeding and sleeping and strutting
about the farmyard. After a few days in
that barnyard he decides he has the strength to fly again, so he tries out his
wings. But he has lost his flying skills, and cannot fly. Then he sinks back
into the chicken yard to resume his comfortable grounded life with the
chickens.
That story reminds one of how easy it is to fall into an
ordinary routine that loses touch with higher, more demanding ways of
life. The apostle Paul pleaded:
"Do not be conformed to this world, but be
transformed by the renewal of your mind."
That is a good reminder that we live in a world where profits and power
are at a premium, where success trumps truth, where revenge and control are
valued . . . where Christian virtues of compassion and forgiveness
and humility and faith are frequently ignored. We choose many times a day
between the conformity and a transformed way of life.
John Oxenham wrote "To Everyman there openeth a high
way and a low and every man decideth which way his soul shall go". And we know that daily living requires choices. I recall with anguish a choice I made back in
fourth grade. In taking a written test, I looked across the aisle to another
pupil's sheet to get an answer. The
teacher clapped her hands and said in a loud voice, "Larry, you are
cheating." And I answered,
"But other people are doing that too." She called back, "Never excuse yourself
for doing what others are doing".
So I got caught in that chicken yard, a groundling who
could have been flying.
