Stay Out Of The Poo

Keeping your feet out of the Poo

The call of the barnyard by the19th Century Danish Theologian and philosopher, Soren Kirkengard

A flock of wild ducks were flying in formation, heading south for the winter. They formed a beautiful V in the sky, and were admired by every one who saw them from below. One day, Wally, one of the wild ducks in the formation, spotted something on the ground that caught his eye. It was a barnyard with a flock of tame ducks who lived on the farm. They were waddling around on the ground, quacking merrily, and eating corn that was thrown on the ground for them every day. Wally liked what he saw.

"It sure would be nice to have some of that corn," he thought to himself. "And all this flying is very tiresome. I’d like to just waddle around for awhile." So after thinking it over a while, Wally left the formation

of wild ducks, made a sharp dive to the left, and headed for the barnyard. He landed among the tame ducks, and began to waddle around and quack merrily. He also started eating corn.

The formation of wild ducks continued their journey south, but Wally didn’t care. I’ll rejoin them when they

come back north in a few months, he said to himself. Several months went by and sure enough, Wally looked up and spotted the flock of wild ducks in formation, heading north. They looked beautiful up there.

And Wally was tired of the barnyard. It was muddy everywhere he waddled, nothing but duck poo. "It’s time to leave," said Wally. So Wally flapped his wings furiously and tried to get airborne. But he had gained some weight from all his corn eating, and he hadn’t exercised his wings much either. He finally got off the ground, but he was flying to low and slammed into the side of the barn. He fell to the ground with a thud and said to himself, "Oh well, I’ll just wait until they fly south in a few months. Then I’ll rejoin them and become a wild duck again."

But when the flock flew overhead once more, Wally again tried to lift himself out of the barnyard. He simply didn’t have the strength. Every winter and every spring, he saw his wild duck friends flying overhead, and they would call out to him. But his attempts to leave were all in vain. Eventually Wally no longer paid any attention to the wild ducks flying overhead. He hardly even noticed them. He had, after all, become a barnyard duck.

What lessons can we learn from this story?

 What looks attractive isn’t always what it appears to be – beyond the quacking, waddling and the corn was the mud and the poo, and eventually a boring lifestyle

 Much as we would like to get out of our circumstances, we just don’t have the willpower to get out

 We become complacent and begin to accept our circumstances - we get used to the mud and the poo

 Interesting doing the telephone book drop last week in a depressed area of town – amazing what filth people will live with

Do you sometimes feel like you are missing out on all the fun because you are a Christian family?

 Parents wouldn’t let me go to town on a Friday night

 Get to town the next night and hear about all the fun you missed out on

 I resented my parents religion

I may have been missing out on all the fun, but what else was I missing out on?

 Underage drinking, fooling around with the wrong crowd getting into petty crime, street fights, drunken behaviour, loose sexual behaviour

 What I came to realise later on was beneath all that fun, was a lot of mud and poo

 I had friends who lost their lives racing cars, girls became pregnant, some arrested by the police

Can you think of a Biblical example where someone chose to leave the wild duck formation and join the barnyard ducks?

Genesis 13:10-13 Lot took a long look at the fertile plains of the Jordan Valley in the direction of Zoar. The whole area was well watered everywhere, like the garden of the LORD or the beautiful land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD had destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 Lot chose that land for himself—the Jordan Valley to the east of them. He went there with his flocks and servants and parted company with his uncle Abram. 12 So while Abram stayed in the land of Canaan, Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom, among the cities of the plain. 13 The people of this area were unusually wicked and sinned greatly against the LORD.