Walking in another's Flipflops

Some of the strangest people I have ever seen can be found on Venice Beach in California. If you have ever been there, you know exactly what I mean, unless you are one of the people I am talking about, in which case you probably think you are normal.

I don't mean strange in a bad way. I mean strange like playing an electric guitar while wearing a battery backpack and roller skating. Or sitting by the ocean with a cardboard sign advertising yourself as a one man band with instruments attached to every joint, digit, and orifice making a cacophony of impossible music.
These people always make me laugh, but they are definitely out there on the weird register and scare me a little too. I remember once I saw a "Dog Whisperer" show of one of these Venice Beach small business freak show owners. The whole family, including the baby, was covered with piercings and tattoos, long hair, and peace signs. They were the typical Venice Beach hippies that terrify and amuse me. As the show progressed, and the people were revealed as a family with a problem dog, who all loved each other, and the dog... they began to seem less weird. They had the same joys, the same frustrations, and remarkably similar life goals as me, though they had chosen a very different vehicle to arrive in.

Similarly, I was feeling horribly frustrated over some of the uncontrollable stresses in my life, and quite put out because some others were not responding the way I wanted them to. Then through a series of conversations, one by one, those people revealed lives to me that were far more difficult and complicated than even mine, and filled with their own stresses. My complaints were revealed for what they were.... shallow, self-pitying, narrow focused without understanding what was happening to make the others behave as they did. I really am a humbled blockhead this morning. Praise God that His mercies are "new every morning", because I sure need a fresh supply each day.

Lamentations 3:22-24

²² Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.

²³ They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.

²⁴ I say to myself, "The LORD is my portion;
therefore I will wait for him."

Calling Ducks

Asherel and I took the dogs to the Greenway and we brought the lovely wooden duck caller she got at a Wildlife festival last year. It was rather expensive, but she paid for it herself. She could not live without it. You know how all the 12 year olds are raving over duck callers. It is of beautiful ash wood and if you are skillful, not only can you call ducks, but you can call geese, swans, crows, and an occasional orangutan.

We rarely remember to bring it with us when we are going someplace that might have ducks, but we remembered this time. The Greenway was crowded, as it was a lovely day, suggestive of a break in the Global warming freeze we all have been experiencing lately. No sooner had we started down the trail when we saw ducks.
"Call them!" I cry.
"I don't want to disturb them," says Asherel, glancing at the hordes of people.
So we travel on and come to a place in the trail where we have often seen ducks in the past.
We sit on the bench and I tell her, "Now call some ducks."
"But there aren't any here," she responds.
"That is why you are calling them. You are bringing them here."
"No, if they aren't here, I don't want to bother him."
So her duck caller is more a duck invitation, a duck suggestion.
I grab the duck caller and blow away. I don't sound anything like a duck, but I do attract some people. Asherel snatches the duck caller and we proceed on with our walk. Finally we come to two sleeping ducks. They are on a log with their heads tucked under their wings, both balanced on one foot. They are only a few feet away.
"Ducks! Call them!" I exult joyfully.
"I don't want to wake them up," responds Asherel.
"Ducks can go back to sleep... call them. Why did we buy this expensive duck caller if you are never going to call ducks with it?"
So she glances left and right. No people in sight.
She raises the caller to her lips and makes very very quiet duck noises.
The sleeping ducks sleep on.
"Not loud enough!" I insist.
"Ducks are not very loud," she counters, but tries again, this time a touch louder.
No ducks stir from their slumber.
I snatch the caller and blast out Duck in e minor. Still the ducks are unmoving.
"Maybe they are decoys," I say.
"Maybe we aren't speaking duck," says Asherel, "Besides, remember all the duck callers at the contest told us these things don't really call ducks. It's just for show."

Maybe not. Speaking another language is a tough skill...particularly if the species is not your own, like teenagers or young adults. You have to crawl inside their skin and see the world through their eyes. You have to have the same wild chemical imbalance, the same insecurities as they face the world with alarming independence, the same onslaught of peer influences that counter all they have been taught. At least you have to empathize with it.

In the same way, you can't easily communicate eternal, timeless, omnipresent immortality to a being locked in decaying, mortal, time bound finiteness. Sometimes you have to become a man, just like the creatures you want to speak to. To call a duck, you maybe have to be a duck.

John 1:14
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.