We're Not Ducks at All

By Jim Hunter

Mother is preparing the narrator and Acco to walk the path to the end of the world. 

“The last thing on Mother’s morning agenda had to do with the ink and needle. Mother told us that she wanted to give us a tattoo of her choosing to remind us of our purpose. I told her that I would have to pass on that one, but Acco got his and since I couldn’t read their language I had to ask him what it said.

“To find and be truly you.” he said.” (The Samaritan’s Friend, page 85)

Our days on Iona were coming to a close. I had climbed Dun I. I had walked a good bit and had viewed the North Atlantic from every side of the isle. I had broken bread with pilgrims. We had shared our stories, discussed theology, history, Celtic legends, literature, and some other stuff that probably doesn’t matter. I had worshiped at The Abbey, joining with a community whose stated purpose is that “we are brought to Iona not to be changed into ‘religious’ people, but rather to be made more fully human.”

Now, in the bedroom by myself, I sat pondering, cross legged on the bottom bunk, where over the last few nights my snores had joined the chorus of my brothers’. I was trying to discern the bubbling in my heart. Something had happened in this thin place. 

Something had clicked. What was it? An “aha” was trying to hatch. And, then it came.

It came by way of Hans Christian Anderson’s fairy tale, The Ugly Duckling. Somehow, in that solitary moment, the Spirit whispered in my soul, “You’re not a duck at all,” and this square peg resolved to stop trying on round holes. 

“You’re not a duck at all.” The thought warmed my heart. I actually found it a little funny. On some level, I already knew this. More than a few times I had heard me described as “a little weird” and “a bit of a rebel.”

Among other things; I drink beer, much to the chagrin of my conservative friends in upstate South Carolina. And occasionally, I drink cheap beer, much to the chagrin of my brewery hopping friends in Asheville, aka “Beer City,” North Carolina. Perhaps even more appalling, I’ve been known to plop a little ketchup on my steak. 

I’m just playing. It went deeper than that.

You’ll remember that the little swan in the story had been told all it’s life it was ugly. Too tall. Too loud. Not the right color. Ugly. I’m not sure why everyone felt like they had to weigh in, but that was what he heard, everywhere he went.

Unfortunately, there were some folks in the church that have taken on the ministry of  declaring ugliness. They tell us we are wretches, sinners at our core, and God had to do something as dramatic as sending someone to be brutally killed in order to have a relationship with us. They say we are all supposed to be ducks. No swans, geese, or crows are allowed. They say even the ones trying to be ducks are getting it wrong. Ugly. Ugly. Ugly.

Thing is, we’re not ducks at all. We, every single, individual, one of us, are God’s beloved. We are divine at our core, sacred, and as Richard Rohr and others have said, the cross isn’t about changing God’s mind about us, it’s about changing our mind about God. The big aha (gospel, good news) is that we are faithfully loved and cherished. The Creator who said “it is good” looks at us, Christ bearing, made in God’s image humans, and says, “My beloved, in whom I am well pleased.” 

Our call is to be us, truly us.

Of course there are wounds and deep scars. Some have been inflicted upon us, and some are self-inflicted. Heaviest of all, some we have inflicted on others. But, don’t let my acknowledging this truth distract us from the stronger truth of who we truly are. 

We, as our truest selves, are claimed. We are God’s own, and loved.

We’re not ducks at all.